WATCH: Carl Jones on Containing Oregon's Offense, UCLA Culture
UCLA football edge rusher Carl Jones spoke to reporters following Tuesday morning's practice session at Wasserman Football Center. Jones talked about his first impressions of scouting Oregon, how to deal with a mobile quarterback like Bo Nix, what he thinks goes into leadership, the Bruins' culture off the field and how much he enjoys playing for a winning team.
Oregon's offense?
I feel like if anybody watched film, or even watched one of their games, they're pretty fast. We just gotta contain everybody truly, so that's – nothing too crazy though, so yeah.
Going to be the fastest team you've faced so far?
I'm not sure the fastest, but they definitely do have a couple guys – they have a couple transfers, right? Like running back transfers? Yeah, so yeah, just all their three different backs that they have – five, zero and 22. That's pretty much it, yeah.
"Contain" the name of the game considering what Bo Nix brings to the table as a runner?
Um, you would always want to contain a quarterback, but you know, if he gets out, he gets out. But, you know, our job is to, if we're rushing him, we gotta get him. So that's been our main goal.
Brace says "leadership" – what does leadership mean to you?
Leading when no one's around. You could be a voice or you don't even have to be a voice. You know, just doing the right thing always, when no one's watching. And then if somebody is watching, you're doing something right. And yeah.
What is "UCLA Football Culture" to you?
Honestly, the culture over here is like – I feel like in my four years of being here, it definitely changed from my freshman year til now. But I feel like we all came together as a family, like I said my freshman year, there was a couple cliques or whatever, you know what I'm saying? But now, you could walk around the downstairs in the locker room and talk to everybody. There really ain't no cliques down there, we're all a brotherhood and it's just fun to be around everybody each and every day waking up early in the morning and then coming back after school and dealing with the same thing all over again.
How'd you get to that point?
Boot camp, summer camp. Going through tough times together, having to be – having to beat adversity. Coach KB, during our workouts, he's a handful, so having to go through that with each other and going through those tough times and pushing each other, it just transferred into Week 1, Week 2 and then Week 6.
KB gives out t-shirts?
No, those t-shirts came – like truly, we wanted to give those out to, like, not necessarily our walk-ons, but like our guys that don't get recognized as much, you know what I'm saying? Cause, you know, they come out here and do everything that they can for us, but they're not on scholarship, so we wanna recognize them for doing everything. We even gave one of our janitors one, so just all the small stuff that anybody does for us, we wanna appreciate them.
Oregon only allowed one sack – mostly the O-line or Bo Nix being elusive?
Um, well-coached, truly. I'd say they get the ball out quick, so that's probably wh it's only one sack.
Honing in on what Georgia did to beat Oregon?
Oh, we're definitely watching all the tapes. I wouldn't say we're just necessarily looking at Georgia, but we're watching all the teams that they faced, even Eastern Washington, when they put up 70. You know, we're watching everything. The most film you could watch and the best film you could watch is all the film, truly.
Noticeable difference between what they did against Georgia compared to more recent games?
I'd say just the how they snap the ball. The guard touches the center when it was ready cause it was loud, so I'm pretty sure it's gonna be loud in Oregon too, so I'm guessing they're gonna do the same thing. But other than that, nah. They're just a really good team, I can't say that they're – we're gonna go in there and just do what we've been doing to every other team. It's gonna be a battle, four quarters, 12 minutes – or 15, however, I don't even know how much time there is. Yeah, however long it is, 60-minute game, and that's just what we gotta focus on, play by play.
Enjoyable to watch film of these big wins compared to when you were losing more in past years?
It definitely feels amazing, getting done on Saturday, waking up on Sunday with a dub under your belt and then coming into the week. It's just great vibes, honestly. And then just the atmosphere that all the guys and the coaches, even, are giving to us, but we know what we have to do. We know that, you know, we worked hard to get to 6-0, we just didn't get that shit handed to us – sorry, excuse my language. But you know, we worked hard, for everything that we got and we're gonna continue to work hard til the season's over.
Get a win for coach Kelly against his old team?
Oh, most definitely, but I'd say yeah. Chip came from Oregon, but honestly, like for us players, it's really for us, really, cause , you know, we're the ones that are out on the field every day working. But yeah, we're working for coach Kelly and all our coaches and, you know, we want it as much as, and even as bad as they do.
Also went through "GameDay" last year, just another week for you?
Another week, we just gotta stack days on days and then on Friday, ship out to Oregon and handle business. Business trip.
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