WATCH: Bo Calvert on How UCLA's Defense Can Improve, Connections to Utah's Roster
UCLA football linebacker Bo Calvert was the lone player to speak to the media at the conclusion of Monday's practice.
Calvert talked about going up against his two younger brothers for the first time in his life and how that will impact his family's viewing of the Bruins' game against Utah, as well as the improvements UCLA has to make on the defensive side of the ball heading into the home stretch of the 2021 season.
BO CALVERT
Playing against your two brothers?
Yeah, first of all, thank you, Ben, that was an awesome article you put out a couple weeks ago and everything, the story you told, I think you did a really great job on that, so I want to give you a shoutout on that. Yeah, obviously, I haven't played my brothers – I haven't played against my brothers in football, I don't think ever, so this will be the first time that I'll be playing on the other side from them. So obviously a big game, personally, I'm excited to be able to go up there and see my brothers. I only get to see them one or two weeks out of the year during a regular year. Obviously, during COVID, I was able to hang out with them a lot more, but typically, I don't get to see them that much so it'll be fun to go up there, got a ton of family coming up. Like I said, I don't know if my dad's using my tickets or if he's using Josh and Ethan's tickets, so we'll see where he's sitting. But I do have some family that live in Vegas and Utah, so I think they're gonna drive up and get a bunch of family from California up there, should be a lot of people up there.
Oklahoma drill with brothers at home?
Yeah, growing up, we were crazy. It was three boys, we were all a year-and-a-half apart between each other so I think three, three-and-a-half years between the oldest and the youngest. So we were all right around the same age, played a bunch of sports growing up, our parents threw us in everything you can imagine from tennis to wrestling to baseball, basketball, football, lacrosse, swimming lessons, all that stuff. So we were just real active kids and we destroyed a lot of stuff around the house. I remember, for a long time, we didn't even – we had a broken sofa that we just kept cause my mom knew we were just gonna break another one, so that was just kinda our coach. There was always holes in the wall, I remember when the Wii Sports game came out, we were playing baseball one time, we were just swinging the controller, you know? We let go of the controller, not once but twice, and they both went through the wall. And then we played with a regular baseball, with a hard ball, indoors. I don't know what we were thinking. And then yeah, of course, during football season, once we were all were playing football, when we were bored after practice or before, we would just strap it up and have a full on Oklahoma tackling drill in the backyard, both just line up against each other and go after it. So I think it was fun, toughened us up and it was just a lot of fun. Like I said, we were just real active kids.
Brothers inspire you to keep playing football instead of retiring?
Yeah, I mean, they were – big time in my life, obviously, I'm the oldest brother and so I take that very seriously, tried and be a good example to them and also just be their friend. At this point, we're all pretty mature guys, older. Youngest one's a freshman in college, so we're all at that age now so the respect for each other is there, just try and talk man-to-man to them, just try to be a good brother, at the end of the day, I think that's the best thing you can do. And like I said, excited to see them, haven't seen them since summer when we left for workouts, so hopefully I'll be able to get a good picture with them after the game, and hopefully I'll be smiling a little bigger than they are if we pull out that win.
Pick yourself up after tough Oregon loss to take on Utah this week?
Yeah, a loss is a loss, either way. I think obviously it gets – the game that is was, the game of the week and whatnot, the outside noise kind of hypes up different games to be different things, but one loss isn't more disheartening than the other one, for the most part, I think, is the way I'd say it. And no win is bigger than the others. Obviously, there's bigger games in the eyes of the media and whatnot and standings for the Pac-12. At the end of the day, I think, for the most part, we played a really good team game. There was obviously mistakes made on all different fronts from offense to defense and different position groups, but there was also a lot of guys that stepped up and made some good plays and helped pick guys up. So I think the promising thing is we lost a game, at the end of the day, but we're still the team that we are and I think we've still got a really good chance to keep things going and win out here in the South and just take it week by week. Think we've got a good chance against Utah and obviously a good team up there, a tough environment going up into Salt Lake City, but we got a good team, we got good guys around us, so I think we'll be just fine. Just a couple tweaks here and there, I'm sure you guys have seen on film, the pass game, ball could've gone either way the entire game. So a couple things here and there, I think we'll be fine.
Going up against former teammate Theo Howard?
I know a couple of the guys up at Utah besides my brothers. Theo, obviously played with him at UCLA and Theo also went to Westlake High School, which is my rival in high school when I was at Oaks Christian, they were right across the street. And then TJ Pleasure, he plays running back, he went to Chaminade for a bit in high school before he went to IMG. And then Cameron Rising played at Newbury Park, so I played against all those guys. So it'll be fun having some familiar faces to go against and hopefully be able to tackle those guys a good amount. But obviously, they're all real good friends, but on Saturday night, it's gonna be mano a mano and we'll see who wins that battle. But yeah, Theo's been doing good, I'm happy for him, obviously he's had a long road in college going bouncing around from UCLA to Oklahoma, now at Utah. I think he's found his spot and he's having some production over there. Happy for him and, like I said, it'll be good to see those guys all after the game, but during the game, it's a battle.
Assessment of Cameron Rising?
I think he was a good player in high school, he was pretty dangerous on his team. He could move around pretty good in high school, I remember, when I played them, when he was at Newbury Park, I was at Oaks. I think we had, on my team, we had six All-Americans and four of them were on defense, and we ended up moving all of our star guys, whatever, to all on D-line. I was playing middle backer and they had me move up to, I think I was playing defensive end. We had another tight end, who didn't really play defense that much, but they moved him over to the other side defensive end. And then we had another 3-tech or something that was in there. But he's a good kid, I think he makes good decisions, I think he's poised, he's obviously been in college football for a good amount of time now, seen some different programs, some different offenses. So at the end of the day, every quarterback's the same when you get in his face, you get after him, show him some different looks on the secondary and just finish the game out. Eventually, every QB's gonna quit under a certain amount of pressure and a certain amount of confusion, so hopefully we can keep that going for him and it'd be good for us.
Follow Connon on Twitter at @SamConnon
Follow All Bruins on Twitter at @SI_AllBruins
Like All Bruins on Facebook at @SI.AllBruins
Subscribe to All Bruins on YouTube
Read more UCLA stories: UCLA Bruins on Sports Illustrated
Read more UCLA football stories: UCLA Football on Sports Illustrated
