WATCH: Chip Kelly on Arizona Film Review, New Play Calling Protection Method
UCLA football coach Chip Kelly spoke to the media about his takeaways from the Arizona game after looking at the film, as well as what he’s seen out of Paul Grattan, Sean Rhyan, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, DJ Warnell and the running backs.
CHIP KELLY
Consider putting Garbers in at the end?
Consider putting Ethan Garbers in at the end of the game. At the end? No, we didn’t have any conversations.
Why not?
Why not?
Up big, their QB was out, Dorian maybe not 100% healthy...
We didn’t even have any conversations and I don’t think we were up big – it was only a two-score game and we were trying to make it a three-score game.
Development plan for Garbers?
We work every day in practice and if the opportunity presents itself in a game then we’ll get him in a game.
Got other skill guys in like Keegan Jones?
Keegan did a nice job. Keegan’s done a nice job in training sessions, it’s just a matter of how the game expresses itself and we wanted to get him some reps and he did a really nice job.
Consider sitting Dorian at halftime?
Nope.
Never came up?
Nope.
Silver screens to prevent signal stealing?
Yep.
What brought up the concern?
We’re just always trying to protect what we do on the offensive side of the ball.
First time using them?
Yeah.
Anything particular to Arizona that brought this up or is it the plan moving forward too?
Depends on who we’re playing and what we feel going into the game.
Your idea?
It’s our staff’s idea—all of our ideas are our staff’s ideas; nobody just says, ‘Hey, we’re going to do this.’ We talk about everything we do.
What goes into that decision making?
It depends on who we’re playing and what we’re doing and the intelligence we have in terms of how they operate, so.
They could see it from their sideline though?
Figure it out.
Colson Yankoff?
Colson Yankoff’s unavailable right now.
Sean Rhyan grade high?
Yeah, our highest graded lineman was Paul Grattan. Paul was the offensive player of the week this week, I thought Paul did a really nice job. Sean’s been consistent all season long. That group's been consistent for us as a group, but Paul graded out the highest for us.
Brittain Brown running angry?
Yeah, I think he has the ability to break tackles if there are one-on-ones in space—sometimes it’s not just one-on-ones in space, sometimes it’s a defensive lineman is engaged with an O-lineman but as he runs through, he kind of gets an arm out and you feel like in those situations that’s not going to take a guy like Brittain down—or a guy like Zach down. They’re tough, big, hardnosed, physical runners. They give you an advantage that way. Sometimes you think it’s blocked up pretty well but if you don’t have as big a back, sometimes a smaller guy gets knocked down. Those guys don’t, I think they hit the hole when they see it, he’s got conviction when he runs, when he makes a decision. We talk about it not speed to the hole but speed through the hole and he’s definitely a speed through the hole type of guy. Once he makes his decision and makes his proper read of where he’s going to go—is he going to stick his foot in the ground and get north and south or is he going to bounce it [outside], whatever decision he makes he does it 100% and he always seems like he’s falling forward—there’s not a lot of tackle for losses when Brittain has the ball and that’s always a positive for an offensive team.
Similarities between Zach and Brittain brought up a lot, any differences you see?
I think there are similarities and there are differences. I don't know specifically that – I don't think of it that way. What I think about is that as a play-caller, you don't have to call one set of things for one guy and a different set for another guy. Sometimes that's a difference when you have two distinctly different backs, it's that when he's in we need to feature this and when he's in, we need to feature that. With both Brittain and Zach, our offensive mentality, our offensive identity doesn't change. They're both good pass-receivers coming out of the backfield, they both caught the ball very well, they're both very good in pass protection along to go with their running skills.
DJ Warnell getting time?
Yeah, DJ's played all season long so if you just saw him in game one, he's been playing since the beginning of the year. Him and Blay play boundary safety for us and he's done a really nice job there. He's been a really key player on special teams, been a four-core special teams player for us and did a nice job when he's been in there, not only in the Arizona game, but in every other game that he's played safety in.
Dorian's performance after film review?
I thought Dorian did a really nice job managing what we had to do offensively. They were a very complex coverage operation in terms of doubling, cutting receivers, some of those other things, so being able to sort that out, along with the blitz package that they had, I thought Dorian did a really nice job.
What if you face similar looks later on this year?
Run the ball for 350 yards.
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