WATCH: Chip Kelly on UCLA Facing Adversity Against South Alabama

The Bruins trailed by 11 in the second quarter and eight in the fourth, but staged a comeback to steal the win.

UCLA football coach Chip Kelly spoke with the media following his team's 32-31 win over South Alabama at the Rose Bowl on Saturday. Kelly talked about his trust in kicker Nicholas Barr-Mira, the character his team showed off through their comeback effort, Jake Bobo and other receivers finally breaking out and what it meant to finish nonconference play undefeated for the first time in his tenure with the Bruins.

Barr-Mira was 3-for-3 before that last one, recently put on scholarship – what are you thinking when he goes out there to win or lose the game?

Honestly, I thought he had it. I thought he kicked really well all day. He’s been solid this last week, he kicked really well in practice and we always believe you play the way you practice, so the whole operation between him, Jack, Sean has been really good, we felt good about the protection, knew where he wanted the ball—we talk about it all the time, ‘Where do you want it?’ Some guys prefer it on the hash, some guys want it in the middle, some guys want it left middle. Felt like if we could run it in to score, we would have done that but we weren’t going to afford to do anything else besides that, so credit to him. I thought he was clutch and I think that’s what you dream about as a little kid, can you go out there and kick a game-winning field goal down two when you need three to win and he did it, so really proud of Nick.

How surprised were you by the fake field goal?

I wasn’t surprised. You know, we had talked all week long about some type of trickeration—they threw a flea-flicker, you know, sometimes hat happens when Group of Fives are playing Power Fives, we talked to our players about it, we practiced all week long about onside kick and some of those other things that I think the [special] team guys are going to dial up and try to do something and I thought our guys did a really good job of defending it—saw Carl coming off the edge and it was a really big play by our defense when we needed it.

Character you see from the team in a comeback like this?

Yeah, we talk all the time that three things happen in a football game—momentum swings, random events and adversity—and the key is if you’re a competitor, you respond when that happens. Non-competitors react and I thought our guys responded in a good manner today. We obviously found ourselves in a hole but I think our sideline was, you know, our guys believed every single time that we were going to win the football game, we’ve just got to keep plugging away and keep playing, so I think that’s a sign of maturity when you have a little bit of an older team, you know, and that’s what Kane [Wommack] talked about after the game, he’s like, you guys are an older team, they’re a little bit younger team and I think our guys handled this situation, so I’m proud of that. You know, we have a ton to correct, we’re getting into conference play now, but there’s a lot of positives from the mindset, from the competitive response, that I was really proud of our guys today.

Defense gave up some stuff, what was South Alabama doing effectively?

Well, the first thing is I think Carter’s outstanding. You know, he was a kid that was in the portal, was at Toledo and a lot of people tried to recruit him. I know his father really well, he’s the defensive coordinator for the Colts now and has been a coach in the league and I thought the kid showed tremendous poise, tremendous ball location. We talked about it in our visit with you guys on Monday about how good a football team this is—that’s a really, really good football team and we knew this was going to be a close, back-and-forth football game all along, so there’s nothing they did that surprised us. I thought the running back was outstanding—people bounced off of him, he broke tackles and I think they’ve got a good scheme offensively and did some nice things, so sometimes we’ve got to give them credit—they made some plays when they had to.

Talked about getting a four-man rush, they handled your pressure well?

Yeah, I’d have to look at that, I haven’t seen the film, but again, we did not do a good enough job pressuring him today with a four-man rush so we’ll have to take a look at that.

Good to see the team go through adversity?

Yeah, I loved it. It was awesome. I felt great. I was excited on the sideline. No, I’m being sarcastic. I mean, in hindsight, yeah. While it’s going on you’re not overly excited about it because it doesn’t, you know, all right, this is good, we’ve got some adversity and then we’ll just win. You know, that’s the great thing about football and it happens every single week—I haven’t seen any scores throughout college football today but there’s going to be somebody who like, ‘Who beat who?’ We talked about it this week about the teams from this conference. You know, Georgia Southern, Marshall and App State, they went into Lincoln and beat Nebraska so it happens every week in college football, that’s why college football’s great and you just hope—we talk about it as coaches all the time—you just don’t want to be on this side when someone goes, ‘Hey, did you see that score?’ and you were part of that score. You know, you don’t want to be a part of that but we were fortunate to come out on top today and we’ll get back to work on Monday and we’re getting into conference play and that’s the end of the off-season—the out-of-conference part is over and now everybody’s getting into conference play.

Jake Bobo breakout game?

It’s one of the things we saw when we recruited Jake to come here. To have a go-to guy like Jake. Smart. We have the ability to move him around. He plays outside, he plays in the slot. Plays in a lot of different spots. He’s also I think a tremendous blocker. I don’t think people realize how good a blocker he is out of all the things he does. To have that versatility, to be able to move him around. He can handle anything. He’s got a lot of experience coming in from Duke and what he did there. I was really, really happy he’s part of it. He’s a bit, tall, long target and I think Dorian is getting really comfortable with him.

Titus and Logan able to contribute?

I’m really happy for both of them. They work so hard. Logan’s been here for a little while. But he’s just such a savvy veteran. That fourth-down play, he was the third option on it. Some guys rushed that route. He knows that he’s staying in the progression. The fact that the timing of it was perfect. That’s the way Logan is. That’s the way he practices. I was really excited on that. He had a big catch on third down for us. We caught them on man coverage. He ran a great route. Titus came up big. As Titus continues to get more comfortable in our offense and our terminology. I think hopefully we'll continue to grow him, but feel good about what we’re doing out wide. Kam Brown was finally back today. Kam scored. Really happy for Kam. To add to Bobo and Kaz, to see Titus and Logan and Kam step up. I feel pretty comfortable where we are at wideout right now.

Taking care of the ball?

We ran that pitch play three or four times earlier and were really successful. I’ll have to look at the film and see what happened. The one on the goal line, both Zach and Dorian. The two of them talked about it. We didn’t get a clean hand-off on that as we were trying to punch it in. We thought Zach scored on the play before. But when you’re in a 1-point game, you start to think about those situations. We had the ball down at the goal line and did not score. We turned it over, we fumbled. You can’t do that against a really good team. We were fortunate we got away with that today

Congrats on the dramatic ending for fans in Manila

I think the hashtag #Pac12InTheMorning is trending now. I just found out we’re playing Colorado at 11am also, so everybody get up, eat some eggs and watch the Bruins play. We're like a brunch – #BruinsforBrunch should be the hashtag now.

Fake FG show a go big or go home mentality by a Group of Five team?

That’s a question for Kane. I don’t know what his thought process was there. We had talked all week long about those sort of situations, that those would come up, whether it be a fake punt, whether it be a trick play. They ran a flea flicker and hit it down our sideline for a play. We as a coaching staff and players were aware that something could happen. I think our kids, the one thing they did, and we talk about it, competitors respond. When they shifted out, there was no panic in our guys’ eye. We work on our field goal block team every week in terms of how they handle people and if they split people out, who’s got who. There’s really no panic from our defensive side there and I thought they responded really well to the situation that they were put in.

Barr-Mira's punting?

We didn’t punt often, but when we did punt, I think that’s the one thing that people… Obviously he had four field goals but I thought he punted the ball really well. Nick’s an outstanding directional punter. Keeps the ball away from the returner. Did a great job of pinning them down there deep. So for him to have double-duty, be a punter and a field goal guy, I’m really proud of how Nick played today.

Momentum with six wins in a row? Trajectory important?

Trajectory is always important. I think I’d rather be going up than down, so I would say yes trajectory is important.

Go through nonconference unbeaten?

We went through a noncon during the COVID year unbeaten. Any game you play and you win, you’re excited. So I don’t group them noncon, con, I just look at, anytime you get an opportunity to win. The fact that we do that. We won the last three to finish off last season and won three to start this season. It’s not like you look at South Alabama and say hey it’s an nonconference game. That’s a really good football team. I think in the ESPN efficiency ratings, they were the highest Group of Five team in the country at 15. Really good offense, defense, and special teams. We’ll savor the victory. We beat a really good football team today. We know that we got challenges. That’s the great thing about this sport. You can feel pretty good about yourself for just a short amount of time. And then you got to kind of strap it up and get ready to go. We’re getting into conference play. We’re going on the road for the first time, which will be different for our kids. So how do they handle that? First trip. All those other good things. School’s starting this week. So it’s a lot of different things that are being thrown at them, so hopefully we’re not overcome by events, we can keep our eyes focused in terms of where we are. But we still have a lot of work to fix up.

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