Offensive Coordinator/Offensive Line Coach Justin Frye chatted with the voice of UCLA football, Josh Lewin, in an exclusive event for season-ticket holders. They were able to submit questions ahead of time and watch live.

on staying ready for the season despite unknowns

Frye: "Yeah, we've had a lot of good meetings with the kids, and we're staying connected as much as we can, but the biggest thing we told these guys… we talked to Inky Johnson a couple weeks ago. Chip (head coach Chip Kelly) had him on, talked to the team. The story's going to end. We just don't know when. So, are they going to be ready for it?

"That's kind of the approach we're taking with the kids. You're training at home, and you're running, you're conditioning, you're lifting, you're doing your schoolwork. We don't know when the endgame's coming, but it'll end at some point. So, are you being ready for that right now, or are you waiting on that?

That's kind of the fight that I think everybody's doing in their own arena. We're just doing it with the kids at home, trying to stay in shape and get bigger, stronger, and faster with football without being at the Wasserman (Football Center) right now."

on his previous coaching experiences and how they shaped him into who he is today

Frye: "A little bit of everything, I think you pick and choose good and bad from wherever you've been. That's what I've always learned. Even my days all the way back as a player; that's how you evolve as a person and as a coach. But the biggest thing that I took from starting [at] Indiana and going from Indiana to Florida was—we were elite of elite at that time, two national titles in five years that they had done with Coach Meyer (head coach Urban Meyer) and with Steve (Addazio) and with some of the other people that I worked with—so, seeing top-end, top-notch talent and how they got there and how the development of that was really good for me to see early in my career. As you move along and you start building your own book of work, you try to stick to that.

"There's no real secret sauce, or there's nothing magical about it. You've got to develop good players, and you've got to recruit good players and the higher-end talent that you can get, as long as you continue to develop and coach those guys, that's when it climbs the rung. So, being around the Pounceys, being able to see what first-round talent looks like early in my career was a really good gauge.

"Now moving ahead getting into the 10, 11, 12—whatever years it's been now—moving forward of, OK, now you know what that looks like, you've seen it, it's good for you, so you're looking for that again. And then it's really good for the kids you're coaching to where you have a good, as I said, a book of works saying, '[We've] seen what it takes to get there.

"Follow us. Let us teach you there, let us take you there. Let's work together to get there.' That was a big thing I took early on from Mike and Maurkice (Pouncey), and Marcus Gilbert's still playing, Mo Hurt, was a seventh-round draft pick. We had a lot of good players there. And that just followed on through to Temple; we had a draft pick and a couple of free-agent guys. And then Boston College, having a chance to work with those guys. And now just what we're developing and building here. We're going to have the same thing."

on importance of continuity

Frye: "Yeah, just comfort, continuity comes with a little bit of comfort, right? Finding different buttons to push and being able—the biggest thing is when you can really recruit a kid, you get into their home, you get into their school, and you're a bit into them early, and then, as I said, the growth and development. Because our position is different than any other position, it's the most developmental position in the football field.

"I mean, every year in the draft and every year you see kids playing at the end: 'He started at 238 pounds,' 'He was long and gangly,' 'This guy was a tight end.' And then, all of a sudden, it's development. That's not knocking any other position; they all take coaching, but for the offensive-line position. So, the continuity of just hearing the same scheme year after year, the same terminology, the same verbiage, all those things that go into it, it allows a kid to bite on and latch on to something so that they can continue to grow in their own way."

on maintaining relationships during times of COVID-19

Frye: "Yeah, I mean, what we're really missing—and this is going back to the kids—we're trying to keep it in the scope of what's actually being missed. We missed those last 12 practices of spring ball. You can't really replace those: the physical, the putting on the pads, the formations, and those things. You can't simulate that at home. But your lifting, your running, your schoolwork, your conditioning—they're just doing it in a different arena. Different venue.

"Recruiting now is the same one. This is the first thing where we're really missing where you get to go out in the spring. You can't contact the kid. This is still just an evaluation period, but seeing a kid that on his fall tape and in the wintertime was a 245-pound kid, and all of a sudden, now you show up in spring evaluation, and he's 260. He hit another growth spurt. Or you see some things on film that you like, but you want to validate some other things.

"So, you're trying to find some different ways for the evaluation component to do that, whether it has them send in workout videos, staying connected with the coaches. That's what we're working through from an evaluation standpoint.

"The relationship thing hasn't changed much because we couldn't go home visit, anyway. You miss some getting on campus for the unofficial visits in spring. That was something we do a really good job of. That's the face-to-face you don't get with them. But from a contact standpoint, you were Facetiming and calling and doing that, anyway. You're trying to stay up with that and building good relationships with the kids.

"It's just a matter of them on campus, and you are going out to their campus and seeing them. That's what we're going to start missing here in the next few weeks."

on Devin Asiasi being drafted by New England Patriots and his development throughout his career

Frye: "Yeah, all of those guys, you have to learn. You never stop growing. You're getting better. You're winning, or you're learning, as we say, and all of those things. It's going to be a great opportunity for him to go to that organization with the control that they have there through the past, just with, you'd say the New England Patriots and you think an organization, right?

"You think of Belichick (head coach Bill Belichick), there are some names in there, but when you say New England Patriots, you think of the organization and the team and all the successes they've had. So, going in there with Coach (Josh) McDaniels and his offensive system where they've used tight ends a bunch in the past. If he goes in and bites in and learns the system and learns the Patriot way, as we've all heard, then he's got a chance to grow and have a really good career."

on Joshua Kelley

Frye: "The biggest thing with him and you talk to a lot of people around the league when they're going through their process because they vet through it just like we do in recruiting and all the questions would come back to him as 'Is that really him?' The guy we saw in the meetings and the interviews, is that him every day? And with great conviction, you can respond, 'Yes!' That's as real as real gets with him. His smile, his spark, the way the gets around him just kind of gravitate to him, the way he can be very candid and upfront in DeShaun's (running backs coach DeShaun Foster) meeting room with those guys like, 'Guys, I'm looking at this,' or DeShaun can ask him, and those younger guys listen, say 'OK.'

"Couldn't be happier for all the guys that went and other guys that free-agent deals that got shots. But yeah, I think Josh being able to stay local so then his family being—you know, the journey he went through of, everybody knows his story, how he got here, how he started two years ago and we benched him and then he came back and responded through that.

"And now, being able to just be right up the road from that—that's awesome. And he is all of that. If anyone's questioning that out there, what you see with him is what you get. A loving, caring, passionate kid that plays with great energy and conviction, and he's just happy to be around the guys and have success for the team and then, obviously, with that great team success, then you get individual honors, and that's what draft picks have."

on Atonio Mafi moving to offensive line and how he looks early

Frye: "He's going to be fine. He's a smart kid. He's a tough kid. He was all in, invested in the move. Just like we talked before, the development of the offensive line—now he played it in high school, which was good, so it's not a complete foreign animal to him—we just need reps, we need time. He's got to be into the system.

"Obviously, losing spring hurt everybody, but especially for a new guy like that. But he'll be fine. He's another kid—he's a physical, tough, smart kid… really important to him. He stepped right into the room and he was jelling with all the guys.

"That's what you have to do, as much as anything else. You need great players, you need good people, but your room has to be strong. It makes the coaches look good when we have more success when we change. But it's all about the kids in the seats.

"That sounds so cliché and whatever, but it's the truth. So, adding a good kid and a good person and a good football player into the room is going to do nothing but benefit him and us."

on how he plans to fill holes left by players who left

Frye: "We're going to play the five best, and so that's the nature of this business, too. You could name Boss (Tagaloa). You could name guys that I've coached in the past that you had, and you lose—however you lose them, graduation, injuries, decisions to move on—we're going to play the five best.

"We're going to coach them really hard, they're going to buy in, and the guys that go out and play are going to be the ones that are ready to go. You can't worry about what went away. Now you've got to worry about what's in the room.

"It's the same in recruiting; you can't worry about the ones you miss out on, you've got to worry about the ones you get. Our room—what is our room? Our room's great. I love our meetings right now. We're completely accountable.

"I have no worries about my phone going off with some BS coming over the airwaves that someone didn't do this, or I didn't do this. Right now, our issues are they're agitated because they're running out of plates in their gym garage, and they want to be lifting more. Things like that, and that takes time, too.

"You can have a flash in the pan and correct it instantly with however you do that or you can build something. And that's what we're doing right now in our room. And I love our room. I love our guys, I love our room, I love their mentality, their mindset and I love the way that they're really taking the ownership in them. That's why I know, moving ahead, we'll be fine."

on if five best offensive linemen could include a walk-on

Frye: "Yeah, you see that, go back to Josh Kelley, right? You're going to play your best. Well, there was a guy that was a walk-on and footed the bill and then ends up in the fourth round of the draft.

"We say the five best, that doesn't necessarily mean that if the starting right guard goes down, then the backup right guard goes in the game. If that's your eighth- or ninth-best guy, you're not sliding him in.

"Maybe you slide your right tackle down and put the backup right tackle because he's No. 6 on the depth chart. You're in dreamland, though, if you're saying 'Oh, I've got nine or ten guys that can play and there's no dropoff.' That doesn't happen.

"Even those days we talked about in the past where we've had a lot of draft picks. You like to get to seven, eight guys that can go in the game that you can function with. And then, however you maneuver those guys is based on injuries, rotation, depth, whatever the case may be of 'Are we splitting reps with two guards are going to play in this game'—I don't know any of that yet. Those are all things that I've done in the past."

on his background, how his father played for Lee Corso and if he has met Lee

Frye: "I met him a couple of times. They had a Holiday Bowl reunion, I think the last one I saw Lee, I was maybe right before high school. Got a good picture of me and my old man and him together at one of the reunions after a game.

"Backtracking quickly to (Kris) Dielman. Kris Dielman was one of my hosts on my official visit. So, I love Kris. It was a great weekend and showed us all about Indiana and Bloomington.

"And then my first snap, I moved from d-line to o-line and Kris was a 3-tech my senior year and we went to inside run 907 and I remember trying to double team him on a power and he flipped his hips and head slapped me. Clubbed me. And I open my eyes, and I'm seeing cross-eyed like 'What the hell? What just happened right there?'

"So, that's my Dielman story. I was probably the only kid in Indiana that grew up that wanted to go to IU to play football, not basketball. I'd been around it like I said. With Coach (Bill) Mallory there for years and I got to know him with Bill before he passed. And then my dad was teammates with Cam Cameron when they played for Lee (Corso).

"They won the Holiday Bowl, beat BYU, I think it was in '80 or '81 out there in San Diego. A lot of fond memories growing up before I even got out there as a player."

on how things have evolved when it comes to offensive-line techniques

Frye: "It's the basics. I'd like to tell you that there's something magical about it, but at the end of the day, the offensive line's the best position because you get to move a defender against his will. And so how do you do that? You're hip to hip, and you've got your feet in the ground, you're driving your legs. Some might call a step a left step, some might call it a tough step. It's all verbiage.

"At the end of the day, you've got to move the downs. You've got to play physical, and you've got to play fundamentally sound. Now, techniques will vary based on what style of run play or scheme you're doing. You use some more combo stuff versus a double team, maybe some gallop steps and those things, but once again, that's the same thing, there's a bunch of different ways to do it.

"It's like plays, Josh [Lewin]. No coach has ever gotten on the board and drawn up a play and be like 'Man, that play's awful. We're going to go run that play.' Just doesn't exist, right? It's the execution of those things.

"Blocking's really similar to that, and you're not going to get too far. How do you double team and how do you get there? At the end of the day, we've got to be like this, and we've got to move the down, and when a backer steps up, we've got to block him. It's relying—I tell my guys all the time—you've got to let your technique take you home.

"That means at the end of the third quarter and the fourth quarter, you're fatigued, and he's fatigued. Who can hang on to the technique and the fundamentals the longest and the highest is generally the guy that comes out on top."

on how often a player will practice well and forget everything on game day and how frustrating that is

Frye: "It can be frustrating, but that's why you rep and that's why you show those guys. You become just a creature of habit and put those, as we say, and I talk about, 'You put those tools in the toolbox.' And you never know when you've got to pull that tool out, but it's got to be polished during the week so that if I need that wrench, that special wrench on that situation that I'm pulling it out. It's harder [with] younger guys, just because of the speed of the game.

"You can't simulate the game all the way up, every drill of every practice or every rep. So, I think with young guys sometimes, when you get that first flash on the first snap of a real game, all of a sudden, it's like 'Whoa, this is what they were talking about' or "This is what I have to get up to.'

"Generally, if a guy's mentally tough enough and strong enough and systematically good enough to have a good week and build up, then they're going to perform when the lights are on or when the ball's teed up."

on why he got into coaching and if it's too have an outlet for these things in his head

Frye: "I've actually never heard it that way. Maybe a little bit. But no, I grew up, like you said, my dad played at Indiana and then he was a high-school coach. He was my head coach. He was a teacher and a coach.

"So, I grew up around the game. And really, when I got towards high school, I started learning how to watch film from him. We would be the family where we would have the coaches over on a Friday night after the game, have the potluck. Everybody [would] eat and hang out. They'd leave, and then he and I would throw the game tape on.

"So, kind of growing up, junior high and high school, 'What are you looking for, Dad?' 'I should have gone with this, it was Cover 2.' Just getting around the X's and O's of that really sparked it.

"And then when I went to college, once I got to college and I really saw the intricacies of fronts and formations and shifts and all those things. Al Borges—I played for Al Borges—and Al was at UCLA, he coached DeShaun Foster, who was out here.

"Getting into some of the West Coast stuff that we did, it really sparked an interest that way. And then I think the personality—it just grows. That's all I've ever known. I'm not trying to be anybody else other than myself, but I'm also picking and stealing little things from every place that I've been around—whether it be coaches, players, kids—whoever that is.

"And then I think, just from a coaching standpoint, if you're just a bump on a log and you show no passion or energy or anything to your kids, then the kid's sitting there in the meeting room in his seat like, well, it doesn't fire him up, so, maybe, why is it firing me up?

"And on the flip side, they don't have to emulate me just like I said. But I want them to feel from me—if they can't do it or don't understand it, I pride myself on being able to show them. Now, it won't be as fast or as physical as they want, but I like coaching hands-on. I like being around the guys, and I like them to feel like you're saying, that energy because I love it. It's passion. It's important to me. And so that's why I coach that way."

on having smart offensive linemen and their GPA as a group

Frye: "It was above 3.0 this last quarter. Think about that that the room in itself was over 3.0, which I've never had. That's awesome."

on his favorite football memories

Frye: "Here, honestly, it's been the building of the relationships off the field. Our staff room. You go around with, I sit next to Dana (Bible) and Derek (Sage) and DeShaun (Foster) and Jimmie (Dougherty) and then our young coaches that are in there. And then Chip [Kelly], obviously, being in there. We've got a really good staff of people on top of everything else.

"Guys have won a lot of games and Dana Bible—I used to tell him all the time—he's coached longer than I've been alive. So, for me to sit in that room with him and we'd be able to talk shop and talk ball is awesome because we've just got good people around all the time in the building.

"So, that's the best part of this place—the day-to-day workplace. The kids, as you said, we're recruiting to the team that we want to build through the vision of Chip. And it's really awesome. Our rooms are coming together that way, and that's part of developing and growing those things, I think.

"The SC game, last year in the Rose Bowl, when Josh ran for all those yards was a huge deal. When you win that game, you do have memories. I remember Devin Asiasi running over and double pointing at me, hugging after the game. Andre James, after he battled through the Arizona game with losing his father and coming over. We just hugged after the game.

"There's a bunch of things already here in a short time here that I've really added to my mental scrapbook. Thinking back, I like to think of big events in all the places. I had a kid in Florida, we had a kid in Philly, I had two kids in Boston. And so all those places are special [in] different ways.

"The Red Bandana Game at Boston College when we beat SC. They were ranked eighth or ninth in the country and we played them on an evening game and the Welles Crowther game. It's a big deal. If people haven't heard of that, just look at the Tom Rinaldi Welles Crowther deal. But a 9/11 hero who I named my youngest son after. His name's Welles because of that. It's a really cool story.

"At Indiana, the year after Coach Hep (Terry Hoeppner) died—our coach died—we beat Purdue, our rivalry game, on a last-second field goal. I still get goosebumps thinking about that. It's a rivalry game.

"So, there's a bunch of really cool things that, honestly, you have to enjoy when you are in coaching because it's so hard. You think of all the other things when, in every business, people are away from their kids and you do this.

"But that's why you do what you do, so you can celebrate with good people and your team and your teammates and your other coaches when you have a ton of success, and you have special moments like that. You have to embrace… it can't just be another win or another victory. You're going to have some of those, and you should have good memories of those things. If you do it the right way."

on if he feels that team is close to success

Frye: "Yeah, we feel really good about where we're headed. Just all the things you said. We recruited the right kids in the right way. The development's there with Frank (Wintrich) and the weight room and all those things. Feel really good about the direction we're headed.

"As you said, you'd love to have more insight because of spring ball… we don't have all that, but just in the grand scope, the big scheme of things, yes, absolutely. We're recruiting the right way, we're around the right type of people, we've got the right systems in place, and yeah, we feel really good."

on one or two guys to look for next season

Frye: "You can't really pick one guy. The hope's everybody that had a good year the year before—you want to look at a Kyle Philips. He came on the scene last year. How high can he go? Demetric Felton. How high can he go? But then behind him, you've got Kaz (Allen), you've got Martell (Irby), you've got Jahmon McClendon.

"There's a ton of guys that will have the opportunity, if they perform, to go out—the skillset's there. It's just a matter—like you said before—of going out and performing. You can't pinpoint one guy. We're just excited to keep building and growing as a whole, and hopefully, there's a lot of names that start popping up in the fall."

on what he will be doing during downtime when the world gets back to normal

Frye: "Back to normal. The big thing for me—we work really hard for the summertime. We get our vacation in July, so I like going back home. We go to Indiana. We've got a little lake house at home. Getting out, just being around family, hanging with the kids, whatever that may be.

"Last year, we try to do a big trip, as much as we can. We took an RV last summer and drove through the state of California. We went to Big Sur, we went to Yosemite, we went to the Sequoias National Park, we went up to Lake Tahoe. We just kind of drove around the state. But July, what I live for is July.

"Work really hard, you recruit really hard, you coach really hard, so that that way, in the summertime, you can—with the screaming kids I'm sure you can hear in the background—so you can go spend a whole month with them and recharge your batteries before you get back.

"I like to golf, but there's never enough time. I get just enough of it in the summer. [By the] time you put the sticks up, they want you to come back the next summer… I like "The Office," I like "Modern Family." I'll binge-watch those, the seasons of those things. My wife's into "The Ozarks" right now on Netflix. I guess it's a Netflix deal."

on his children

Frye: "The oldest… I have a nine-, an eight-, a five- and a two-year-old. Kevin's the oldest. Named him after my father, so you've got another Kevin Michael Frye coming through. He plays sports. He's into flag football. You know what? He tells me quite a bit, he's like 'Dad, is it OK if I play defense? I like d-line.' You know, I said, 'That's fine.' For now. He's got no chance. He's going to be a giant, and so, he's probably going to be on the good side of the ball, on offense. His team was the Panthers this year, Carolina Panthers, and so we told DeShaun (Foster). We talked it up… they ended up losing in the playoffs, so he was like 'Coach Fos, we lost, man. I'm sorry.' So, that was pretty cool.

"I have one girl, Zoe. Our daughter. She's eight, going on 18. She's got it all figured out, man, but she's great. She's got personality, and she's fun, she's athletic, plays sports—basketball, softball. They're normal nine- and eight-year-olds running around, getting in trouble, arguing a little bit.

"And then the two younger ones are, Max is five—he just turned five—and then Welles is two. He'll be three in September. They're hip to hip all the time, whether they're causing mischief or hanging out, watching shows or playing, and having fun. But just a lot of fun. Keeps my wife really busy because then you add the dog on top of us and me, so she's looking after five of us, six of us. It's just fun—a lot of fun.

"I'm around as much as I can with football. And when I'm there, you've got to be the dad. If you can sit in the office and watch one more clip or you can catch the last two innings of a baseball game, you go watch the last two innings of the baseball game. I learned that a long time ago.

"One of the coaches I worked for said, 'Your wife, she knew what she was getting into in this profession, but you brought your kids into this. So, anytime you can do something added or extra for those guys, you owe that to them because they didn't choose this life.' I always kind of took that to heart with any extra stuff we can do with them."