WATCH: Chip Kelly Talks UCLA's Breakout Stars, Shifting Focus to Cal
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UCLA football coach Chip Kelly spoke with reporters ahead of Tuesday morning's practice session at the Wasserman Football Center. Kelly talked about the Bruins' Thanksgiving plans, how his team has looked in practice coming off a second-consecutive loss, tight end Michael Ezeike's big week, running back Zach Charbonnet's big season, the status of UCLA's upcoming move to the Big Ten and what he's seen from Cal running back Jadyn Ott on film.
It's Thanksgiving week – what are you thankful for?
These guys. These guys are awesome. So we get to spend most of our waking hours with them it’s just as good a group as I’ve ever been around to be with every day, they do every day really, really well. They’re consistent in their approach, their attitudes, their mindsets. I couldn’t even tell you the last time we had a kid in our office because there was an issue—there are no issues. These kids, they go to class, they’re great in the community, they’re great on the practice field, they’re a lot of fun to be around, so I’m thankful that we get an opportunity to be around these guys every day.
Team dinner on Wednesday?
No, we’re traveling on Thanksgiving, so we’re going to have a Thanksgiving meal up in Berkeley at the team hotel.
Change your walkthrough routine if you usually do one at the opposing stadium?
We’ve never had a walk-through at a stadium, so we never go to the opposing stadiums. Our schedule stays the same, the only difference is, Sunday was Monday, Monday was Tuesday, Tuesday is Wednesday, Wednesday is Thursday, so we did the same exact schedule for Washington week, so the only difference is Sunday night, which is usually a day off, is our Monday. So today is Wednesday, even though it’s Tuesday in their minds.
How have the guys responded to the loss in practice with their energy?
They were awesome. Sunday night, we were flying around and Sunday’s difficult when you play a Friday game because you just played the day before, so we really tell them to go with their speed and the speed they went at Sunday night was full speed, so it was really cool to be around and those guys, the one thing about this group is they love playing football, so I think this is kind of their sanctuary when you get back out on this field and there may be something too when you have a tough loss like we did on Saturday, to get right back at it. We don’t train the day after the game because you’ve got to give them one day off a week, so that whole feeling from the day before and the night before lingers, but we hit our first meeting at 4 o’clock Sunday afternoon because we’ve got to go, we’ve got to go, so I think it maybe was a blessing, you could say it was a blessing that we’d get back out on the field and they were great when they were back on the field, they were great yesterday and I anticipate the same exact thing today, so.
Are these practices shorter based on wear and tear and condensed week?
Yeah, as we get into the last three weeks of the season, we just take 30 seconds off of this period, 30 seconds off of that period—it’s the same exact number of reps when we get to our team periods, the individual periods shrink by about 30 seconds, so we just kind of shrink it a little bit, so maybe five minutes shorter.
Michael Ezeike's breakthrough and journey?
Yeah, Zeke’s one of the special guys who has been through this program, I’m so happy about what he did the other night and that’s Zeke. To come here, he’s in his last class to graduate, he’ll graduate in December here, he’s just finishing up, went from receiver to tight end and embraced that as he continued to grow and get better and all the things that it entails—it’s a different position. Greg Dulcich did the same thing a couple of years ago, but that transition and to see the success that he’s having, it’s really a byproduct of his work ethic. He’s got an amazing work ethic and for him to perform that way, it’s what it’s all about—you watch him develop from what he was like when he first got here in 2018 to what he’s doing now, it’s pretty cool, so really, really happy for Zeke and everything that we get to see and what we got to see last Saturday was a byproduct of his work ethic, so it’s pretty cool.
Was his transition based on the way his body developed?
Yeah, he just continued to grow and there aren’t a lot of 6-4, 250-pound wide receivers. He’s 6-4 and that’s just kind of his natural weight as he continued to grow and get bigger. There were a lot of people who, coming out of high school, were recruiting Zeke as an outside linebacker and I think one of the reasons he came here was he wanted to be an offensive player and we saw him in that. We thought we had a big wideout and we knew if he continued to grow he could be a good tight end because there’s a toughness there to Zeke that sometimes wideouts, you worry about the physicality when they move in and Greg and Zeke have really adjusted to that. Hudson Habermehl started as a wideout and moved in and has adapted to that, but it’s a credit to [Zeke]. When he was coming out of high school, a lot of people wanted to recruit him as a defensive player and that speaks to his toughness in terms of what he’s like in terms of playing physical football, but there are a lot of differences—he’s never had his hand in the ground, never been in a three-point stance before, sort of learned all that stuff working with the O-line blocking-scheme wise because obviously we run the ball and our tight ends are critical in terms of our run game, so for him to embrace all of that has been really cool to see.
Charbonnet is a semifinalist for the Doak Walker Award – what does that mean to you?
It’s just well-deserved. You know, there’s another kid that every day, the cool thing about Zach is, I don’t know if I’ve ever been around a more consistent player—his attitude and mindset is the same exact thing; he never has a bad day. Every day, you can count on him; it’s like the sun coming up in Southern California, it’s every day with Zach. He’s the same person, same work ethic, same mindset, wants to practice. I don’t know if you guys are here for it, when we go to special teams he’s not on special teams—he doesn’t play on our four core special teams and we usually start special teams with individuals; he’s in the middle of the individual drills practicing being a right guard on the punt team—he’s not on the depth chart as a right guard on the punt team but yet that’s he does and I’ve been around other kids that when you go to special teams and they’re not involved, maybe they go over to the quarterbacks and they catch while the quarterbacks are warming up but they’re not involved. That’s not Zach, he’s always trying to work and get better. I think for him, he may have to play special teams when he goes to the next level and he wants to be prepared for it, so he’s got a mindset and a work ethic and any national honor that comes around for him is just really, really well-deserved, so I’m happy to hear that because he is one of the top running backs in the country.
What are you telling high school recruits about the move to the Big Ten with the UC Regents continuing to delay their decision?
I haven’t told them anything because I don’t have the answer to that, so we’ve got a vote coming up on the 14th, so we’ve been status of, we’re going and until someone tells us we’re not going, we’ll adjust it when that happens.
Is it a worry in any of their minds?
I have not gotten anything from any recruits that they’re worried about it, so.
Any change in status of coach McGovern?
Not right now, no.
How has Dorian looked, had his thumb/hand taped?
Dorian’s got a lot of things taped, but Dorian is the definition of warrior. You look up warrior in the dictionary, it’s Dorian. He was full-go on Sunday night, he was full-go yesterday, full-go today and he’ll be full-go on Friday against Cal. That’s Dorian, he’s a warrior and I’m not sure what can stop Dorian—I haven’t seen it yet, so he’s just a tough sucker, so I’m glad he’s on our side.
You can still get to 10 wins, talk about that as a team?
No, we talk about Cal because 10 doesn’t mean anything unless you get to nine, so we never get ahead of ourselves or talk about anything longer than that, so our attention is on Cal. They just had a big win in their Big Game against Stanford, they had lost a couple of games in a row, but you watch the games, they should have beat Notre Dame at Notre Dame—a phantom offsides call that I don’t think anybody has still seen it when you look at the tape that they were offsides on the field goal, so played really well two weeks ago, I think it was 41-35 against SC, you know, Justin’s teams are always gonna compete and it’s their last opportunity to play and we expect them to throw everything at us and we’ve had battles with them since I’ve been here, so we’re ready for Cal and you can’t get to 10 unless you get to nine, so we’ve got to get to nine first and that’s this Friday, so.
What do you see out of their running back?
Tough, hard-nosed. You know, you look at the performance he put on against Arizona and I think that’s the most yards rushing in the conference this year—he’s fast, he’s physical and if he gets to the second level and you don’t get him down, he may be through the third and gone. I don’t know the exact number but he had three or four runs over 50 yards in that game. He can finish runs because of his long speed, but he also can break tackles because he’s not a small kid. So there’s a lot of our attention has to be on him with everybody, all 11 guys on defense on Friday.
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