Spaulding Report: UCLA Offensive Line Looks to be “Technically Sound”

UCLA Football was back on the field yesterday afternoon and, after practice, new offensive line coach Hank Fraley met with the media for the first time.

During his interview, he explained his basic coaching philosophy. One thing he spoke about is the importance of effort. “The one thing I think you can control, I tell my boys, my kids all the time, is you can control your effort,” Fraley said. “You may not get it right all the time and you may not even be the best, but your effort can always be high in there and that’s something you can always control.”

Unlike new offensive coordinator Jedd Fisch, Fraley said that he did watch film from last season as well as training camp and Spring ball because he wanted to learn about all the guys he’d be coaching including those who weren’t able to play in games. “You can see what was good and what was bad,” he said. “It happens all over football.”

He said that, as he watched the films, he wrote down what each guy did well and what they need to improve upon. He explained:

[Y]ou’re a teacher at the end of the day....I’m a believer in technique. You need to be technically sound. You don’t have to be the best all the time. You don’t have to be the best at all, but if you’re technically sound, you give yourself a chance.

So, UCLA’s new offensive line coach thinks it’s important to actually teach and develop the players he is coaching. Hopefully, that teaching and development will result in better offensive line play in the Fall.

All of today’s videos are courtesy of Ed Lewis of the Bruin Sports Report. Here’s the video of Coach Fraley’s interview.

New offensive coordinator Jedd Fisch met with the media for the second time this Spring. Overall, he seemed pleased with the progress the offense is making. “The best execution has probably come the last two practices,” Fisch said.

Fisch also spoke about some of the little details he’s emphasizing offensively. Fisch said:

We’re trying to demand a certain tempo in and out of the huddle. We’re trying to demand the way you call a play. We’re trying to teach [Josh Rosen] and all out quarterbacks when you walk into a huddle what your presence should look like. There’s moxie when you leave a huddle. There’s a way you leave a huddle. There’s a way you call a play in the huddle. And, there’s an ownership and you have to be an expert. We want to train our quarterbacks to be NFL quarterbacks. That is the mentality. So, to do that, we are going to hold them to a standard.

Again, it’s nice to hear that we have coaching where the little details count. When the little details matter, the bigger details take care of themselves.

It’s something that the team has desperately needed for the last five years.

Coach Fisch mentioned that most of the offensive starting spots are still open. He indicated that 8 of the 11 spots on offense are to be determined. Only quarterback, center and left tackle have been decided.

“They also know that they are being evaluated every day to try to get better,” Fisch added.

Finally, we have offensive lineman Andre James, who said that Coach Fraley is “exactly what we need right now.” James added that Fraley has them focusing on the little things each day.

There’s that attention to detail we keep hearing about.

Thanks again to Ed Lewis for today’s videos.

Spring Practice continues this week tomorrow at 9 am. If you’re heading out to watch practice tomorrow, don’t forget about our Saturday morning breakfast meet-ups.


Go Bruins!