Spaulding Report: UCLA Football Arizona 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.
Let’s take a quick peek at 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, Chip Kelly began by addressing the Colorado jewelry theft, calling it “awful.” He also spoke about the job that Ethan Garbers has done. Kelly said:
I think he's done a great job. I think he was 20 to 28 against Stanford. He was 20 to 27 last week against Colorado. He's been really efficient with the ball.
He also spoke about the success that Arizona has been having this season. He said:
They're really balanced on the offensive side of the ball. You can't gang up on one side cuz they can run it and pass both effectively, but they're they've done an outstanding job. They played Washington to a one-score game. They lost in triple overtime to Southern Cal. They had a big win at Washington State. They beat Oregon State. So, we're very well aware of what Arizona is doing right now.
On Wednesday, among other things, Chip spoke about the Arizona quarterbacks. He said:
They're the same quarterback, in terms of…I don't think the offense changes. So, when you look at the games, the play calls don't change. It's not like one guy's a runaround guy and the other guy is not a runaround guy. They both can beat you with their arms and they both can beat you with their legs.
Except the stats don’t prove that out. As I pointed out earlier this week, Noah Fifita has gained just two net yards rushing on 25 carries while de Laura has gained 131 yards on 20 carries. So, there is a difference between the two.
Moving over to the players, T.J. Harden, Ryan Cragun & Kenny Churchwell III all met with the media on Monday. Harden spoke about the running back rotation and that the coaches tell them before each series who’s rotating in. He also spoke a bit about ball security after Carson Steele’s fumbles last week. Both Harden and Cragun spoke about the offense getting off to a better start. Meanwhile, Churchwell spoke about a lot of different topics ranging from Martell Irby’s success with Arizona to the Wildcat quarterbacks to their receivers to seeing Shea Pitts around the team even though he graduated.
Last but not least for this week, Kyle Ford spoke on Tuesday. He started talking about the impact Ethan Garbers has made. Like the offensive players on Monday, Ford spoke about what the offense needs to do to avoid another slow start. He said:
We’ve got to come out firing. I think, sometimes, we've come out a little bit slow and, obviously, we take a minute to heat up, but we can't do that against good teams especially teams like Arizona.
Well said, Kyle.
That wraps up this week’s media interviews. UCLA plays Arizona for the final time tonight in Tucson at 7:30 pm PT.
Go Bruins!!!
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