Published Oct 24, 2022
Chip Kelly addresses defensive breakdowns 'at all three levels' vs. Oregon
Tracy McDannald
Staff writer

The No. 12-ranked UCLA football program, fresh off its first loss of the season this past weekend, was behind schedule to open Monday morning’s practice.

But once head coach Chip Kelly emerged and the players trickled onto the field 15 minutes past Kelly’s scheduled media session, things were business as usual for a team that Kelly noted had not lost a game in 357 days.

In fact, Kelly told his players that as they walked through the tunnel immediately after the 45-30 loss on the road at now-No. 8 Oregon this past Saturday.

The Bruins, particularly on defense, allowed a season-worst 545 yards of total offense and scores on each of the first seven drives.

Kelly said the issues “were breakdowns at all three levels at certain times.”

“It wasn’t just one thing that stood out that was this position or this player,” Kelly continued. “It’s a combination of everybody playing together. It’s about making corrections and moving forward and getting ready for Stanford. We just had good meetings with our players and we watch the film like we normally do every week. It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, there’s still corrections that have to be made on a weekly basis, and that’s what we did in our meetings.”

RELATED: Watch Chip Kelly's full interview Monday before practice

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As for specifics, Kelly said it varied based on individual plays but that there were “communication issues on a couple of them.”

“So we’ll get this taken care of,” Kelly said.

It was Kelly’s first in-person look at Ducks quarterback Bo Nix, who threw for five touchdowns and had the offense moving at will en route to throwing for 283 yards. If not for a final throwaway toward the end zone on the game’s final play as the clock expired, the Auburn transfer would have finished with as many incompletions as touchdowns.

The defense failed to make a stop on all three Oregon fourth-down attempts and half of the 12 third-down situations.

Still, Kelly said, nothing in Nix’s play surprised the staff in the preparation last week.

“They’re all correctable mistakes on our part,” Kelly said.

“Everything [Oregon] ran in the game, they had run against everyone else during the season.”

If there was such a thing as a standout performer on defense for such a performance, safety Mo Osling III had a career-high 17 tackles.

Kelly, however, wants to see lower totals from someone lined up in the secondary and more production from the linebackers and linemen to get the “tackles evened out.”

“You shouldn’t have a free safety make 17 tackles,” Kelly said, “but that also is a credit to Mo and the type of backstop that he is back there. I think he’s playing football at a really, really high level right now. … But I don’t think that’s a recipe for success as you move forward — unless you’re blitzing your free safety every play and he has 17 tackles, then that’s a good thing. But we weren’t blitzing Mo every single play.”

No defensive players were made available to the media after Monday’s practice.

Kickoff at Arizona State TBD

The Pac-12 Conference announced just three kickoff times and network coverage for Week 10 games on Monday morning.

UCLA’s road contest at Arizona State on Nov. 5 was among three games — all featuring currently ranked teams — that have yet to be announced. The decision will come no later than Sunday, the league announced.