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PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYJuly 24, 2012Johnathan FranklinTevin McDonaldJim MoraUNIVERSAL CITY, CALIFORNIA COACH MORA: We're excited to be here, and we're excited about the upcoming season, obviously have two outstanding athletes with me today, Johnathan Franklin and Tevin McDonald, and we're excited about the direction our team is heading in. We had a tremendous off‑season, and these guys have continued to work hard through the summer months. We came out of spring with, I think, a real firm belief in what we're doing offensively and defensively and overall and we're excited to get going here at the start of Augustand look forward to an exciting season where hopefully every game we get better, playing our best football at the end of the year and do things that make UCLA fans proud. Q. Jim‑‑ COACH MORA: Hi, John, how are you doing? It's been a while. Q. A few years. After so many years in the NFL what's your biggest adjustment going back to college and along with that, what's your take on coaching Tevin McDonald and Jerry Rice, Junior. COACH MORA: Remember Tevin and J.R. when they were 5 years olds and I'm now sitting here on this stage with a good‑looking young man. It's been fun to be around. I coached Tevin's dad when I was the defensive coordinator at SanFrancisco and Tevin was running around the locker room, gym rat, getting in trouble and he's grown into quite a football player. I've enjoyed the transition from the National Football League to UCLA. It's been a lot of fun and I think what has been really outstanding for me‑‑ that stands out for me is how much more involved in the lives of your student‑athletes you are at this level than you are in the National Football League. In the National Football League you're dealing with an older, probably a little more mature player that sometimes has a family of their own and they're well on their way in life. At this level you're dealing with student‑athletes that are still developing, you can have a little more influence on them, hopefully in a positive way. At this stage of my career and this stage of my life that's something I'm enjoying. I enjoy when these guys come in and they want to talk life and football and I think our responsibilities at this level will go beyond winning football games and we have a responsibility as coaches to help these young men develop into the men that their parents envision them becoming, and I take that seriously. It's been fun. Q. Coach mentioned restoring pride back to UCLA, is that something you guys lost last year and what steps have you taken so far to restoring it? JOHNATHAN FRANKLIN: It's been tough, coming off the season we did with the record we had but I feel like we're taking the right steps to putting UCLA on the map. Coach Mora comes with aggressiveness and we're working hard and getting better and if we do that everything else will fall into place. TEVIN McDONALD: Similar to what John said, Coach is here and instilling in us that we need to be accountable to ourselves and our teammates and that's something we might have been lacking the over the previous years and the accountability that can trickle down to beyond the field, too. We're trying to be more accountable to each other, be reliable, be there, be able to be counted on every Saturday. Q. Coach Mora, I wanted to know what are some of the things that you implemented into this program that they didn't have last season? COACH MORA: You know what? I don't know what they had or didn't have last season, that's not my concern. My concern is what we have now and going forward. I can tell you we're trying to implement and these guys have touched on it, three main things are toughness, discipline, and accountability. We're not looking at the past. We're looking toward the future. We want to be a football team that plays with great discipline and toughness and as Tevin mentioned, we are accountability to our team and our school and fan base and student body and go out and represent all that's great with UCLA every time we step into the classroom or walk out into the community. Q. Coach, there has been a lot of talk about the differences between the NFL and the NCAA, but how has your NFL experience helped you come in and start the process? COACH MORA: I don't know. I think all of these student‑athletes probably at some level have the aspiration to play in the National Football League, so I think you walk in with credibility because you've spent your career in the NFL and you have to earn that credibility every day you are around them. But I believe it's the staff I put together that is really‑‑ has helped us. Our coaching staff has done it at the highest level and we've got 98 years of NFL playing and coaching experience. We have six Super Bowl rings on our staff, coached 16 Hall of Famers, and 100‑something Pro Bowl appearances and yet we're grounded, inside from myself, in college football and I think our players have taken to that wealth of experience. Guys that‑‑ when Steve Broussard coaches Johnathan Franklin he knows he is being coached by a guy that played in the NFL, had success, was drafted in the first round and when he tells him something he knows there is something to it. When Lou Spanos tells Tevin he needs to do something, he can show him Troy Palamalo doing it, and there is something to that, isn't there? TEVIN McDONALD: Yes. COACH MORA: And that's something you can't get everywhere. Q. Coach, what was the thought behind going out to SanBernardino and what were your thoughts about leaving campus to do so? COACH MORA: My thoughts were simply that I wanted us to be in an environment where we were isolated as a football team. I think it's important as we start this journey that we get to know each other very well. What's a little different about college football than pro football is at the end of the day during training camp some of these guys would go back to their apartments and I don't want that. I want us to be in an environment where if we're going to talk to somebody it's going to be a teammate or coach. If we're going to go out and do something fun together it's going to be with a teammate or a coach. I don't want girlfriend's there. I don't want friends there. I don't want parents there. I want our football team to be together for two weeks where we can bond, work together, get to know each other better so when we hit the rough patches in the road that are inevitable in any season we know we can depend on each other and we know about each other. JOHNATHAN FRANKLIN: Similar to what Coach said, I think it's great for us to develop as a team and another way for us to gain accountability with each other, no distractions, I think it's great for our team and I think it's going to help us out down the road. TEVIN McDONALD: I agree with these two. Something new, something we haven't done before, but it comes with buying into what we're doing, what Coach Mora is bringing and we have been moving in the right direction since the transition, so I'm excited to head to SanBernardino. Q. Coach, can you talk about the quarterback situation, spring game at the Rose Bowl you had five quarterbacks rotating in and out? COACH MORA: We're excited about our quarterback situation. Our initial thought was we would have liked to have made a decision on who our starters going to be coming out of spring practice and we were looking for someone to jump out of the pack and that didn't happen but when I reflected on it, I realized it didn't happen because the whole pack elevated. So what we have decided to do is wait until we're two weeks into our summer camp and then make our decision. At that point we will make a decision and be firm with that decision and move forward. Regardless of what who we decide to go with, I think it will be the right person and they will do a tremendous job for us this year. Obviously the quarterback is a very, very important position on the field, they handle the football in every single snap, they start the play, they're your leader, but they're still just part of the team and we're going to put a heck of a team around whoever our starting quarterback is. Q. Tevin how involved, if at all, is your father in your career, do you talk to him regularly about the position that you play, also the position they played? TEVIN McDONALD: I would say he's pretty involved. He's been involved in football and my career my whole life. He was my high school coach, my Pop Warner coach and now we have a good relationship talking about what's going on the field, what am I seeing out there. Just all‑around game, how I'm playing, how I'm moving and what I'm seeing and he's pretty involved in that. COACH MORA: Tim was the smartest football player I ever coached and his son is a lot like him. Q. Tevin, can you comment on your brother T.J.'s play and how much do you guys compare stats? TEVIN McDONALD: We haven't compared stats that much. This past year was my first year playing. I got my first start the fourth week, so I was a little behind. But I know he's a hell of a player, one of the better safeties playing right now in college so just being able to call him my brother, playing against him, learning from him is a blessing to me. Q. Johnathan, we have been collecting Facebook and Twitter questions and they want to know as a leader of your team do you believe that this year will be different from the previous years you've been at UCLA and if so what makes it different? JOHNATHAN FRANKLIN: As a leader you have to look at the best in yourself and in the team and all you can do is work hard. As a leader you have to make everybody around you better and you have to be accountable and we have to push each other and I feel like every day we come out and work hard and we will accomplish the things we want to. Q.  How are you going to use Ellis McCarthy? Will he be used in certain pass situations or are you planning on baptism by fire and throwing him in there? COACH MORA: That's a tough question. I don't know, I haven't seen him play at this level yet. What's important is as we go through camp we assess what the best way to use him is. I don't know what that will be yet, he might be a starter, might be a role player, he might play on third down, might play in all of those situations. The goal is to get your most reliable and productive players on the field as much as you can and that's what we will do. It's hard to be definitive about his role at this point. Q. Your predecessor, Rick Neuheisel had a way with dealing with his cross‑town rival. What is your approach, the way you want to deal with USC? How are you going to handle it? COACH MORA: Well my concern is UCLA and this team being the best football team that we can be. I think it's a big mistake as a coach‑‑ and I understand the fans and the media's perspective because it is a unique and lively rivalry but I think as a coach and as a football team what's important is you keep your focus on the game you're getting ready to play. I think it's important you keep your focus on the practice you're getting ready to participate in and that's our approach. We're going to go out and be the best team we can be and our focus is going to be on the present. When we get to the game where we play Southern Cal, we will do that but right now that would only be a distraction for us, because right now it's about UCLA football. Q. Coach, can you talk about Steven Manfro and how he's going to add to your backfield? COACH MORA: Steven was a surprise. Was he to you guys? He was to me. Spring practice he did something every day that caught your eye. He's much like Johnathan, he operates well out of the backfield as a running back, you can hand him the ball inside and he can cut and slash. He has speed to get around the edge and he has good hands so you can work some match‑ups on linebackers. This is our workhorse right here and we're going to ride him to death but it's always good to have guys that you can put in when and if he gets tired and can still‑‑ you won't? Not getting tired are you? JOHNATHAN FRANKLIN: No. COACH MORA: And still have an impact on your football team and affect the game. So we're excited about Steven. Q. The last couple of years they have been implementing here the pistol offense to get the running game going partly because there seemed to be problems with the passing game. I suspect and most suspect that's going to be changing, the pistol element but how will you revamp the offense and maintain the same level of running productivity? COACH MORA: Well, our offense doesn't have a name. We don't want to peg ourselves as a "west coast" offense or a "wish bone" offense or "spread offense" or anything else. Our objective is to create opportunities for our players to display their individual talents. We are going to try to get our playmakers the ball in space and let 'em do one‑on‑one match‑ups and try to win. I think Noel Mazzone is extremely bright. He does not have an ego. His ego is to get these guys doing what they do best. We'll spread the field, go fast, play hard, every week we might look a little bit different, inning you have a core Septemberof concepts that you believe in, fundamentals that you believe in but every week you have to adapt it to the opponent you're playing and try to take advantage of the weaknesses they might display.  FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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