WATCH: UCLA players reflect on improving offense
UCLA’s suddenly improved offense has played a big role in the football program’s two-game winning streak heading into this weekend’s contest against Maryland.
After Wednesday’s practice, slot receiver Mikey Matthews and tight end Hudson Habermehl looked back on new playcaller Jerry Neuheisel’s role in helping the Bruins score 80 points over the last two victories against Penn State and Michigan State.
One boost has come from a run game that has topped 200 yards in each contest.
“Run game sets up everything, you know, just being able to manipulate the defenders, thinking if I’m going to block them, or if I’m going to run a route,” Matthews said. “Especially when I run off the ball, they just don’t know what am I going to do to them if I’m going to block or if I got to run a deep route on them. So it just keeps them guessing. So when we run the ball like that, they just don’t know what we’re going to do. So, definitely helps out a lot in the pass game.”
New week, new message
Interim head coach Tim Skipper has another new message for the players after successfully getting them to buy-in and execute his messages of “strain” and “don’t be a one-hit wonder” the last two weeks.
“The message this week is: The standard is the standard,” Habermehl revealed.
“The first team meeting after the Michigan State game, coach Skip kind of addressed the team and said, ‘What does this say?’ It said on the big screen, ‘The standard is the standard.’ So, we’re all kind of waiting to see what he means. He basically said we know how to win, we know what it feels like. We have all the talent we need. We’re not bringing any guys in to help us, like, this is the team we have. So, let’s do what we can with it, and deep down we knew we had success already. So, now that we’re kind of getting it, let’s take it and see how far we can go with it.”
Media availability after Wednesday’s practice (10/15)
Watch the full press conferences with Habermehl and Matthews below:
