WATCH: Chip Kelly Shares Takeaways From UCLA's Loss to USC

UCLA football coach Chip Kelly spoke with reporters ahead of Sunday night's practice session at the Wasserman Football Center. Kelly talked about his final takeaways from the film of the Bruins' loss to USC, the statuses of a few key linemen who went down with injuries, the momentum shift at the end of the first half, how his team is taking the loss and what high-powered offenses have been able to do against UCLA's defense this season.

Any new takeaways from the film?

No again, I said it after the game last night, I think how hard our guys played, how hard both teams played. It was a classic football game, two teams going toe-to-toe. And as we always talked about the team that usually loses a turnover battle in this league isn't gonna win the game, we lost the turnover battle. We created one but we turned it over too many times and ultimately ended up losing in a close one. So credit to them, they did a nice job. Our guys are back, we watched the meeting, went to bed, put the install for Cal in. It's the good thing about playing on a short week. You know, we don't really have a lot of time to feel bad or sorry for ourselves and that's not the mode or the MO of this team. They were great, really attentive in meetings. And you know, we're excited to play on this Friday.

Dropping linebackers on those interceptions, something they hadn't shown much?

No, they – they'd shown certain looks and some guys getting into the window. One of them, I'll give them credit, their defensive end was running with a linebacker and fell off of him to cover a crossing route, so a good play by them, give them credit.

Did Dorian go through any concussion protocols? Very physical game

It was a very physical game, so I think our medical staff, it's one of the best in the world and I think they do an unbelievable job, but I don't get into the specifics of what they did, what they don't do. And I don't know how I would weigh in on what I think they should be doing, so they take care of them. They just tell us whether a player is in or out, we don't get into the specifics. If they say a player's out, I don't need an explanation 'Hey, what's your reasoning for that?' That's not how we've ever done it, so they handle everything, so I couldn't tell you exactly the specifics of what goes on every time Dorian comes over to the sideline.

Looked like he had something on his hand before that follow through when he hit the lineman?

Yeah, no, again, I think one of Dorian's greatest qualities and I say it all the time is his toughness. He as tough as a quarterback as I've ever been around. You know and that's type of kid he is. But he'll be out here tonight practicing, that's just that's just the type of player he is and he's going to play the game and give it everything he has and that's what he did last night.

Gary Smith and Jay Toia availability?

Um, we'll see what they can do in training today.

Nio?

Same thing, Nio, I think same thing, he'll run around a little bit and we'll see where he is.

Losing Gary and Jay impact the defense?

That can affect you a little bit. You know, we lost – you don't lose one guys at a position, you lose two guys at a position. Now, Jay came back into play a little bit later in the end of the game. Gary was out from I think the first half on, so it just impacts your depth. You know, and that's just that's the nature of college football. When you get to this point in time during the season, you're going to lose some players. They lost Travis Dye the week before, who's a tremendous player and it's sad he didn't get to finish out his career the way he wanted to, but that's just part of, you know college football going on across the country, it's not just specific to us. Sometimes it's a run where you lose it at the same position, we lost a couple guys at the same position, but then it's really next man up mentality, whoever's next up has gotta be ready to go. So I think the guys that went in after those guys battled and did a good job.

Any thought of kneeling to end the first half with 20 seconds or so left?

We were trying to see if we could get – I think every point was valuable in that game, need to try to see if you get into field goal range. And we're never worried that Dorian's gonna throw another pick and I mean that's very uncharacteristic from him, I think it's one two interceptions all season long. So that's never been our mindset. Not with him, not with him at quarterback, I don't think you have to protect him, so it was a good play by them and it unfortunately didn't come out the way we wanted it to, but I don't look at – you look at it and say we shouldn't have done that because we threw a pick, great, anybody can say that after the fact. But in terms of putting restrictions on him, never.

Been any consistent themes for this defense against high powered offenses?

No, I think every game is expressly different. I think last night we faced as good a quarterback as I've seen at the college level. I thought, he played outstanding. He's very accurate. He's extremely difficult to tackle. You know, our guys had him in the sights a ton. You know, he has a way of you that he's he's I think he's a lot stronger than maybe he looks you know, when you're near him, he's thick. He's got great lower body skills where he can make people a mess, but he's also strong enough to run through some arm tackles. So he did a great job with the unscripted plays and keeping plays that weren't exactly designed but because he could stay on the move. And then a couple of the balls he threw while he was on the move, I'm not sure there are many people that could make that throw you know, he threw one towards our bench across his body, which I don't know if a lot of people that could make that throw, and he made that throw, it was a big play for them. So there was a couple of those scramble players where he made some unbelievable plays. So I think at times you have to give him credit, he's a really, really, really good football player.

Emotional state of the team?

They're great. I mean, that's the one thing about this team, there's a maturity to them. They know exactly what needs to be done every Sunday or Monday, whatever our first day back is, whether it's a win or a loss. You gotta learn from it, there's always something you could gather from a win or a loss, in terms of what you can improve and how do we fix that. And then, but we gotta move on, you can't live in the past, that's just kinda not what this group is about and they were great. We only lost a couple games this season, those following training sessions that we've had after a loss have been outstanding, so I expect that from these guys. It's a mature group that does a really good job.

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