Postgame Quotes: Utah vs. UCLA

Utah Head Coach Kyle Whittingham

On the keys to the game's outcome …
"The key to the game was our ability to run the football. It's pretty cut and dried to me. They were tremendous against the run going in. I think they were giving up 90 some yards and we got 290. So that was the key to the whole thing. Cameron (Rising) had another exceptional night. Took care of the football, three touchdown passes, no turnovers. The offensive line deserves a huge shout out. You don't get 290 yards rushing without some good movement up front and our offensive line rose to the occasion and rose to the challenge. Tavion (Thomas) was outstanding with 160 yards and four touchdowns. Just an outstanding night. He's really turning into a workhorse for us and carried the ball 24 times. That's a huge positive what's he's doing for our team."
 
"The defense played OK, not great. We still have things that we have to get better at on defense. We were really good on third down but we stunk on fourth down. The third down conversion rate was about 25 percent but then they go 7-for-9 on fourth down. So when we got them to third down we won on that, but we lost too many fourth downs."
 
"But with Arizona State getting beat, that puts us in a pretty good position. There's still a ton of football left. We all understand that. But for the moment, right now, we're in a pretty good spot. We just have to continue to get better as a football team week in and week out, and get some of our guys back that we're missing because that will help us out as well. But a good win for our guys tonight. A really good win."

On why he won the coin flip and took the ball first …
"We're starting to gain more and more confidence in the offensive guys and we're starting to control the line of scrimmage better. And of course the analytics came into it as well. We did not go against the analytics, and in fact there's probably a couple of time where the analytics said go but we just felt the better situation was to not go at that time."
 
"We got some mileage out of Cam Rising's quick kicks, which was a positive. He did a great job for us and I think both kicks were inside the 10 yard line. That was a good weapon for us. We didn't punt once with our traditional punt unit. It was two quick kicks and that was it. We have to get better at placekicking. Our percentage is not good enough this season. I think we're at about 60 percent overall. We need to be at 80 percent plus, so we've got work to do there as well."

On the punt team's struggles leading him to go with Cam Rising's quick kicks …
 "Yeah, a lot to do with that. Good observation. You get two punts blocked and you don't have a lot of confidence. So if you have an opportunity where you can use a quick kick, and Cam was a punter in high school so he has a good background in it, we went with that. We have the three wide receivers we put out there as our gunners. We were able to pin the opponent inside the 10 yard line with that twice. Two for two."

On starting Paul Maile at center and Nick Ford to guard …
"Keaton Bills was not available. He's one of those guys we need to get back, but I thought Paul Maile came in and did a really nice job. There were a couple of errant snaps that were tough to handle but other than that he did a really nice job. Nick Ford did a really nice job at left guard. When Keaton went down, we felt bumping Nick out and putting Paul at center was our best combination."

On the defense's run play compared to the Oregon State game …
"Very much improved. They were averaging a lot more than they got tonight. Chip Kelly is a heck of an offensive coach and really his basis for everything is the run game. That's really where it starts for him. I know he's not happy with that production because they usually do a much better job than that."
 
On how the defense did without Devin Lloyd in the first half...
"They did a nice job. When we won the toss and took the ball first, that was part of the decision. We thought that might give us one less series without Devin that we wouldn't have had. And our offense went promptly down the field. That was the reason why didn't defer."

#7 Cameron Rising, QB
On what the goal was with winning the coin toss and taking the ball…
"Our goal was to go out and score a touchdown."

On the adjustment from having Nick Ford at center to Paul Maile tonight…
"Paul and I have been working together since 2019 on a scout team and we kind of just have that connection that we've had for such a long and it's paying dividends."

On getting things done after the Oregon State game…
"It was nice handing Tavion the ball and watching everybody make those amazing blocks. The O-line did a great job. Tight ends did a great job. I'm glad we were able to finish and giving that pass to Dalton was nice as well."

On having a two-game lead over Arizona State…
"We aren't focused on that. We're focused on finishing the rest of the season off strong. We're making sure that we're in the right position where we want to be in, not focusing on anybody else or worrying about anyone else. Just handling in-house."

#1 Nephi Sewell, LB
On not having Devin Lloyd in the first half…
"It was weird. I've been out for a few games so Devin's definitely shared that with me. It's definitely weird. Even though he wasn't in, every time we came to the sideline he was always keeping us upbeat. That's just the leader he is. He's a great guy who always makes sure, even if he's not in, he will always take care of everyone else."

#28 Brandon McKinney, S
On the defense improving after the Oregon State game…
"Our goal was just to stop the run. Last week we didn't give our best football. Our energy wasn't there, but we came back and just dominated today. So, I'm really proud of my guys and I'm really proud of everybody on offense and defense. We took a big step forward in doing that."
 
#9 Tavion Thomas, RB
On how he felt about the game…
"I was feeling alright but my team got me turnt. We are always doing our thing out there so I always feel alright."

On what allowed him to play the way he did…
"My O-line. They were moving that thing and that made it easy for me. We are always just working together, receivers, tight ends and quarterback. Everybody was doing their job and we were executing today."
 
UCLA Quotes
 
Chip Kelly, Head Coach
On the first half…
"Yeah, our guys did not do a very good job on the rush tonight. We did not do what he had to do."

On their defense…
"Yeah, I just talked about tonight, I think our defense has improved, it's improved since last year. You can look at some of the games we played earlier, I think we've played well, tonight we did not play well in the rush category. We came in 13th in the country in rush defense and we didn't do a good job."

On Ethan Garbers…
"Garbs is a cool customer. We knew what we were going to get with him. This is always a tough place to play. Utah has a great advantage and the crowd does an unbelievable job. For Garbs to come out down a couple guys, to rally the troops and battle right down to the end. I'm happy with the way Ethan played. I think he kept a lot of things in line with his legs. I think he's a better athlete than a lot of people give him credit for."

On honoring Ty Jordan and Aaron Lowe…
"I think it was a tragedy and a very difficult thing. I talked to Whitt about it when it happened, just the whole thing. They were high school teammates, they grew up together. Aaron wore Ty's number because of what happened and then for it to also happen to him, in less than a year, for this football team to lose two of their teammates, that's a very difficult thing to process for anybody. We just know that as a group, in college football there's a brotherhood there."

On secondary defense…
"We're going to watch the tapes and make corrections, I'm not going to make any conjectures here in terms of one position or another, you know, it's just not what we do. We win as a team and we lose as a team and that's what it is. But I think our biggest issue was rushing the football."

On Dorian Thompson-Robinson…
"He was unavailable. We talked about that with the doctors and we put our heads together in terms of that and we made a decision that he was unavailable."

On losses and what the team is…
"We're 5-4. I think this team battles, I think this team is resilient, I love everything they do. You know how difficult it is to win games on the road, we talked about that coming in here."
 
#4 Ethan Garbers, Quarterback
On being a starter…
"You know, I just kind of prepare every week as if I was going to be the starter or if I'm going to play and Dorian was unavailable so it just happened. I was pretty excited just to go out there and play some football."

On the first play…
"Yeah, we have some great coaches, they knew the plays they were making and they put us in good spots."

On his performance tonight…
"It was subpar. The biggest thing is getting that W, getting the win and we didn't pull it out so I'm not satisfied with anything."
 
#15 Jordan Genmark Heath, Linebacker
On UCLA's physicality tonight…
"I think we're a pretty physical team. I think that the first half we were trying to figure out what they were going to do. They were doing a lot, throwing a lot of things at us and we gave them the first half and that's not okay. Then we came out at the end of the first half and into the second half playing our type of Bruin ball. We messed up in the beginning, they're a physical team but so are we."

On Utah's tactics for success…
"They didn't do anything special. They were doing the same thing that we've seen. Everyone runs the same type of plays its just different variations of them. They ran a lot of counters, they ran a lot of stretch the boundary and anytime you give the offense the confidence to run the ball on us you get put in a sticky situation."

On who's leading the Pac-12 south…
"We're not really focused on who's in the lead. We're going to keep grinding each week, moving and recovering. The plan is to win each week, so whatever comes out at the end of the season is what comes out. We're not really worried about that."