Spaulding Report: UCLA Football Week Ten Media Interviews
Spaulding Report: UCLA Football Week Ten Media Interviews
We've gathered all the coach and player interviews for you in one place ahead of tonight's Arizona game.
Let’s take a look at what’s been getting said at this week’s UCLA football media sessions. Like we have so far this season, I’m just going to share these here all in the same place to make it easy for you, our readers, to watch them if you haven’t already. All the videos in this article are courtesy of UCLA Athletics on YouTube.
This week’s player interviews include four guys who haven’t met with the media much. In addition to the usual DTR interview, Colson Yankoff, Kain Medrano, Jaylin Davies and Sam Marrazzo all spoke this week.
But, first, we’ll start with Chip Kelly’s interview from Monday. Kelly discussed a host of topics from Kazmeir Allen’s flexibility to tonight’s game time. He even coined a new phrase, “Pac-12 In the Dark,” referring to the fact that the game was another 6-day selection by the Pac-12 media partners and playing games at 7:30 at night. He also spoke about managing players’ practice loads in real time.
As usual, Kelly also spoke on Wednesday before practice. Kelly spoke about the development of defensive lineman Jacob Sykes as well as the play of Arizona QB Jayden de Laura. When speaking about the Arizona defense, Kelly spoke about what former Arizona DC Don Brown used to do and compared it to the Wildcats’ new scheme under former UCLA defensive line coach Johnny Nansen. Interestingly, Kelly didn’t mention Nansen by name. While it may be nothing, the omission did stand out.
Moving to the player interviews, DTR was back to his usual Monday interview. Thompson-Robinson spoke about losing Charbonnet for last week’s game and the effect Kazmeir Allen has had. The most interesting part of the interview came DTR explained that he watches film on tackling tendencies the night before a game so he knows which defenders tend to tackle low, giving him an idea of who he might be able to hurdle in a game.
He was joined by Colson Yankoff, who may have set the record for politeness during a practice interview saying “Thank you” numerous times in response to the questions from the media members present. Yankoff spoke a lot about his transition from quarterback to running back and getting used to taking bigger hits along with his need to get lower to the ground.
Tuesday was a defensive day with linebacker Kain Medrano and defensive back Jaylin Davies speaking after practice. The most interesting segment of both interviews came when Davies was asked if he was thinking ahead to next week’s game against Southern Cal because he’s a local guy who grew up in Rancho Cucamonga. Thankfully, Davies responded by saying he’s thinking about Arizona. Hopefully, that’s the case with the entire team on both sides of the ball.
Sam Marrazzo spoke on Wednesday and he was asked about his transition from offensive line to also playing tight end. He indicated that the coaches asked him about it and installed it during the team’s bye week. When asked about possibly having the ball thrown to him, he downplayed the idea, but said that, if it did happen, he would just want to catch the ball and not drop it.
That wraps up this week’s media interviews. UCLA hosts Arizona tonight at the Rose Bowl starting at 7:30 pm PT.
Go Bruins!!!
Thanks again for supporting The Mighty Bruin. Your paid subscriptions make this site possible. Questions, comments, story ideas, angry missives and more can be sent to to @TheMightyBruin on Twitter.