Bob Chesney didn’t waste any time getting to the heart of what he saw after the Bruins’ win at the Rose Bowl: the first half was messy, and it wasn’t the standard he wants.
The win still mattered. Chesney said it plainly in his postgame press conference, noting, “Obviously, anytime you have a a win, it’s a they’re not easy to come by.
So, to be able to end up with a win is a big deal. Seven and oh…obviously, a big deal.
Um but, you know…and that first half was just not our type of football.”
From there, he pointed straight at the mistakes that made the game uglier than it needed to be. The Bruins had two fumbles, two drops and two holding penalties, and Chesney kept circling back to the same theme: those errors were giving away too much.
“Yeah, it’s really important. I mean, it’s look, it’s two fumbles, two drops, two holding penalties, right?
That’s ultimately what happened out there. Two fumbles, two drops, two holding penalties. You can’t do it.
You just can’t do it if you want to win really close games. Again, we we’re taking three, four touchdowns off the board by doing that.
So, the holds, we’ll go back and look and just see. I didn’t think one was.
I thought that we helped guide the guy up field. The second one definitely was or the first one was the second one I don’t think was and it was a big run by Wayne at that point in time.
The two drops can’t happen and then you know ultimately the two fumbles…just a shame.”
What stood out for Chesney wasn’t only the giveaways, but what happened after them. He credited the defense for stepping up on one of the turnovers and praised Donnie for the interception that flipped the field right back. He also said the two turnover plays were worth 14 points.
He made a point of calling out the effort after the first fumble, too, highlighting Ty’s role in running downfield and holding the player up, along with the pursuit from B. Rowe and Aiden Mizell. In his view, that kind of chase-and-finish effort mattered.
“Let’s talk about Ty a little bit in that situation, too, because he’s the one that actually runs down the field and then holds the kid up and then the pursuit of B. Rowe and Aiden Mizell never ever quitting [and] playing to the whistle.
That matters more than anything almost that we did today. It was sloppy, but in the end got a win and proud of our guys.”
Later, Chesney returned to the ball-security issue and made it clear he sees this as a teaching point, not a one-off complaint. He said the staff has been good with it all season, with ball-security work built into practice and periods against the defense where the emphasis is on punching the ball out. But he also said the team needs more attention there now.
“So, the thing for me is like when you see it hit a couple different people, you think, “Hey, I could fix this one guy and fix his situation,” and then it happens to somebody else and then you see it like almost happening with the ball coming out too.
So, we’ve been great with it all year and we work on it and there’s ball security things. There’s all the times we go against the defense.
We are making sure iron on iron and punching the ball out and doing everything else. We just have got to put a little bit more of an emphasis on it.
And, I think that you need a game like this once in a while to allow you to say, “Okay, damn. This is week seven.
Maybe over the past week, I kind of got a little lax on it. I’m never going to let this happen again.”
That’s what you ultimately need.”
That last line says plenty about where Chesney’s head is after a win that was still hard-earned but far from clean. He made it clear he expects the Bruins to learn from it, and he said the problem has to be corrected now.
The next test comes against Nevada, where the Bruins should have a chance to show that the lesson took.
In Other News...
UCLA's 7-0 Start Has Fans Asking One Huge Playoff Question
UCLAs unbeaten start rolled on Saturday with a 28-10 win over Michigan State, pushing the Bruins to 7-0 and keeping the conversation around their season pointed well beyond the usual October milestones. The defense again set the tone, with Donavyn Pellot, Sammy Omosigho and Jalen Woods turning in notable performances, while the running backs powered the offense with 245 rushing yards and multiple touchdowns. Ty Dieffenbach also did his part, completing 18 of 31 passes for 198 yards and a touchdown.
What makes the Bruins more than just an early-season surprise is how complete they have looked while the schedule gets tougher and the attention gets louder. Fans are already asking the obvious question about College Football Playoff legitimacy, and UCLA has given them enough evidence to make the debate real rather than hypothetical. The next stretch will go a long way toward showing whether this start is simply impressive or something much bigger. [Read more 🡒]
UCLAs Win Over Michigan State Looks Different Under Film Review
UCLAs 28-10 win over Michigan State looked pretty clean on the scoreboard, but the postgame picture gets a little more layered once Pro Football Focus gets hold of the film. The review process goes snap by snap and is designed to strip out the usual noise, giving the Bruins a more objective read on how individual players actually performed rather than how the game felt in real time.
PFF uses a 1-100 scale, with 85 or higher tagged as NFL-caliber, so those numbers can reshape how a strong win is viewed inside the program. The grades assigned after this game are not necessarily final, either, since they can still be adjusted later in the week, which leaves some room for the story of UCLAs performance to keep evolving even after the final whistle. [Read more 🡒]
UCLA Proved Its Backfield Can Survive One Scary Wayne Knight Moment
Wayne Knight has been the engine of UCLAs ground game this season, leading the Big Ten with 12 rushing touchdowns and stacking up three 100-yard performances along the way. So when he left last weeks game against Michigan State with an injury, it had the look of a potentially costly moment for a backfield that has leaned so heavily on his production.
Instead, the Bruins found enough balance to keep rolling in a 28-10 win, with Anthony Woods and Jaivian Thomas both helping shoulder the load when the offense needed it most. Bob Chesney said Knights injury is not serious, and he pointed to the way the backs handled the situation as another sign that UCLAs rushing game is built on more than one runner. [Read more 🡒]