WATCH: Bo Calvert, Stephan Blaylock on the toughness, leadership required to lead UCLA to win
UCLA football linebacker Bo Calvert and safety Stephan Blaylock talk to the press following their team’s upset victory over No. 16 LSU on Saturday.
How are you doing after the win?
Stephan Blaylock: Feeling real good. Just excited for tonight. But come tomorrow, on to the next game.
Pressure on Johnson?
Bo Calvert: We always get after quarterbacks, we’re a pressure defense. I think we just really executed our game plan tonight. We were talking outside before, it’s been a long time coming for this team. We’ve been working hard for a couple of years now. It’s kinda emotional – these guys have been fighting for this every day. And there’s been some tough times, and we just pushed through them. I’m really proud of our guys. It’s really coming to show how much work we put in and how veteran this group is. We’re just getting started.
Feed off of lessons of Week Zero?
SB: Coming off of last week, it gave us a lot of confidence just coming off a big win like that. Heading into a game like this, we knew turnovers were gonna be key, playing against a ranked opponent and a team everyone thought we should’ve got blown out to. Turnovers and getting pressure, all of that was big in the game plan.
How much pride holding LSU to limited amount of points?
BC: I think we just executed the game plan really well. We had a lot of film study throughout the week. Guys were very locked in. And then again, I could say it over and over again, but this is a veteran group. So they understand how to prepare for a game, they’ve done it time and time again. Just goes to show that what we did out there today was just a lot of preparation through a lot of years, even going in before this week. And we were just able to execute that this week.
Tough to have buy in factor that this was even possible?
SB: No. Even in past years when we started off 0-1 and we had somebody like Oklahoma the second game, we always played in ourselves. Obviously, we didn’t finish through on those games. This year, it’s just different, we worked harder. Coming off of last year, we knew we just had to finish – 15 points last year. We just weren’t finishing games, so the biggest thing we were focused on this year was just finishing games, playing hard and playing fast.
What did crowd do for you guys?
BC: That was awesome. That was the most packed I’ve ever seen the Rose Bowl all I’ve been here. And I loved it. Great energy from the get go. The defense was on point, really thriving off of the home crowd. There were a lot of LSU fans here too, and I think that was really fun to be a part of too, having a team as big as they did. It was just fun to keep them quiet today.
What would you say to fans to encourage to Fresno State game in two weeks?
SB: Come out. You can expect the same thing – us playing hard, us finishing, us fighting all four quarters and just feeding off of you guys. You guys did a lot tonight, appreciate you guys for that. So come out in two weeks, we’ll love to see you out there.
Grab any confetti?
BC: I did do a snow angel with Q Lake, so that was fun. I didn’t realize they would have confetti after the game, so that was surprising.
Local guys? What’s it like contributing to rise of local program?
SB: It’s big. We know that being in LA, people don’t like coming out to the games. So winning big games, starting out fast is just going to bring more fans to the games. So its just big to see a lot of people out here and would love to get more more people out here to the games, so yeah means a lot.
BC: Like Blay said, LA is a tough crowd if you’re not playing well. Luckily, we’re playing good now and we have a lot of fans on our side now. Its fun to pack the Rose Bowl out. The Rose Bowl was meant to be played in front of the amount of fans that we had tonight, and it’s just awesome to have that and I’m so thankful to everyone for coming out.
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