WATCH: Chip Kelly Breaks Down UCLA Football's Additions From Early Signing Period

The Bruins secured 11 official additions to next year's roster, leaving room for potential incoming transfers and returning super seniors.

UCLA football coach Chip Kelly spoke to the media Wednesday afternoon about his team's haul on the first day of the early signing period.

Kelly spoke about the flexibility that the Bruins have in scholarships moving forward, still waiting to hear on decisions from NFL Draft hopefuls and potential super seniors. Kelly also talked about how his success in churning out productive, NFL-level tight ends helped bring in Carsen Ryan and Jack Pedersen, and why UCLA only signed one lineman in the early portion of the cycle.

CHIP KELLY

How would you characterize the class overall and its strengths?

We are really pleased with what happened. We have 11 signees: seven on offense, four on defense. Cumulative grade point average for the group we signed is a 3.46. 10 are from California, one is from Utah, so in our footprint. We just don't have a lot of scholarships, so the quantity isn't what I think it is with some people. But I really believe that the quality is outstanding. Because of the COVID restrictions, we really only had two kids leaving: Jordan Genmark Heath and Cam Johnson. The sixth-year seniors don't count. They had you over 85, and that just gets you back flush to 85. So right now, I think we're at 17, or 18 that's available. We still have a bunch of seniors that haven't made their minds up, are they coming back for another year, but we've held scholarships for them, because we would like to have them back. But that's certainly their decision. Wouldn't force any of those guys to make a decision by the signing date, because that's not the way we work. We want our current players here and afford them every opportunity to get the information that they need to make their final decisions. Just going into it, we knew we were going to be limited number wise. So when you look at the quality of the class, I think it's outstanding. It's just not a big number because we don't have a big number to sign to be honest with you.

It looks like wide receivers and tight ends are a strength?

Yeah, I think all of its strength. I think every kid that we got. whatever position they are, they're all really really good football players that we're excited about. Obviously, we've got two wideouts, we've got two tight ends – that's kind of working off of what we plan on our numbers being as we move forward. But I think all 11 are really quality young men, both academically and athletically. And that's the key here. There's a lot of really good football players out there, but we can't recruit them all with the standards of this university. It allows us to attract really quality young men like we did in these 11 guys.

Difference from first year when you were trying to get as many as possible?

Yeah. This is what I think every coach wants. That means you have a lot of good players coming back from, when you're not at that full 25. Or actually, this year, I think the new rule with the NCAA is you can go to 33 with the transfer portal leaving and then seniors graduating, but because you had an extra year of eligibility via COVID, I think that's changed the dynamic for everybody in the country. Every coach that I've spoken to in the last year, is all dealing with that. How many do you have? You really don't know. But I would say if you can bring in a limited amount of guys and you're coming off an 8-4 season, then that means you got a lot of really good players coming back. So that's positive. We were really focused on bringing quality in this class and we believe we did.

Set aside scholarships for transfers?

Last year, I think we had 25, I think 16 were signed and then nine came through the transfer portal. We were aware of the rule change that was coming up and was available. I think we're at 17 or 18 now. We signed 11. There's a reason for that. Those other scholarships will be filled. We'll still look and see what's available from a high school standpoint, which kids didn't sign on the signing day, but really we will be looking towards the transfer portal. The transfer portal has been very good to us. When you look at Zach Charbonnet, or Ale Kaho, or Cam Johnson, or Obi Eboh, or Paul Gratton. The list goes on and on. We've have gotten some really, really good transfers and they've contributed. We have a system in terms of our evaluation, our ability to find out about the individual and then how would they fit in our locker room. And we've done a great job with it from that standpoint. And hopefully we'll continue as we round out this group that we're bringing in. 

Hard to make plans with the early signing period not knowing who or who will be available in February and not having NFL draft decisions sorted out yet?

No, cause I think some of those guys – they'll make their decision before the next signing period. They've gotta play in, some of them have opportunities to maybe play in all-star games. If they say they're gonna play in an all-star game, you can't play in an all-star game and then come back, so I think it will all work itself out. But my loyalty is to my own players. They have all the time in the world for them to make a decision on what they wanna do and that's what this is about. Our job is to create an environment where they have a chance to be successful, and if we're lucky enough to get some of those guys back, then that's a bonus for us. But I've not given any of them a timetable that, 'Hey, I need to know now cause I gotta go recruit a high school kid.' That's not how we operate. It's helping them make really good decisions – does another year help? Certainly, it helps academically for some of those kids. It's the reason we had 16 kids in grad school in this past class. If a lot of those guys would come back, most of them have already graduated themselves, then it's an opportunity – 'Am I gonna go to grad school? Am I gonna get a second major?' So the timing of it, for us, it will work itself out. But our loyalty is always to our players and our program first.

Thoughts on the proposal to move early signing period to January or eliminate it so coaches aren't getting fired midway through the season in order to give new coaches time to recruit before December?

I like it where it is, almost all of these kids that we signed were committed to us for a long time. I think you're making a rule for 10 to 15 schools. There's 130 schools in our league – there wasn't 130 new coaches. In 2018, I went through it, we had to put together a class, it's just what you do. So if a school wants to fire a coach before the first signing day, then that's their choice and then you have to pay the price for doing that. I like where the signing day is. I mean, most of these kids, looking at this list, have been committed to us for a long, long time, so really, what the early signing date is to put those guys to bed. And kids don't have to sign on the early signing date. If they don't want to sign cause there's some unrest or they're not sure what's going on at their school, then it's up to the kid to wait. But I like the early signing period, so I don't know why we're gonna make a rule that's gonna help 10 schools that made a decision to move on from their coach, so there's 120 schools that didn't make that decision, so why are you penalizing them?

Weird COVID schedule impacted visits – is this class more connected with current players than those in the past?

Oh, definitely, because you could have official visits. I mean, last year’s class, there was no official visits and no opportunity to get kids on campus so some of these guys came here multiple times, they came up to games, they took multiple unofficial visits and then took their official, so I think all of these guys had an opportunity to be around our guys and around our players and to me that’s the best selling point of this university is the players we have on our current team, so it’s totally different than the COVID year. We went 18 months from March 15 or so when recruiting got shut down for everybody in every sport and didn’t let up until last summer when we could start to have some kids on campus in June, first unofficially—we weren’t allowed to have official visits until the school year started, but at least to have some of those kids come unofficially and some of these kids—looking at this list—we got down here in June and got a chance to show them this place and they got to interact with our coaching staff in person and they got to interact if there were players around at that point in time, so it’s totally different than our last class.

Success of Dulcich, Asiasi and Wilson help draw Pedersen and Ryan?

I think that’s really enticing and it’s our use of the tight end whether I was in the NFL using Brent Selek and Jack Ertz or what Caleb did here, led the nation in catches as a tight end, what Devin did, going on and being a third-round draft pick of the New England Patriots and then obviously what Greg’s done the last two years here. So I think any tight end that is out there is going to look and then when you look at what we do formationally where we play multiple tight ends with Mike Martinez and Mike Ezeike and David Priebe and Hudson Habermehl, we’re going to play 11 Personnel, we’re going to play 12 Personnel, 13 Personnel and sometimes 14 Personnel, so there’s certain schools out there right now—we’re not the only one—but there are certain schools that have a reputation for their use of the tight end and we’re one of them, so I think that’s a big benefit to us and I think that’s a big factor in both Carsen and Jack coming here.

11 guys signed deliberately to save space for transfers and super seniors?

Yeah, we don’t have any super seniors, so those guys will go, so the Ethan Fernea, Paul Grattan and Obi and those guys don’t have the opportunity to come back. As I said earlier—and I know you know our numbers as well as anybody [barf]—I think we started this process with two scholarships because the only kids graduating were Jordan and Kam. That class of Obi, Ethan, Grattan, Q-Knight, they didn’t count, you were over 85 at that point, so we’re at 17 or 18 now, so to sign 11 gave us some flexibility from a transfer standpoint. Last year we could sign 25 and we signed 16 in December and [inaudible] and we signed another nine through the portal, so that’s kind of out plan. Everybody knows our success with the transfer portal, I think it’s a big deal here, obviously a degree from here or a graduate degree from here in some of their instances is a really big deal for these kids and everybody understands the impact of the transfers that we’ve had, so I think we’ve maneuvered that world pretty well. I’ve heard some coaches complain about it, I think you have to embrace it and I think we have embraced it and it’s really helped our football team, so we did save a couple but we’re not going to have a big class overall anyway. The national limit is 25 and with the new rule they put in this season—at least I think it’s a one-time rule this season—you can go up to 33 but we’re not going to be close to that right now.

No defensive linemen and only one offensive linemen happen by design?

I think it’s kind of what’s leaving is what’s replacing. You just kind of look at where you are and how many scholarships are based out by position and what we feel, at least right now, ballpark-wise, what’s taking off and then replacing it is kind of what our mindset was in taking this high school group.

Harden and Marshall come in and impact immediately?

I hope every single of one of them immediately impacts; that’s why we signed all of them. So there’s not one kid that we have earmarked, well, he’s a developing kid or that kid is going to be an instant play; it’s really up to them—there’s a few of them, and it’s not set so I can’t give you the names, but there will three, four or five of them that are early enrollees, so obviously if you’re an early enrollee you get a little bit of a jump just because you’ll get a chance to go through an off-season program and then spring ball and then the rest of the kids will come in June, but all 11 kids, we recruit all of them to be able to come in here and play; they’ll be afforded every opportunity to get on the field early, so we’ll see how that works out for them.

Meant potential future super seniors re: leaving spots open

Yeah, all those spots are open. All those seniors that have an opportunity to come back, we would love to have them back—I mean, they’re all great people, they’ve worked extremely hard, our job in that process is to help educate them on where we feel they are when it comes to the NFL draft and then they make a decision with their family on what they feel is the best course for them. You know, we’ve had kids not go to the draft—Brittain Brown was a kid who could have gone to the draft and didn’t go to the draft and came back and had a really good year for us. Now, obviously, Brittain’s done, doesn’t have that opportunity to come back, but there’s a lot of people in Brittain’s shoes now and then our job is to educate them and we also told them to take their time, there’s obviously a deadline but that but that deadline doesn’t match up with the high school signing period, but that’s nothing we ever told them about, like, ‘Hey, I need to know by now,’ I mean, we’d like to have all of them back, but again, it’s up to them, so we have kept up an opportunity that we’d take them all back right now and if we could, we’d feel pretty good about where we are, but I don’t think every single one will come back, I think some kids will opt to go, but our job is just to provide them with the info we have and then we support them either way. The one thing with all those guys, they all have their degree, so some of them would be working on a second major, others would be working on grad school.

Jalen Woods?

We’ve obviously had success with kids from his high school—we’ve got a few of them on our team. We’ve had success with a lot of kids from that league, it’s probably the premier league in the country when you look at not only Bosco but Mater Dei and the other schools in that league—Servite had a great year this year. So Jalen is a versatile player, can play both inside and outside, I think one of the things about coming out of Bosco is he’s so well-coached, we had Stephan Blaylock here a couple of years ago that just stepped right in as a true freshman and could seamlessly transition because I think the system that he learned in high school helped him do that. We think Jalen’s in the same boat, but we think it’s his versatility that he could be an inside or outside kid—he’s tough, he’s fast, he’s physical, I think he’s a really instinctual football player and we had been recruiting him for a while but are really excited about his versatility and physicalness in terms of fitting in here with what we do defensively.

Talk to recruits about the Oregon rumors?

Yeah, I talked to all our recruits and I talked to our team. You know, everything we do here with our players and our recruits is always transparent and I think every recruit understood exactly what was going on and all of the kids on our team knew what was going on. I think the one thing our players know from me is we’ll shoot them straight and we’ll talk about real-life things, they don’t have to read things online or in a paper, they can get the straight scoop from us, so I don’t think we had any issues with it and it affected us at all.

Can you tell us what happened? Did you interview?

I got a phone call from them and I spoke with them.

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