⚡ CFB Dashboard

UCLA head coach Bob Chesney met with the media Tuesday ahead of the Bruins' home opener against San Diego State. Here is everything Chesney had to say during his press conference: Q: We saw that you guys got some weekly awards now. Can you kind of take us through that? "I don't know about them. No clue about them. So, I can't take you through any of those. I don't know. I don't have any knowledge of those. But I'm sure it's great, and it's nice for the team — or people, individuals. Yeah, I'm sure it's nice for them. "But again, that doesn't change anything of what we're doing right now. We had a whole meeting about it this morning, right? There's nice articles written. There's all these. But if you're going to listen to it now, then you have to listen to it when it doesn't go exactly your way. So, let's pay attention to the people in the room and only care about the people in the room that care about us, ultimately." Q: First game at the Rose Bowl. What are you excited about? Looking forward to? "Yeah, well, all of it. I mean, having a chance to play the spring game there was pretty cool. I think when we had that one practice out there. But to go out, be in a hotel, Friday night, walk through — like all the stuff that we're, you know, just has to become the norm. "This is the start of it. So, just looking forward to being out there, and we all know what that place means and the history behind it. And just, it's a proud moment to even pull up there and consider that that's your home field right now. So, really, really excited for that." Q: Coach, what are you looking for your defensive line to do? Mercer Luniewski, Isaac Lucas — two guys up front for San Diego State. What do you want to see from them this week to stop the run? "These guys do a really good job. The running back — you liked them last week, you're going to really like this one this week. You know, they move people. There's a lot of gap scheme. There's, you know, insert plays. There's a lot of things that they're creating double teams at the point of attack and then looking for that kickout block, and they're keeping this ball tight and keeping his shoulders as square as they possibly can be. "At the same point, they got a nice little Wildcat package with a kid that played quarterback at one point that comes in at the receiver position. And we got to be able to just be able to handle that line of scrimmage up front and just see if — how many guys it takes for us to be able to do that." Q: With your offensive line, you played the three guards against Cal. Seems like you're operating in a position of strength where sometimes if you're rotating, that might not be a good thing, but I feel like you really trust those guys. What have you seen from that group? And are you hoping ideally to settle on two? "No. We're not hoping to settle on two. We're hoping to find a fourth, to be honest, and to rotate through even more if we can. Defensive line does it every single series, and then you have to ask your offensive line to be out there for the entire game and no one else to get reps except for the starting five. And then what happens? Someone gets a little nicked up and nobody has any experience other than those starting five. "So, that's by design. And that's something that Coach Smith has been doing since I think he was the O-line coach at New Haven back in probably 2014. So, that is something that has served us well, and we're going to continue to do." Q: Coach, San Diego State blocked two punts, returned a kickoff last week. What kind of challenges do those type of special units pose for your group? "Tons. Tons. They are as aggressive as they can be. And then if you really go back historically through the head coach and through the coordinators, there's onside kicks, there's little kick passes, there's punt fakes. There's different formations in punt that lead to double passes. "They muddle huddle almost every single play down there on field goal or PAT. They have field goal fakes. They do it all. They apply a lot of pressure, and that's something that we're excited to, you know, see how we stand up to because that's taken a lot of our time this week to be able to handle all those things, but we'll be ready for it." Q: Coach, how valuable has Kirt Bakos been, your groundskeeper, keeping the field up to snuff? "The best. The best. You guys should bring him in here and interview him. He's great." Q: Defensively, what do they do well that they'll present challenges? "Well, I mean, they're not an overly blitzy team, but at the same point in time, they like to bring it off the edge and they like trail through the A's and B gaps, which then puts them in some Cover 0 situations. So those we have to be able to take advantage of. And that's a big part of our Sunday, you know, into Tuesday here, of just handling their protection game. But then they'll play it in straight quarters where they're fitting the safeties, and they'll play some three weak and three strong. "They'll end up buzzing, you know, with the backer and putting, you know, getting that seventh man into the box. All those things show up in there. This is not a defense that is simple necessarily. I would just imagine we're going to see things that we also haven't seen yet, which is what's also good about our offense playing against our defense every single day is that the new wrinkles and the things we put in, we go against each other in multiple periods throughout the day. I think that's helpful for us to just be able to stay smart and do it with speed and some toughness." Q: One more Cal question. The end-of-the-half touchdown for them, were you trying to get a timeout on that one? And then two, what was the coverage on that one? "Well, we didn't have great coverage on that one, obviously. And the issue was that we were trying to get to a different package, and I needed to take the timeout a little bit sooner. I've never been in a situation where I'm by the referee and I say timeout, even if the ball moves a little bit. Usually, they blow it dead. They didn't blow this one dead. So, it just wasn't good. "We didn't communicate well. We didn't have a good call, if any call. And I think it was one of those things that I needed to stop that play and wasn't able to do it. All that is just things that we have to keep working through. But there's moments where we have to get the right personnel on the field, whether we use a timeout or have another way to do it, and ultimately, we just failed at that." Q: Offensive line philosophy, are you hoping to rotate at center and tackle? And have you ever along your journey received any pushback from that, just because that seems different than what a lot of— "No. I think people would like to do it and may not have the depth to do it. Sweazie is able to play right. He's able to play left right now. Julian's able to play both. Our tackles can play either side, right? That's not the position you really don't want to do that in. But those inside guys, all day, all day. If we could rotate 15 guys through in a game and there was no drop-off, that's exactly what we'd want to do." Q: Are you a visualization person? Have you thought about what this is going to look and feel like for your first game in the Rose Bowl? "Um, no, I haven't thought about that much at all. I thought the spring game was sort of the way for me to get out there and experience that. Do our pregame. I thought that practice we did  —, the one scrimmage in the preseason camp — was, how are we going to take the field? What's it going to look like? Where's our individual going to be? How much time are we out there for each of those segments so we could get back into the locker room? All those things. "I'm more of a day-to-day guy. I wish I looked a little bit deeper at it, but ultimately for me, I just want to have the best practice we can today and then come back later today and the best meetings we possibly can."