WATCH: Chip Kelly Reviews Oregon Loss, UCLA Learning From Mistakes

UCLA football coach Chip Kelly spoke to reporters ahead of Monday morning's practice session at Wasserman Football Center. Kelly talked about his film breakdown of the Bruins' loss to Oregon on Saturday, what went wrong on defense, the corrections he thinks need to be made, how long it had been since UCLA lost a game, Jake Bobo and Mo Osling's performances, the Ducks' surprise onside kick and when players have made suggestions of what to run while watching tape.

Film review, particularly on defense?

Defensively, there were breakdowns at all three levels at certain times. You know, it wasn’t just one thing that stood out that it was this position or this player. You know, it’s a combination of everybody playing together, so it’s about making corrections and moving forward and getting ready for Stanford, so we just had good meetings with our players and we watched the film like we normally do every week. You know, it doesn’t matter if you win or if you lose, there are still corrections that have to be made on a weekly basis and that’s what we did in our meetings and then we’ll come out get ready to play against a good Stanford team.

What are some of the corrections that need to be made?

It depends on the individual plays that were made and just communication issues on a couple of them, so we’ll get this taken care of.

Still being involved in the Pac-12 race, watching film of Oregon thinking tactically about what you could correct next time rather than just...

No, we think about that all the time, no matter whether it’s a Pac-12 race or not a Pac-12 race, there’s AAR after every game, so our after action report in terms of what we did well and what we need to continue to exploit and then and what we need to be corrected and that’s whether you win or you lose, so the formula for how we do things on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday is always the same regardless of the results that happen the week before because you can win games but there’s still a lot of mistakes that have to be corrected and you could lose games when you played really, really well but there’s one or two things that have to be corrected, so that’s really what the process is about every time when you go through it and that’s how it works for this team. You know, the one thing I told those guys as I walked off the tunnel going into he game is, it had been 357 days since we lost our last game, so I think we have to understand that—the last loss we had before that was on Oct. 30, 2021, and I think they righted the ship and did a great job finishing out the last season with three wins and then started off this season with six wins. There was only one other team in the country—Clemson—that had more wins than us over that span of time, so this is a really good football team, we didn’t play up to what we should have played on Saturday and then we’ll move on and we’ll see how the rest of the season turns itself out, but our whole mantra since the beginning of the season is ‘Pick your head up in December and we’ll see if our body of work is good enough for us to have an opportunity to continue to play after December,’ so.

How much did Oregon's talent and scheme contribute to the breakdowns ar all three levels?

I think Bo Nix played really well, it was the first time I had ever seen him, I think Bo had a really good game, I think the Franklin receiver is a good player, but they’re all correctable mistakes in our opinion, so.

Surpriseing given defense had been fairly solid before Saturday?

No, we don’t have any anticipation going into games of what results are supposed to be, we play the game and then you make the proper corrections within the game and then you make the proper corrections after the game in terms of how it happened, so we don’t have any preconceived notions of ‘This should be this’ or ‘This should be that’—I don’t think I’ve ever felt like that going into games.

Was there a block before 10 yards on the onside kick?

Nope. Nope. We talk about every single time we take the field, you have to clear your cleats and make sure the ball is kicked. We were a little too deep in our initial alignment and our guys have to make sure that they are aligned in the proper spot and then we’ve got to do a better job of making sure we rep it enough in practice so that they understand what’s coming but it’s something we have repped in practice before, so this wasn’t a surprise onside to us, that wasn’t a surprise. You know, a lot of teams do that when teams score and they’re trying to get into that opportunity and it was a great play by them—I thought the kicker made a great kick, it traveled the proper distance, and they beat us to the football, so.

When you are scheming against a quarterback you haven't seen like you said...

We hadn’t seen him in person but we watched film, it wasn’t like we weren’t prepared for their scheme and everything they ran in the game, they had run against everybody else during the season, so there were no surprises, I just said watching Bo Nix play in person for the first time, I was impressed with Bo as a player.

Jake Bobo had 100 yards – how have you seen his abilities grow since entering Pac-12 play?

I haven’t seen his abilities improve. This is the same guy that led the ACC in receptions last year, so Jake is what was advertised. Talking to coach Cutcliffe, who’s a great friend, and he’s been everything that coach Cut said he was going to be. We envisioned him coming in here being the No. 1 receiver for us and I think that’s the role he’s really kind of grown into—he’s got great hands, he’s got a great understanding of how to attack coverages, he’s got a great understanding of when to sit down on zones and when to exploit man to man, he’s a little bit quicker and faster twitch than I think people give him credit for just because he’s such a tall receiver, but what Jake is doing right now is what everyone kind of thought because I think if you watched him last year at Duke, I think everyone in the country kind of knew that Duke was throwing the ball to Jake and he still led the league in receptions [he was actually tied for fifth], so he’s been doing this for a couple of years now, so that’s a credit to how good of a player Jake is.

What makes him and Dorian so compatible?

I think Dorian’s smart and knows that if you have a 6-5 guy that’s open all the time, you should throw it to him, and they’ve got a good relationship that way so Dorian knows if he throws it, there’s a pretty good chance it’s going to be a completion when he throws it up to Jake, so.

Is 'Books and Ball' culture like an Ivy League thing in the Pac-12?

No. I would think the school we’re playing this week takes academics somewhat seriously, so I wouldn’t want to slight what David does at Stanford, so I don’t think that’s an Ivy League [approach] at any stretch. I actually don’t think it should be—and I don’t know if you’re saying that in a negative connotation—but it should be everybody’s mindset when you’re in college, isn’t it?

Well, a lot of people don't do it at the elite level with GPAs and grad school?

OK. I would think there’s some pretty good books and ball going on throughout the country—we’re not the only ones. That’s not a mutually exclusive thing just to UCLA, but I am proud of how our guys do it and what their approach is and what their attack is, so.

Instances you can say when guys are watching film and they suggest a concept or play to incorporate in a game?

Yeah, we talk about things like that all the time.

Specifics you remember?

I don’t remember anything specifically but there’s a lot of give and take with our players and the same thing goes on on the sideline. ‘Hey, I think I’m getting more inside leverage,’ I think we should go to this. All, right, that’s great if you feel like it. Because sometimes you can’t tell leverage when you’re on the field. All right, well, let’s call this with an out-break rather than with an in-break, so yeah, that’s part of it. Now, you’ve got to know who you’re talking to because there’s some guys that when they tell you what’s going on and then you add the people up, there’s 13 guys on defense, so they’re probably not giving you the right picture. Now, there’s other guys that you can implicitly trust—Jon Gaines says something, you implicitly trust Jon Gaines. Some other guys say some things and you’re just, ‘Tell me what you’ve got,’ ‘I’ve got a three technique, a five technique, a nine technique, a shaded nose and two linebackers up, then you draw the look up and go, ‘Was this the look?’ ‘No, that wasn’t the look, it was …” When Jon tells you something happens, then yeah, when Dorian tells you something happens, yeah, when Jake tells you something happens, yeah. You listen to those guys because they get a better feel—hey, this guy keeps biting, every time I try to break in on a route, he’s biting on it, then all right, we’ve got counters to what other people do, so you have to get feedback from your players. But there’s also receivers and if you listen to them they’re open on every play. ‘I was open.’ Yeah, well, you were open because the ball was thrown over there and everyone ran over there and at the end of the play you were wide open but great, when the quarterback was ready to throw the ball were you open? And then they can’t answer that one. And there’s guys and you know through practice and what goes on out there that when they say something, you can trust them and say, ‘All right, let’s try to do that’ but yeah, we talk about that stuff all the time—that’s what the in-between series goes on on the sideline and it may come from a coach, Jerry will say, ‘Hey, we think we’re getting a bunch of this’ and I’ll say, ‘All right, go and talk to Dorian, how does he feel? Is he seeing it the same way?’ All right, then let’s go back and let’s maybe move on to this one instead of maybe before that may have been farther down the list but we move it up the list.

Mo Osling had 17 tackles – what does that say about him and his development but also your defense?

Yeah, you shouldn’t have the free safety make 17 tackles but that also is a credit to Mo and the type of backstop that he is back there and I think he’s playing football at a really, really high level right now and we’re really pleased that he’s with us but I don’t think that’s a recipe for success as you move forward unless you’re blitzing your free safety every play and he has 17 tackles, then that’s a good thing but we weren’t blitzing Mo every single play, so we need to get a little bit more production and get those tackles evened out; then we’re doing a good job on the defensive side of the ball and when we have in our other six games, I think you could see that. He was up there with the leading tacklers but he wasn’t head and shoulders above them like he was on Saturday, so.

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