Spaulding Report: UCLA Football Coach Fisch Expects Josh Rosen to Play in Cactus Bowl

UCLA Football Interim Coach Jedd Fisch met with the media yesterday for the first time in a few weeks as the Bruins begin to prepare in earnest for the Cactus Bowl and Fisch addressed the team’s quarterback situation early in his interview. Fisch said:

Quarterbacks don’t have contact [in practice]. So, we can continue to assess that when the contact occurs, but, right now, [Josh Rosen will] just practice as well as everybody else. Right now, we’re planning on him playing and he’s just going to take all the reps as such. He has to be cleared for contact by the doctors at some point in time.

With finals taking place last week, Fisch noted that grades have not posted yet and he doesn’t know if anyone will be ineligible to play next week, but he did say that none of the injured players like Nate Starks and Matt Dickerson would be back to play in the game.

Fisch refused to discuss his future job status despite the rumors that have surfaced that Fisch is a candidate to become the next offensive coordinator at Missouri.

“As of today from now until the 26th, my full focus will be on coaching this team to win the game,” Fisch said. “There’s going to be a bunch of teams that are out there. There’ll be some rumors out there, but, really, I want to just focus in on these guys right now and, then, when the time is right to talk about the next move, I will be sure to let you guys know what that will be.”

Fisch also addressed how the team will handle coaching the defense leading up to the Cactus Bowl, which became an issue when Coaches Scott White and Demetrice Martin were let go last week.

“We have our graduate assistants and Coach Bradley,” Fisch said. “Fortunately for us, Coach Bradley's on his 340th year of coaching. So, he's able to coach all position groups and has done that.”

Fisch, then, explained what he meant in more detail. “In all of his years, I mean, Coach Bradley has coached D-Line, has coached linebackers, and has coached secondary,” he said. “Angus is here as well. So, Coach Bradley will probably take on more of a role with the linebacker corps. We have Dalton Hilliard here who's been in all the DB meeting rooms. We have Kyle Weiss who's been in all the linebacker meetings and those guys will be the day-to-dayers with Coach Bradley and that's how we'll make that thing work.”

Here’s the full video of Coach Fisch’s interview, courtesy of Thuc Nhi Nguyen of InsideSoCal.

Thanks again to Thuc Nhi for the video.

Go Bruins!!!