WATCH: Dorian Thompson-Robinson, Bo Calvert on Moving on to Arizona
Quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson and linebacker Bo Calvert were the two players selected to talk to reporters after UCLA football's practice Monday morning.
Thompson-Robinson discussed his past with Arizona coach Jedd Fisch, who helped recruit him to Westwood when he was the Bruins' offensive coordinator, as well as his major takeaways from watching film of the Arizona State game on Sunday. Calvert talked about the defense's inability to create pressure in the pocket in recent games and how discipline and focus will play into the unit's improvement moving forward.
DORIAN THOMPSON-ROBINSON
Fisch help recruit you to UCLA?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Me and coach Fisch have a great relationship ever since he was at Michigan and then came over to UCLA. He’s a big part of why I chose UCLA, him and his offensive scheme and all that stuff. So him as an offensive coach is something I really admire.
Know his preferences well?
It’s a real NFL-style offense, has a lot of similarities to stuff that they run on Sundays, so I think that was the most intriguing thing for me as well as he’s a players’ coach and really knows how to get his quarterbacks to do whatever he wants them to do.
What did film show about inability to score in second half?
Yeah, coach Frye talked about it this morning, I think it was just guys trying to do too much and not just doing their job—myself included—and just trying to press and overcompensate for being down by so much. I think just getting outside the scheme, getting outside the plan to execute each play and it all just kind of culminated in bad things happening.
Offensive line gave up four sacks in fourth quarter?
When it’s a must-pass situation, they’re going to play the sticks, they’re going to be in a pass-heavy defense, so it took a while for guys to get open and unfortunately I didn’t have enough time but also couldn’t risk throwing the ball on fourth down and stuff like that, so it’s just those type of things, the end of game situation and knowing the situation and stuff, so.
Build chemistry with Duke?
Yeah, and again, it was Duke's first game starting at center so definitely a lot to take in with having to be the control of the O-line and make the calls and all that stuff, so I know a lot was going through his head. But again, just letting him know that he's got four great guys around him, he's got a good back and a good quarterback behind him so he doesn't have to do it all himself. And just getting reps with him after practice and before practice and stuff like that, just making sure he's comfortable and helping him any way I can.
Arizona a tough opponent because of their desperation?
No definitely, definitely. You never wanna underestimate a team, I think you can kinda see that in the Oregon film when they played Oregon. I think those guys kinda underestimated them a little bit and then kinda got after them in the second half so it made that game kinda close. So we can't do the same, we gotta learn from their mistake and take it, like I said, week-by-week and day-by-day like we always do and prepare as if they were LSU or Oregon or ASU, whoever it may be.
Touchdown streak with Philips? Build rapport in offseason?
Yeah, I think just working with each other on and off the field. I think our relationship has gotten a lot closer off the field, even more so than it was, just hanging out every day, talking every day. And then as well as just on the field, he's always coming up to me after each play, telling me what he sees, good or bad, whether he's open or not. So just always staying in my ear, me always peeking out the corner of my eye to make sure where he is and stuff like that, so just keep building that chemistry every day, it gets better every day.
Chance to audible into more conventional formation if you don't like what you see with two O-lineman?
Yeah, I go through my keys and again, I leave all that other stuff up to coach Kelly. I just go through my keys and execute the play. If it doesn't work then it doesn't work, if it does work then we'll call it again, probably.
Look back towards sideline for final check?
Everything looks good, get the green light and go.
Update on injury?
Yeah, I mean, it's Week 5 in the middle of the season, so I wouldn't say I'm 100%, not really even close to 100%. So there's gonna be aches and pains coming up every week, so just having to push through all that and as long as it's not broke, I'll be out there playing.
Say anything to Zach about making wrong read in fourth quarter?
Yeah, obviously going back over and watching the film, that was a different story and stuff like that than in the heat of the moment, obviously. So obviously I regret not handing the ball off, but it's also a learning lesson for the rest of the games to come, so that mistake won't happen again. But I think overall offensively, we still did a great job executing most of the plays, I think we were about 80-plus percent on executing, so a lot of good things to go off of, but also some things to learn from, which is how it is every week, so we just gotta keep building.
BO CALVERT
Pressure you were getting earlier in the year gone? Teams scouting you better?
I think teams are just moving toward you saw on Saturday, a lot more six-, seven-man protections where they have more guys blocking for us, some max protect stuff where they’re having a back and two tight ends in there. In a lot of those situations, you’re going to leave your DBs in one-on-one matchups and we’ve just got to win those battles, but at the same time, it goes both ways, the D-line and the linebackers have to get home and get pressure on the QB. I think ASU did a good job of allowing that guy to make some quick throws. Even when they were deep throws, he was getting them out pretty quick for the most part, they picked up a lot of things. You know, early on they tried to do some screen gains and we shut them down on that, they tried to work laterally across the field as far as spreading us out and didn’t have much success doing that, so they had to take some vertical shots and some plays didn’t go our way. That’s football.
Counters ready moving forward?
Yeah. I think the good thing is that this defense has shown we can definitely stop the run, we’re good at doing that, but as far as moving forward, we’ve just got to keep getting pressure on the quarterback, that’s an obvious thing. As long as we can rally to the ball and slow guys down, some of these X plays, it’s tough when the guys have a wide-open lane. We’ve just got to be able to close on them and force them one way or another. If a guy has a straight shot down the field and can run right down the field on you, there’s not much you can do as far as running to the ball after that, but I’m encouraged by the way this defense has been going. Everybody is still fighting pretty strong, for the most part the whole game running after the ball and guys are hustling and we had a good practice today. Obviously it’s tough after a loss, any loss you can have, you have to sort of digest that and just compartmentalize that and take the corrections, push your emotions away and realize what you have to move forward and do better. I think we made some good corrections today in practice and I was encouraged by the way we came out. We came out real strong and fast and kind of felt like we were back in camp getting back at it again. Just sticking to the fundamentals, working on the things we know we have to work on and we know that’s going to help us win moving forward this week.
Had to do any up-downs for not running to ball?
Uh, yeah, the whole defense does up-downs. We started that maybe two years ago in spring ball. Basically, it’s just when you pause the film if a guy’s not anywhere near the ball or he hasn’t crossed a certain amount of lines on the field to show that he’s running to the ball then it’s considered a loaf, so every day we’re doing up-downs for different guys but it’s no different than any game. We do it when we win too, it just doesn’t get talked about because obviously we won but yeah we did some up-downs today, we’re going to do up-downs tomorrow and hopefully we don’t have to keep doing more up-downs but every day there’s probably going to be some of them in there.
Arizona's struggles present opportunity to fix defense?
You know, I don’t think there’s any sort of feeling that you have to make up for last week. I think each week is its own thing and that’s how you kind of hurt yourself if you go into a game trying to make up for everything you did in the last game—it’s a completely different team, different personnel, different style that they’re going to play, but we’ve just got to execute for the most part and when we’ve done that and we’ve played as a full team and we’ve played on both sides of the ball, we’ve had energy and we’re firing on all cylinders, you guys have seen that this team’s really good and I still believe this is a very good team we have here. I think we had sort of an off night on Saturday, but every team, on any given Saturday, any team can win and any team can lose and that’s just football and you saw a lot of that this weekend in college football, a lot of crazy things going on, but at the end of the day it’s Monday now, it’s a new week, we’ve got a new opponent in front of us and that’s the thing that comforts you in the end is that there’s always another week ahead to get better and get after it and show what you can do.
Advantage to go up against Jedd Fisch?
Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously he’s a good coach, he’s a good guy and a lot of the guys here were going against some of his looks when he was here but I think at the end of the day, you’re just going to watch the film that they have and you’ve kind of got to take the personal side out of it for any relationships that players on this team have with prior coaches or whatnot and you’ve just got to play the opponent in front of you. I think when this defense specifically, when we can focus on the schematics of the game and not take it personally, we play really well. You saw a lot of penalties on Saturday, which is kind of uncharacteristic from this team and that’s something we don’t normally do and pride ourselves on being able to remain calm in the heat of battle. But if we can keep ourselves cool-headed and strong and keep moving forward and keep attacking the schematics of the game, obviously everyone knows what they’re supposed to do, then we’re going to be all right.
Emotionally overreacting lead to penalties?
Exactly. You know, I think it’s a common saying but play with emotion but don’t let emotion play with you. Obviously, playing football, you’ve got to be violent and you’ve got to be angry and you’ve got to have a fire deep inside of you to make yourself attack the opponent, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to control that and you’ve got to kind of reel it back in and don’t let yourself make costly mistakes because every penalty at some point is going to turn into points on the field and that showed on Saturday for us.
How important to have Quentin Lake?
Yeah, I think he’s a great guy, obviously a phenomenal player, huge leader on this team, you’ve seen obviously the last few weeks trying to move guys around at different positions but he’s getting a real speedy recovery and hopefully be able to be out here soon but we obviously miss him but at the end of the day, it’s the next guy up and somebody’s got to step up and make some plays and I’m excited to see who that’s going to be coming into this week.
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