WATCH: Chip Kelly on ESPN College GameDay, How Common Opponents Help UCLA
UCLA football coach Chip Kelly talked to the media Wednesday about ESPN’s College GameDay and potential guest predictors, the standouts on Oregon’s defense and the benefits of having common opponents with the Ducks.
CHIP KELLY
Luskin before games?
Yes.
So are you guys going to get a peek over at Wilson Plaza?
I don’t know if you can see from out there.
Maybe take a stroll over there?
No, we have a morning routine that we do. We do a shakeout in morning, eat breakfast and we’ll go to the game.
What time do you guys usually leave?
9 o’clock.
Any thoughts on guest picker for GameDay?
They didn’t ask you?
No, I would have picked Jack Black
You would’ve picked Jack Black? [nods]. I would pick Bill Walton.
Could he fit into an eight-minute segment?
Nope. Not at all. I just thought he would be the most entertaining – that’s the fun part of that. I think Bill Walton and coach Corso would… I would pay to see that. I’d take Bill Walton, but no one asked me. No one asked me that’s in charge, (Bolch) did. No one that has any say asked me. I want Ben first, Bill Walton second.
Gonna talk to the team about hubbub around it?
I don’t think I used the word “hubbub.” But they asked me if I had talked to the team yesterday and I did not on Monday because we were still in game plan mode. So I talked to the team about it last night. It’s a great thing for our fans, great thing for students on campus. I’ve been through them before, it really doesn’t affect your team because you’re not in it and you’re not at it. And because we have a 12:30 kick, we’ll be out of here. We’ll be gone before its over. I think it’s awesome for the fans, I think it’s awesome for their families, I think it’s awesome for the students on this campus, I think it’s awesome to show what a great university this is, but for us, our sole focus and attention is on the game itself and playing a really good Oregon team.
How is Kyle Philips looking?
Good.
Still available?
Still available. Today is Wednesday.
Anthony Brown. Effective throwing intermediate passes and running. What have you seen?
He’s a lot like a lot of the kids we face in this league. He has the ability to beat you with both his arm and his leg. He’s a really good athlete. He’s a transfer from Boston College. Joe Moorhead does a really nice job with him, putting him in that scheme. You have to worry about not only throwing the football, but you have to worry about him pulling it down and tucking it. And sometimes they have designed runs. In a critical situation in the Fresno game, on a fourth-down call they called a speed option – they put the ball in his hands, and he made a huge play in that game for them. I know they have a lot of confidence in him. We’ve got to be aware of really making sure we’re sound in our rush lanes because he is a kid that can escape and cause some problems with his legs.
Lots of talk about Thibodeaux, but what about Sewell?
Yeah, Noah is a really good player. He’s very good at keying and diagnosing plays. He seems like he’s a very instinctual player. He’s a tough, hard-nosed tackler. You’re 100% right – he’s a really good football player.
Day game against Utah if you win this week?
Yeah, we were going to lose, and then we found out we’re going to play at 12:30 (if we won), so now we’re going to win. That’s TBU – it’s true but it’s useless. It’s nothing we’ll talk to our team about, like, ‘Hey, if we win this game, that gives you this.’ We don’t play football for what we get, we play football for what we become. We’re excited about the challenge of Oregon, and whether that means we play at 12 the next week or 10 o’clock the next week, that doesn’t factor into anything. It is true, but it is useless in terms of motivation.
Antonio Mafi on offensive line?
Yeah, Nio made the transition from the defensive line to the O line. He started it last year. There’s so many nuances and keys to that position, and one thing with Nio that’s awesome is that he gets better each week. He keeps growing from the experiences that he has. We really feel like he’s a starter, we just have some depth at the offensive line that we feel like we have more than five starters at the offensive line. Those guys rotate through, and he’s been a real help for us as an inside force and that’s part of the… we have a little bit of depth there. And we’ll use that depth. Because that’s a tough position and it takes a big toll on you. The fact that we can rotate him in with Jon and Paul is huge for us right now.
Helpful to see film against common opponents now?
I mean, that's helpful because you understand what that player is like, so that's not the transitive property. That's just, you get a better – you're comparing something that you've seen in person. I think sometimes the tape is, you can't actually tell some things on some kids, but you can come out of the Stanford game and say 'Hey, that kid 6 who's a big strong, physical wideout, can really run.' You watched him catch almost a hitch route against us and split our defense and run down the middle of the field, so how do their corners match up against him, so you can kind of get an idea of speed cause if you really understand the speed of the team that you've faced already and then you see that against them, that's a good question because that's helpful. That part of it is helpful, it's not who beat who and how they did, but how fast or strong. If you see a kid get thrown to the ground and you're like, 'Well, that kid just got thrown to the ground, maybe he doesn't have great pillar strength. Well, we played against that kid, that kid's really strong, he threw our guys to the ground.' So you can kind of get a better feel just cause you did it, so that's a good question.
Pleased with your offensive physicality?
Yeah, I mean, I think the best way to say it is we're pleased, but we're never satisfied. We always can be better, we can coach better, we can execute it better, that's what the growth is. I think teams that are doing it the right way continue to get better as the season goes along. As long as your depth can stay there, sometimes you drop off because of injury, but part of our identity is that we have to run the football to be successful and that's part of what we do. We've got two really good backs that kind of set the tone from that standpoint, we have a veteran offensive line and that's part of kind of our identity. And I think everybody – when you get to eight games in, everybody is what they are, what type of team each team is that you're playing. Then your job is to try to defeat their strength and exploit their weaknesses and it's the same thing for them that we have to prepare for.
Oregon trying harder to get to the ball quicker because Zach and Brittain are so good after contact?
Yeah, those are two tough, hard-nosed, physical runners. They've got a great understanding of angles, they've got a great understanding of blocking scheme, they play with great leverage and that's their personality. We've seen it all season, we've seen it for two years with Brit and then Zach has just been outstanding since we got him here so obviously we really feel like our running backs are our strengths for us
Seeing Joshua Kelley back at practice?
Boring, no smiles, kind of down in the dumps. No, he's just an amazing human being, as good of a football player he is, he's a better person. He's just got an infectious personality that everybody – he talked to the team briefly before we started after stretch and he was Josh, had that smile and everything. Jay Toia looked at me and he was like 'Who's that guy?' Cause Jay wasn't here! And I was like 'That's Josh Kelley.' And he's like 'Oh, he's happy!' and I said 'I know, he's always happy, that's just Josh.' So Josh is like a ray of sunshine every time you're around him, he's just a special young kid – young man – but we're happy for all the success he's had. But what he's doing isn't surprising to any of us because that's a kid that's bet on himself his entire life and he's invested everything he's had in his opportunities. I wish we had more Josh Kelleys in this world.
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