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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 18, 2017

Justin Wilcox

Stanford, California

Stanford - 17, Cal - 14

Q. You talked all week about being prepared for the process, not getting caught up in Big Game stuff. Can you talk about how you thought your team related to that?
JUSTIN WILCOX: I thought they were prepared mentally, physically, and emotionally to play the game and I thought they came out and completed extremely hard. We played to win and we had our opportunities and that's why this one hurts so much. There's a few plays here or there, both sides of the ball, that could have changed the outcome of that game. It starts with me doing a better job making sure we got every answer we need and it hurts, because we had our chances and didn't seize it. So you've got to give Stanford a lot of credit. They're an excellent football team, really well coached, got really good players.

Q. The defensive effort was awfully good for you guys, didn't you think?
JUSTIN WILCOX: We didn't win the game. We had opportunities to get stops in the first half and some critical third downs. We need third down to be big. I don't know what the total possessions were on each side of the ball, but it wasn't a high-possession game. So we knew each and every possession would be so critical. And we had some opportunities to get some stops in the first half and, obviously, the fourth quarter got to be able to get off the field there and get the offense the ball back. Don't get me wrong, I love our guys and the way they compete. They played hard, played their butts off, and we just needed another play here or there, and we didn't quite have it.

Q. Do you think you might have concentrated to stopping Love so much that it hurt, because they hurt you with a lot of passes there. Do you think that one had something to do with the other?
JUSTIN WILCOX: Well, yeah. It's not every call can you stack the box and double the wide outs, right? So you're going to have to pick and choose. There's times, when you're playing Stanford, which, you know, and I could be wrong, but you got to commit to stopping the run, and we did that and he still hit us on a run. He's an excellent back, they had a great scheme. We knew we would have to win on the outside at times. And on some critical downs, and they completed some, our guys competed and we didn't quite just make enough plays. So we were trying to mix and match in coverages to take some pressure off the cover guys at times, but I can sit around and play cover two against Stanford, we got to mix it up and play the run.

Q. Did you consider running Laird more? He had a heck of a game?
JUSTIN WILCOX: He did have a heck of a game. We wanted to keep some balance, running and throwing, and we had our opportunities on offense and we can always look back and play here or there that you would like to have back, I mean I don't know there's ever been a game where you don't do that. But appreciate that and all that he's doing and our O line and our tight ends, quarterbacks, receivers, competing like they do, we just didn't quite get it done.

Q. Ross had the long one down the middle, how do you think he competed otherwise?
JUSTIN WILCOX: I thought Ross competed well. I thought he threw the ball on time for the most part and he is getting better each week. There's going to be some plays out there that he learns from. But I think you've seen the growth and he's just got to continue to get better and they're all, he hurts right now, like we all do, and we just got to learn and bounce back from it and we got a huge game next week.

Q. Speaking of that, maybe it's a little too soon, but what are your thoughts having to beat UCLA down there with so much on the line?
JUSTIN WILCOX: What do you mean?

Q. Well, I mean it's obviously a very big game for the program and after what you saw tonight do you feel pretty good about going down there?
JUSTIN WILCOX: Yeah, so tonight, for about 24 hours our guys are all going to hurt and it stings and we know that we got a ton to play for next week and we will have to play at our best against a really good team down there and we'll be back on that practice on Monday and we are going to have to have a great week of preparation, a little bit of a short week for both teams, but that's what it is and we got to back on it. And our guys will be ready to play. But this one, it will take 24 hours or so to Washington this one.

Q. Did you intend to use Laird as much as you did coming in or was that just the way it worked out?
JUSTIN WILCOX: We wanted to utilize him because he's a really good player. There's also certain looks that the defense gives you that can kind of dictate whether you're giving it on the run/pass option or some of the checks, the run/pass package plays, so based on what the defense is doing, we want to get him involved as much as we can but there's certain times where they put so many people in there that we're going to throw the football. And for the most part the guys did that well, just, again, there's a few plays here or there that can turn it and they made them.

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