UCLA upperclassmen attend, but Josh Rosen is the focus at Pac-12 football media day

UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen’s rogue Instagram posts, his unauthorized hot tub and his role in a revamped offense were among the major talking points at Pac-12 media day on Friday.

Someone who was not around to say anything about it: Rosen.

The Bruins trotted out offensive tackle Conor McDermott and linebacker Jayon Brown in a Hollywood conference room, with Coach Jim Mora saying the two players were chosen because they were upperclassmen.

“It’s not to hide” Rosen, Mora said of the sophomore. “You’ll have access to him every Monday this year.”

Rosen spent much of his first year at UCLA putting himself out there on social media. There was the picture of himself wearing a hat with an expletive directed at Donald Trump while playing golf at the presidential candidate’s golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes. Another post was critical of the NCAA for reaping millions off the work of amateur players via UCLA’s new Under Armour contract. And there was the infamous Instagram video of his dorm room hot tub.

Mora seemed to acknowledge the wobbly ground his quarterback was treading in May when he went on the Rich Eisen Show and said he had asked Rosen whether he wanted to be like Johnny Manziel or Tom Brady.

“If you’re going to go out on Donald Trump’s golf course and wear a hat that says ‘[Expletive] Trump,’ ” Mora said he told Rosen, “you’re heading towards Johnny Manziel. So let’s head toward Peyton Manning. Let’s head towards Tom Brady. Let’s head towards Troy Aikman.”

Mora said Friday he encouraged his players to express themselves but in a way that didn’t reflect poorly on themselves or their school. He referenced UCLA’s history of socially conscious athletes, mentioning Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the former Lew Alcindor.

“He’s posted three things and if you’re going to call them controversial, on a scale of what’s controversial and what’s not, they’re on the very low end of the scale,” Mora said of Rosen. “But they are red flags and it’s great that we’re able to address it with him now so it doesn’t become something that hampers his ability to go earn a living at the next level.”

Mora said he tried to monitor his players’ tweets in an effort to protect them, not muffle them. Rosen has spoken with Rams General Manager Les Snead about the potential ramifications of controversial posts on social media for a player with NFL aspirations.

“Les told him, ‘You know, Josh, we look at all of that and if we draft you to be the face of our franchise, we’re going to know before we give you $40 million that you’re going to do it in the right way,’ ” Mora said.

Mora made it clear he didn’t intend to pile on criticism of Rosen. He said they had “a great relationship” and described Rosen’s hot tub as “amusing. I thought it was a young college student having a little bit of fun.”

McDermott, who’s 6 feet 9 and 310 pounds, said he declined an invitation to take a dip in the hot tub before Rosen was forced to remove it.

“I was afraid I’d break the thing, I’d pop it,” McDermott said. “Or right when I’d get in, it would overflow.”

Rosen has spent more time at Mora’s Manhattan Beach home over the summer after showing up unannounced following a loss to USC last season, though he’s not always there to see his coach. Rosen and Mora’s daughter Lillia, a junior at USC, are close friends.

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Ben Bolch and Lindsey Thiry discuss how UCLA vetted defensive coordinator Tom Bradley, the Pac-12 media poll, which voted UCLA to win the South division, and quarterback Josh Rosen.

“Lillia and Josh are as thick as thieves and they’re together a lot,” Mora said.

The media picked UCLA to win the Pac-12 South, at least in part because of the return of Rosen after a freshman season in which he threw for 3,668 yards and 23 touchdowns. Mora said the selection of the Bruins surprised him because of the way his team finished last season with losses to USC and Nebraska. Those defeats prompted a switch to a defense formulated to stomp out the run and an offense designed to better accentuate Rosen’s strengths.

“When you have an intelligent quarterback like Josh,” Mora said, “what you want to do is give him the ability to change some things at the line of scrimmage that he sees, and so there will be times that we huddle, there will be times we get up to the line of scrimmage quickly and snap it right away, and there will be times we get up there quickly and we let him digest what he’s seeing on defense and get us in the right play.”

Of course, those audibles would require Rosen being able to say something.

ben.bolch@latimes.com

Twitter: latbbolch