The UCLA Bruins are looking at a potentially catastrophic season after dropping their third consecutive game of the year, a 35-10 loss to the New Mexico Lobos.
There is only one way but up from the rock bottom that the Bruins hit Friday. Fans are calling for everyone's heads, and the prospect of an 0-12 season is becoming increasingly more likely with conference play starting in two weeks.
Here is a transcript of what DeShaun Foster had to say following their third loss of the season:
“Not the outcome at all that we wanted. It’s coming down to discipline and execution. Not executing at a high level and not making plays when we need to. We’re not at our best when our best is needed. We’ve got two weeks to fix this, and just looking forward to this opportunity to get it fixed.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty low right now. Like you said, I’ve been around this program for a long time. It’s just unfortunate what’s going on at this moment. We’re just not executing.”
“Too many penalties. We’ve got to find a way to stop shooting ourselves in the foot. We’re not good enough to keep having the type of penalties that we’re having. We’ve got to almost be perfect out there.”
“Most definitely. (Why?) Because I can get these boys to play.”
“No. Not at all.”
“If you’re a real Bruin, you’ll still be a fan. There are plenty of programs that have had unfortunate starts who have turned stuff around. You’re either going to stick with it or not.”
“Towards the end they were able to run the ball. It comes back to execution and guys not executing exactly how we want them to. But we’ve got to figure it out. That’s what it’s coming down to. This stuff has to get figured out.”
“That’s a good question because that’s something I’m wondering myself. You can continue to reiterate that to them. You can just continue to do stuff to continue to make people have discipline in the building. They’re just going out there and not executing that. It blows my mind. It’s something I’ve never been around. We’re going to figure it out.”
“That’s the thing about it. They respond in the correct way. Everybody’s looking at me straight eye-to-eye, standing at attention, understanding what I’m saying, saying ‘Yes, sir.’ They understand what they’re doing. They get that they’re letting it slip away. It’s just unfortunate. This is not something that you would anticipate happen.”
“Well, we know what comes with talent. You can get kids but you’ve got to have a certain amount of money. It’s a whole lot of stuff that goes into acquisition. I like the team we have, and we’re going to continue to fight and get it going. We have enough (talent). We just have to execute on both sides of the ball. There are people wide open. They’re not getting the ball. There are people not catching the ball, people missing the blocks. There are people not making tackles, not staying in their gaps.”
“Everything that happens can fall on me. I’m the head coach. It can fall on me. You don’t have to try to word things differently. I’m the head coach. But what I do know is that eventually this team is going to play with discipline. It’s going to happen. It’s eventually going to happen. Pretty sure we didn’t think we would go on a run last year either when it happened. One thing that is going to happen is that those guys who are in the room are going to continue to believe and eventually it’s going to turn around.”
“I didn’t want it to be a turnover trying to get a pass up there and maybe it got intercepted. I wanted to go into the half knowing we were going to get the ball and I wanted to make sure we went into the half with some okay momentum and not going off a turnover and trying to go out and get the boys excited again.”
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