WATCH: Chip Kelly on Thanksgiving, UCLA Facing Cal in Regular Season Finale

UCLA football coach Chip Kelly talked to reporters before Wednesday’s practice about going against Cal quarterback Chase Garbers and an improved Golden Bears offense, what the Bruins’ plans are for Thanksgiving and how he plans to manage the roster moving forward with different transfer portal and eligibility rules.

CHIP KELLY

Ethan running scout team to stand in for Chase?

Ethan Garbers? No, that’s a good question though but Ethan’s gotta get all his reps he can with our first and second unit. But Chase Artopoeus is doing a really nice job for us simulating everybody, the entirety — we feel confident, as good as we can, obviously he’s not Chase Garbers, but at least they have the same first name.

Ethan give you intel on Chase?

No, no and I wouldn’t ask him that. That’s not, that’s not the way we do things: OK, what is your brother like, what does he run, all that stuff. We’re prepare for him the way we prepare for all the other quarterbacks that we’ve faced this year. He’s a talented player. They’re playing well on offense, they had a really good week. Stanford last week, they ran the ball really well and he’s part of that running game. He can affect the game with his feet. I think he’s the all-time leading rusher as a quarterback at Cal and he’s doing a really nice job running their offense.

Cal doing well offensively lately?

Obviously, they had the little blip there when they didn’t play and then the week before that, they played Arizona and only scored three points. They’ve only had one game back since they’ve been healthy and that was against Stanford. So they were really balanced in that game, I thought they mixed the pass and the run really well. They also mixed their formation really well. They come out in big personnel and run the ball and play action pass out of that and they could get multiple receivers out on the field at the same time and spread things out. But if you do that, you gotta be aware of Garbers as a runner so I think they’re doing a really nice job of mixing and matching, not letting you key into one thing. And they run a lot of trick plays. They kind of keep you on your toes that way, but I’m just happy for Justin. I had talked to him earlier when they had one game where they played with only 40 scholarship players or something like that against Arizona and then they had a game canceled. So the fact that he’s got his full complement of players back, that’s what it’s all about. You want to play people when they’re at full strength, you don’t want to play them when you’re down and it sounds like they have everybody back at practice now so we’re going to get their best and they’re going to get our best.

Cal's defense?

They’re sound. Justin’s a really good coach whether it was when he was at Wisconsin or Boise or Washington or wherever he’s been, he’s a defensive-minded head coach. It always starts with defense with Justin and Coach Azz actually worked with Justin at Cal a couple years ago too so we’ve got an understanding of what they’re doing. But they’ve changed in the last couple of years, everybody always evolves. They’re not the same as they were four or five years ago, they’re changing slightly what they’re doing, but he’s always been known as one of the top defensive coaches out there.

You're 0-3 after USC games, how do you prevent a lull?

Don’t worry about it. don’t talk about stuff. You can look at any metric you want and come up with a million different things: what’s your record after day games, what’s your record when — it just depends on who you’re playing and what you do. That’s part of it, but there’s not a lull and I could tell if there’s a lull from Monday’s practice and there was no lull on Monday and there was no lull on Tuesday. They’ve got the same energy and juice today. These kids love playing football so that’s not a concern of ours.

Still hyped up?

Yeah, they’re hyped up for every game this year.

Favorite Thanksgiving dishes?

Nah, whatever’s served. I’m not a cook so I don’t get to dictate the menu. So we’ll have a team Thanksgiving meal tonight for all of our guys and most of our kids from Southern California are going to get an opportunity to go home to their families but for the group that stays, we’ll have a smaller meal for those guys. But our big Thanksgiving meal will be tonight so we’re excited about that and spending some time as a team tonight after our night meetings.

Cal's run defense?

They’re just solid. They’re solid in their scheme and they’ve got some really good players. They’re tough, hard-nosed, physical guys at the point of attack. They’re obviously, as we spoke to earlier, well-coached. I think Pete Sirmon and Justin do a really nice job with those guys in terms of where they are and what’s going on with them. It’s sound, you’re not going to out-flank them or out-scheme them. They’re got answers for kind of what you do. And I think a lot of it is formation dictated so if you come out in this, they’ll come out in this. They’re not just sitting in one front and saying hey — there’s some certain things you can do formationally to beat them because I think they adapt to what they do so there’s flexibility within their system that allows them to kind of put their guys in the right spots and they have good personnel to execute what they want executed. Justin’s been there for a while so I think he can recruit to what his scheme is and he’s done a really nice job of doing that from a defensive standpoint.

UCLA 1-6 after USC games since it's moved to Week 12? You sure there's no hangover?

I mean, I wasn’t here for those other ones so it would be very presumptuous for me to talk about. And then I think everybody’s trying to find a cause and a correlation. Maybe we should just get a bye after the USC game and that’s not what it’s about. And if that’s what it was about, then you would already know the outcome of the game and we wouldn’t play the game. So again, you guys write narratives, we’re practicing football on a Wednesday. That part, we haven’t had any discussions about that nor do we talk about it because that goes back to the comment and I use it all the time — it’s true but useless. It doesn’t really affect us and I don’t know why I would ever bring it up to our guys. Seven years ago, someone played USC and lost the game the next week. So what are they on games after it rains? I don’t know, you can use any statistic you want, but I don’t know how that game plans or what we do. We just, we turn the tape on, we look at Cal, they’re a really good football team and we have to be ready to play them in all three phases. They’re good in all three phases.

Handling discussion with players before senior day about eligibility and who walks?

Anybody that wants to walk on senior day can walk on senior day. Anybody who walks on senior day, that’s their option to walk on senior day so that’s available to anybody.

So walking is not an indication of them leaving for sure?

No, we had kids who walked on senior day last year and they came back. I think Ethan Fernea’s walked on three senior days and he’s back. So it’s a different world with all the COVID, who gets what, are they going to allow waivers, there’s a lot of different things. Some kids may have had an injury early in their careers, so they can actually apply for a medical redshirt. There’s a lot of different things that go into eligibility and this year more than any, you’re juggling a lot of things. So there could be kids that walk this Saturday who play for us next year and they get to walk for two senior days. We’ve had kids walk for two senior days before. It’s a unique time for everybody so our job in the education process is to make sure everybody understands kind of where they are, is there a waiver that’s required, is there a waiver that’s not required? Because it’s not an automatic. The only guys who are automatic back in from a COVID standpoint, from our understanding, is those sixth-year seniors that could get the extra year and then everybody else, you have to apply for a waiver. But they’re saying it looks very encouraging so we get all that information to him. We also have some third-year kids who can leave and go to the draft. So there’s that whole other dynamic you have to deal with. So there will be a lot of roster balls in the air so to speak this year more than any other year and that’s the same for every college program throughout the country that you’ve got to manage because you still gotta get under 85 scholarships. So that’s another component to it that I think — where are you from that standpoint, getting back to 85. This is the only year you could be over. And we were over a couple because of the Ethans and the Paul Grattans and the Q Knights of the world so there’s a lot of different things. So there could be some kids that walk — the way we did it is anybody that wants to walk on Saturday as a senior is allowed to. If there’s eligibility remaining, we’ll figure it out what’s the best interest of you in terms of where you are and how you’re going to go on.

Sounds like a full-time job just to manage the roster?

Yeah, but it’s the same for every school so we all understand what we have to do. At some point in time, you can only be at 85 from a scholarship standpoint and you can be at, I think, at 110 from a roster standpoint and roster management this year is something that’s probably at the top of everybody’s list just because of what when on with COVID and COVID waivers and things like that and throw in the transfer portal, which I think is going to blow up on Sunday because every FBS school will be done playing on Sunday, the only schools left playing are going to be playing in the championship games. But there’s been numerous schools that have had seven, eight, nine players go in during the season, so I would imagine every school is going to have kids go in after the season because the one thing that the student-athletes understand now is that they’re instantly eligible. Before, you would have to graduate to become instantly eligible or you would have to move down to become instantly eligible. If you were going to transfer from FBS to FBS, you would have to sit. So now you don’t have to sit. So I think on Sunday, you’re going to see — it just happened in the FCS too. There’s a ton of FCS kids who have done in the portal because their season ended last week and playoffs start this week. So I think the same thing will happen. To add to the roster management is the whole management of the transfer portal that I think is going to be, you know, probably come to the forefront coming on Sunday because you’re going to see a lot of kids coming.

Cocahes have to wake up every morning to check that their players haven't entered the portal?

We check in every day to make sure they’re here for practice. But I don’t worry about it here. We haven’t had a kid go in the portal. I think it’s a testament to the kids and the environment we have here and I understand it. If a kid’s not playing and he has the opportunity and doesn’t have to sit and can go somewhere else and play — you have four years of eligibility left, do you want to do it as a scout squad player for four years or do you want to do it somewhere where you have a chance to get on the field. That’s an individual decision kids will make and for us, our whole mindset has been if that’s your decision, how can we help you? I think there’s a certain way to go about it. There are certain players who are here, but they’re here because of our relationship with the head coach. Brian Kelly called me personally about Jordan. Had a great conversation with him. David Shaw talked to me about Obi. I talked to David Cutcliffe about Brittan Brown. So I think sometimes people look at transfers as a bad thing, but our job is to help our players be successful and if someone feels like they can be successful somewhere else, then how can we help them do that? I think the days of transferring, he’s leaving your school so he’s disloyal to you, that’s not the case. Kids want to play. If there’s an opportunity for a kid that’s not playing for us that could play maybe somewhere else, maybe at a Mountain West school or another school, I have no problem calling up Brennan, saying Hey Bren, I got a kid that’s expressed interest in your school, do you have an opening, what can you do, how can I advise him. I think that’s what our role as coaches is because whether they spend a day here or whether they spend four years here, our job is to help them. And if they feel trying to go play for another school is beneficial for them, we’ll assist in anyway possible. So.

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