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Kyle Whittingham Weekly Press Conference: UCLA
8/25/2025 12:07 PM | Football
SALT LAKE CITY – University of Utah head football coach Kyle Whittingham held his weekly press conference on Monday with members of the media inside the Spence and Cleone Eccles Football Center.
Selected quotes from Coach Whittingham can be seen below. Click here for the full press conference video.
Opening Statement…
The season is here. Going down to the Rose Bowl in five days for a game against the Bruins. [Their] program is very familiar to us, although I would venture to say probably 90% of the players are different from when we played them two years ago the last time, and so, even though we're very familiar with the venue and the program, it'll be very new as far as personnel and the guys we're going to face. We know they have a new offensive coordinator who came from Indiana, so a lot of film study on the Indiana scheme last year. [Their] defensive coordinator is back, new special teams coordinator, big, strong, athletic quarterback, [who] transferred from Tennessee. Like any opener, there's a lot of unknowns. Even when you're playing a team that has had very little turnover, there's still a lot of unknowns and things that you're going to have to adjust for in-game and not at halftime. There may be some adjustments we have to make and very likely in the first quarter and typically in an opener teams that do the best job of that have the best chance of winning. Hopefully we're on our game as far as that goes.
On what he thinks this team's identity will be…
Well, there's a lot of new faces, I can tell you that. 50% of the guys we got weren't part of what went on last year, but we're excited about things we're doing on offense. It's a new scheme and a new quarterback and I think there'll be, hopefully, some good stuff there. [The] defense has been very solid all through fall camp, although they've had some difficulty stopping the offense at times. Hopefully, that's a good indicator for an offense, but you never know what you're going to get until you line up and play somebody else. You can only learn so much playing against yourselves. I know our guys that were here last year and went through that debacle, I guess, for lack of a better word, are excited to get back on the field and get going and try to make a better showing.
On the importance of establishing an offensive identity in week one…
We know who we want to be and what the scheme entails and what the emphasis is, but it'll also be an evolution. That's just how it is when you have again, half a new team. You don't know a whole lot about a lot of the guys and you have to see how they react in the game situation and who starts to come on and make plays. Every year, it seems to be a couple, two or three guys will really surprise you and a couple guys that you thought were going to be able to count on don't produce as well.
On what gives him confidence in Tobias Merriweather…
What we've seen in practice gives us confidence. He's got a big catch radius, 6 foot 5 or close to it, 200 pounds. [He's] a very smooth athletic guy, runs real well, and has a real knack for playing the contested ball, as you would expect with a guy with that frame. What we've seen in practice has been very encouraging, but again, you have to do it on game day.
On UCLA's defensive front…
They're good up front. No. 58, I believe is the number, is their best guy, an interior guy. He's a really good d[efensive] tackle and UCLA, you know they're going to have big, strong, athletic guys. They always do. They always have ever since we joined the Pac-12. They never have a shortage of athletes or physicality, so it'll be a big challenge for our guys, but again, I stand by that, on paper, this is the best offensive line we've had. We've got to go out and prove it, but you have two guys that are hopefully high draft choices and three seniors inside. There's no reason why we shouldn't be very solid up front and that's really the starting point for the offense this year is leaning on that offensive line.
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