Wednesday’s sound bites from UCLA practice

It’s Thursday, which means that Utah is in the rearview mirror. We can stop talking about the offensive line, the pass rush and gap assignments. Thursday, Friday and Saturday are all about Oregon.

Or, if the Bruins go out and have the same issues again against the Ducks on Saturday, we’ll start a whole news cycle about the same topics. The reality is that UCLA has dealt with the same problems all season and won’t get close to the College Football Playoff if those issues don’t resolve themselves.

So, as I find myself saying almost every Thursday, we’ll see which UCLA team shows up on Saturday.

We had a Jerry Neuheisel story on the blog, as well as a post on the tired defensive line and a story on the defense preparing for Oregon.

And as always, here are some quotes from practice:

Defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich

On his defense giving up the go-ahead field goal late in the fourth quarter: “Would we have liked to have played better? No doubt. But at the same time, in our development, we have to learn from it. It’s one of those moments, it’s where we’ve got such competitive tough-minded kids that all want to make the play. They all want to be that guy. Before we went on the field, I felt it in a good way. Like we’re going to go out there and stop them, but what happened was guys abandoned their responsibilities a little bit. And it wasn’t because they were trying to be selfish, it was just because they wanted to be the guy to make a play and stop them. It was a great learning moment for our guys.”

Offensive line coach Adrian Klemm

On his unit’s play against Utah: “We did some things good, but any time an offensive lineman’s name is mentioned, it’s a penalty or it’s a sack. It wasn’t always bad, but there were times when it was bad in crucial situations.”

On his starting tackles, redshirt senior tackle Malcolm Bunche and sophomore Caleb Benenoch: “I know they started out at guards, but it’s not to mess around or anything, it’s out of necessity they have to play tackle. I think they’ve done a very good job for what they’re asked to do, and I think they’re both developing into pretty good tackles.”

On his offensive line: “I watch games and people complain because they have one guy get hurt or freshman playing. Shoot, that’s a common thing over here. I lose a guy every week and am starting three freshman every year, or different things like that. You get a certain level of kid, and you just hope they can come to it. I come out here every single day and take pride in what I do in terms of getting them and helping them develop. You just hope that it carries over into games.”

For more Bruins observations, follow Everett Cook on Twitter @everettcook