WATCH: Chip Kelly on UCLA Football's Spring Showcase, New Arrivals Standing Out
UCLA football coach Chip Kelly spoke to reporters following the Bruins' spring showcase at Drake Stadium on Saturday morning. Kelly talked about his takeaways from the event, where his team's depth stands heading into the final week of spring camp, the status of certain unavailable individuals and how the changes on his staff have manifested over the past month.
CHIP KELLY
Get accomplished what you wanted to today?
Yeah, practice 12, a lot of situation work, got some red-zone work in today, got two-minute seven-on-seven and ended up in some late two-minute down at the end there, trying to get situations. You know, when you have officials—every Saturday training session for us is really, can we get in as many situations as possible—had a couple of competitive kickoff, kickoff return drills in there that we’ll get a chance to see on tape, how to use a sideline, how to get out of bounds—all of those things when you’re in a regular session and you don’t have officials, it’s a little difficult because everybody’s coaching their position, so we’ll see. It’s a building process. This is just No. 12 for us. We’ve got three more next week and we’ll continue to grow.
Any quick takeaways?
Nah, I really don’t. I wait until I watch the tape and it was a little slick out here, so that was a quick impression but besides that, until we watch the film and we’ll go back in this afternoon as coaches, then we come back and our Mondays and our Wednesday and our Fridays are always after training sessions so we get to show this whole thing to our players, so that’s kind of what the process is all about.
A few years ago you'd have live periods in spring?
Yeah, this is the spring showcase. They asked us to go on the 23rd and we normally go on the last day of the [spring] so that’s just how it worked; last spring we did the same exact thing, so this is a carbon copy of what we did last year—we just didn’t have fans, so we did it over at Wasserman, so.
But you had tackling a few years ago?
Yeah, that was a spring game; this was just spring practice No. 12, so that’s the difference.
Live tackling sessions?
Yeah, we do them in individual drills—that’s when we tackle, in drills. When you lose players is in these things, we lost Josh Woods, he got hurt, he wasn’t involved in the play but someone rolled into him and that’s how he tore his ACL in a practice session. We don’t anyone to get hurt in practice. We practice and tackle every single day; we’ve done that for the last three years.
Eliminated team live sessions?
Yeah, right now, yeah, but we’ll have some at certain times in camp, but it won’t be the entire practice, so we’ll never have a scrimmage where we go for two hours and we tackle each other, because the game’s not like that, but we may for a 10-minute period.
Offensive line depth and quality right now?
Well, we’ve got a couple of guys out but I think they’re really battling. When you get Sam back and you get Siale back, you know, there’s guys that we think are going to be really impactful players for us, so I think all those guys on a daily basis have gotten better from practice one to practice 12, and that’s what our goal is as we go through the spring, so.
What have the Murphys brought?
They’re both physical, they can beat one on ones and I think that’s certainly something we need to have; we’ve got develop a pass rush but you can’t develop a pass rush by blitzing every play because then you leave your secondary out to dry, so the ability to get home in a four-man rush and sometimes with those guys in a three-man rush and be able to keep seven and eight guys in coverage is a really big deal for us, so I’ve been really, really impressed with their rush skills but they’re also tough and physical at the point of attack—they’ve been really good and I think we’ll be better on the edge than we’ve ever been since I’ve been here.
Guys stepping up as pass-catchers?
I feel really good about them. Jake Bobo’s had a great 12 sessions, I think Titus has come along really, really well. Kaz has done a lot of really good things and did a lot of really good things today. You know, he can play both, which is a really good thing about him and I really think Ezeike and Hudson and Priebe have done a nice job at the tight end spot, so we’re excited about what we’ve got on the perimeter right now.
A lot of secondary turnover, how do you feel?
Good. I think Humphrey and Devin Kirkwood give us a lot of length at the corner—Hump had a big pick today in a two-minute drill and did a really, really nice job. He got a lot of experience at safety. Mo’s played a lot of football; Blay’s been almost a four-year starter, will be a five-year starter and will have played more games than anybody here just because of the COVID rule; I think Churchwell has played really, really well this spring, so there’s a lot of depth and a lot of competition there, so that’s a positive.
Darius Muasau at middle linebacker?
Done a really good job. I mean, you can tell he’s a dialed-in, he’s keying and diagnosing plays, he’s calling plays out before we snap it based on formations and we’re not doing anything right now in our meeting rooms where we’re game-planning for the offense or the defense, but he’s just that smart and intuitive-type kid, he’s as good an inside kid as I’ve seen since we’ve been here and really excited and you watch him get better and better as he gets more comfortable in our system and really taken to Ken’s coaching and Ken’s doing a great job with him and we’re really happy that Darius is here.
Chow Bryant-Strother moving from edge to inside linebacker?
Same thing, we’ve got a bunch of athletes and we’re just trying to put them in positions; Bo’s played inside, Carl’s played inside, Choe’s played inside; they’ve all played outside. We’re just trying to get kids as much exposure in the spring as we possibly can, so I think Choe’s done a really nice job when he’s called upon to be on the inside and he also has got the length to be an eduge rusher, so I think he’ll get experience from both places [inaudible].
McGovern?
I think Billy’s done a great job—and it’s all those guys, it’s a collaborative effort between Billy, Ken and Ikaika and Chad and Brian—you know, those guys got together when they got here in February and kind of put together, tried to keep as much terminology as possible because that’s always key from the learning aspects of our players. We’ve kept a lot of things in place, they’ve tweaked a few things and I think our players have grasped it really well and they’re doing some really good things out there, so.
Players entering transfer portal in the middle of spring camp impacting players at those positions?
A lot of it is, we’ve got a lot of people at those positions, so sometimes those decisions are made because of depth—they’re not getting enough reps, so they’re trying to see where they can fit. A lot of those decisions are based on playing time, so when you lose people that gives other kids an opportunity to get more reps, so we’ve got a bunch of guys right now that want more reps, so it hasn’t strained us at all—we’ve got a lot of players right now, we’re way over 100, and I can look back to my first year, we had 60 kids at spring ball, so we feel like we’ve got a ton of guys right now, so it hasn’t done anything to us from a depth standpoint.
Latu status? Hasn't been in team drills?
Yeah, he’s out here running around, we’re really excited about him and look forward to him getting better and better every single day.
Limitation physically because of his past?
Again, he’s out here every running around, I don’t comment on those, you can ask the same question 17 different ways but I’m going to answer it the same way: He’s out here, he’s in full pads, he's doing what our trainers and doctors allow him to do, so we’re moving forward.
Irby is unavailable but when he comes back what position is he playing?
I'm confused. He’s a safety. That’s what he played last year and that’s what he’ll play this year.
Seemed like the "striker" spot from the past is different than what you've been playing with in camp?
We’ve got three safeties, we’ve got our field safety, a free safety and our boundary safety, so on our first snap we had Kenny Churchwell, Mo and Blaylock in there, so three. Martell would be in that rotation of three.
Advantage of doing showcase in practice No. 12 instead of the final one?
I don’t think so. Today was practice opportunity 12; as I told our guys, it was just an away game. We usually play home games at Wasserman and we played an away game at Drake, so I don’t think we’ve changed anybody’s mindset or kind of what their approach is. This group loves playing football, so they’re excited that we’ve got next week to play more football, so whenever you put it, I don’t think it affected anything, so we’ll come back on Monday and we’ve got meetings and lifting and fly around on Tuesday and they’ve been great all spring, so I think they’ll be bummed out a little next Saturday when we don’t have any more after that because then there’s a break until August, so I don’t see anything in that. Maybe more people made it out that it’s a really big deal, it’s just No. 12 for us.
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