Wednesday’s sound bites from UCLA practice

Happy Thursday, everyone. UCLA-Arizona is coming in hot, which is good news for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it’s essentially a do-or-die game. If the Bruins win, they’re at least in the running for a Pac-12 Conference championship. If they lose, they’re out, plain and simple.

Why is this good news? Because almost no game UCLA has played this season has been all that revealing. The Bruins might not play well, but there’s enough talent that if they flip the switch, they’re a dangerous team.

If they don’t flip the switch Saturday, we’ll at least know that their chance at a successful season is out the window. There won’t be many more questions left to answer.

We’ve got a story on how Alex Redmond might not have a starting spot despite being healthy, a post on Eric Kendricks and his very good week, and some quotes from Wednesday’s practice:

Offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone

On fullback Nate Iese: “I’d like to give him the ball more, hopefully on Saturday. There’s kind of a direction for him, and the number one for him is understanding fronts and blocking, because he’s so vital for us there. Now, I really would like to see him start to become more involved in producing yards for us with catches and things like that.”

On whether wide receiver Mossi Johnson will continue to get playing time when Thomas Duarte returns from a hamstring injury: “Yeah. He’ll always be a factor, yeah.”

Defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich

On Takkarist McKinley’s not getting as much playing time against Colorado: “It was a little bit of a matchup thing. Against Cal, they gave us a little bit of an opportunity to sub on third down. Colorado didn’t give us the opportunity to do that as much. What we’ve been emphasizing this week is to really get him up to speed on all of the calls. Whereas before we tried to limit his package just so he could hone in and focus on a few things. But now he’s getting more comfortable with everything, so we can play him on the first two downs, which will help.”

On Arizona’s quarterback, redshirt freshman Anu Solomon: “It’s amazing to see his maturity and understanding of his offense. The whole quarterback run or pass option goes to a whole other level with this guy. It really becomes a quadruple option. It’s dive, it’s pitch, it’s quarterback run, and then on the run, he can throw it. You’ve got to play with great discipline, you’ve got to get your butt to the ball, and we have to keep everything in front of us to make him earn every yard.”

Redshirt senior defensive lineman Owamagbe Odighizuwa

On Arizona’s offense: “For the defensive line, I think when you have an offense like that, it can sometimes take the front out of the game. They fake like they’re running and throw a quick pass, so I think that’s the biggest thing in their advantage, that they get rid of the ball quick and they have a lot of play-action type looks. So I think it’s going to be challenging, but I think if we just get our hands up in the passing game, we can disrupt them a little bit.”

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