Spaulding Report: UCLA Football Utah Week Media Interviews

As you wait for today's game to kickoff, we've gathered all of this week's UCLA Football interviews for you in one place.

Bruin starting QB Nico Iamaleava met with the media on Wednesday for the first time since Big Ten Media Day last month. (Photo Credit: Nate Donlevy/uclabruins.com)

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Let’s get right to this week’s interviews and see what’s been getting said at this week’s UCLA football press conferences. I’m just going to share these here all in the same place to make it easy for our readers to watch them if you haven’t already. The videos in this article are courtesy of UCLA Athletics on YouTube unless noted otherwise.

On Monday, Coach Foster spoke a little about Utah’s new offensive coordinator Jason Beck and new QB Devon Dampier. He mentioned that they had watched film of New Mexico from last year to scout the Ute offensive scheme and their new quarterback. As far as how the team is ready to take on an actual opponent, Coach Foster said:

I just think that they're ready for another opponent. It's been it's been a long, long road just going against each other and tempers are getting up there. Guys are finally ready to really get to go against somebody else. So, this is a pretty. It's a good time that it's finally gotten here.

Coach Foster also met with the media on Wednesday. Foster began by talking about that day’s practice and how he feels about where the team is:

It's Wednesday. We had a great practice today. I’m looking forward to this game. Guys are just stacking, putting days together and I just like how they're going about it. Good teams can put days together back to back to back and we're getting to that point to where I'm seeing a good team put days together. So, I'm excited about what we have coming Saturday and I’m just looking forward to this game.

Here’s Wednesday’s full interview:

Moving to this week’s player interviews, Monday saw interviews with defensive lineman Gary Smith III and offensive lineman Garrett DiGiorgio. Smith spoke about getting back on the field after missing last season with an injury. DiGiorgio spoke about how the offensive line has something to prove this year. He said:

The biggest thing I talked about earlier at Vegas was “STP” and even when we're in the huddle and we're feeling tired, that's one of the biggest things we push is like we just we just tell each other “STP” like this is what we got to prove something this year. So, just keep building day by day and I think that's what we're doing.

Wednesday saw new starting quarterback Nico Iamaleava meet with the media for the first time since Big Ten Media Day. He spoke about his family and how excited he is to play in the Rose Bowl. He also talked about his progress in Fall Camp and how comfortable he is with the offense.

When he was asked about his favorite part about being a Bruin, he replied:

I think just the brotherhood. I've never really been this close to a team like how Coach Fos has got us. During fall camp, having us all in the hotel together, creating our bond and and growing our bond together.

I think the relationships I've just built here have been have been so amazing.

Finally today, as a bonus, I’m including the only preseason interview with new offensive coordinator Tino Sunseri. This interview is from the beginning of camp. In the interview, Sunseri talks about his wife and new son, Nico Iamaleava’s high standards as well as the progress he had made to that point. He explained his process of teaching the offense to Nico:

So, the biggest thing that we have to be able to do is make sure that we cohesively make sure that we're surrounding him with what he needs to be able to do to make sure that he's able to consistently learn. And it's not about us being able to install the offense. It's about being able to make sure that it's not too much too fast to where he can be able to grasp it because we're not playing next week. We're playing in three weeks. Still a ton of time for us to be able to utilize.

He also spoke about crafting the offense the Bruins will run this year. He explained:

The thing with us is that what I wanted to do in my career is I chased knowledge and wanted to be able to get around as many different coaches as I possibly could to be able to see what made them so special and being able to get to the chance that they were. And I wanted to be able to take what I felt like were the great things that every single coach did and kind of combine it into one offense. So, when you're talking about what offense that we're going to be able to bring, it's everything. We're going to be able to make sure that we're going to be able to stretch the field vertically and horizontally to be able to make sure the defense blade guards every single blade of grass, but specifically to our system. You got to be able to make sure that it's conducive to your players. So, our system adjusts to what our players can do. Our players don't have to adjust to our system.

Just listening to him speak about his coaching philosophy and how he teaches and works with players was impressive. Let’s hope this translates to success on the field.

Go Bruins!!!

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