UCLA football receiver Kyle Philips and defensive back Qwuantrezz Knight talk to reporters after beating USC 62-33 on Saturday, giving insight into the Bruins’ reactions on the sidelines to the biggest plays and moments of the day.
Told the students you'd be ringing the bell all night if they came, when do you start ringing it?
Qwuantrezz Knight: ASAP, man. Yeah, like you said, when I talked to them at the student union, it was a big thing. We want that bell, and I'm glad that we earned it. We earned it very well, played hard and yeah, as soon as we get it, we're not gonna stop ringing it.
USC brought safety up, what did you see on those big throws?
Kyle Philips: Yeah, a lot of times, they're bringing the safety down, they gotta stay close to the box when you got a running back like Zach Charbonnet. So they're bringing the safeties down a lot to try and help in run, and then when you got guys like Kaz that can it off the top, that's just a problem for them. So they're bringing down, coaches noticed it, called the plays and we were able to score points off of it.
Defense's performance considering the criticism you've gotten?
QK: Yeah, I say we just really believed in ourselves and just made the play. We had Q Lake make a pick, we had Cam make a pick, come up big time for us. And we've been knew that we can do this, it's just all a matter of making a play and I'll say we did that very well tonight and we're just gonna keep it going.
Dorian stuck the landing on the hurdle, want to make a big play to send you guys out?
KP: Yeah, no, that was insane. We saw him break for the run and we were like, 'Is he gonna score? Is he gonna go out of bounds?' And then – we should've expected it cause he's always trying to hurdle someone, you know? But then he actually cleared the guy. It was – the whole sideline went insane just cause it finally happened. We've been waiting for it to happen, he's been trying so long. It just absolutely fired the whole sideline up and was really awesome.
37-0 run to end Colorado game and now big win against USC, something in that Colorado game set you guys off?
I wouldn't say there's any specific thing, just when we're not scoring points, it's usually just from self-inflicted wounds. We make a lot of mistakes, we'll get penalties, miss something – we've worked really hard in practice to keep that from happening and we've been really locked in making very few mistakes and when we do that, we're gonna score a lot of points.
Feel like USC was demoralized?
QK: Not really, we just knew that we had to keep going. We have this saying: it’s the first quarter for us every quarter. So as long as we keep that mentality, it doesn’t matter what the other team is doing, we just want to start strong, finish stronger, start fast, finish faster. Just taking back up on last week’s game vs. Colorado, I feel as though we came out and started fast and were able to keep it going.
Feeling to hang a record 62 points against USC?
KP: It’s an amazing feeling, it’s even better that Ethan Fernea was able to get one of those. I know you talked to Dorian and Kaz about him a little bit but that guy is one of the best teammates you could ever have. It’s unfortunate that he broke his hand, but for him to be able to score a touchdown looking to add to that historic win is an amazing feeling.
Special celebration after?
QK: This one was definitely special. It was our cross-town rivalry game and it means everything to this city, to this program, to everyone in the Bruin community. So we definitely celebrated this like never before. I wish you guys were in the locker room so you guys could see it. It was an amazing feeling. It was an amazing way for our seniors to go out, beating SC and just keep it going, not stop here and just get better and better.
Ethan's touchdown remind you of Marcus Allen's Super Bowl run? Have you seen it?
KP: No, I haven’t seen it, no.
Playing with Dorian when he's playing so well in a big moment?
KP: It’s insane. Dorian is such a talented quarterback. A lot of people think he just makes a lot of big plays on his feet, but he’s got a phenomenal arm, he’s a very poised, smart quarterback, he makes the right decisions and it makes my job a lot easier being able to play with someone like that.
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