Media Availability – Coach Bieniemy (April 4, 2024)

mik we good should be good right there okay how y'all doing today appreciate y'all taking the time to come on out uh good practice today a lot of life lessons to be learned but when it's all said and done with we'll keep we'll keep chopping this wood and making sure that we're doing it the right way with that said I'm all is so what's kind of your uh assessment in the first couple days of how the offense is going with the installs and things like that you know what everything is going good so far obviously you know how Spring ball goes it's just like whether you're at the the the next level or at this level you have good days you know the defense comes back and has a good day as well and what that does it creates balance obviously our guys got to learn how to put consistent behavior on tape they're working the effort has been good we just need to learn how to detail the details but when it's all said and done with it's a great learning opportunity you know for us as a coaching staff but also as players as well what have you seen early on from quarterback Ethan garbers you know what Ethan's doing a heck of a job we got a lot of competition in that room coach Ted white is doing a heck of a job with those guys teaching them the system uh there's been some good there's been some bad there's been some ugly from all of them but like I said it's still early you know I'm not expecting us to come out and set the world on fire what I want us to do is just to continue first and foremost learn how to put consistent behavior on tape once we learn how to put consistent behavior on tape the rest of everything will take care of itself but when it's all said and done with these guys are doing doing a great job of accepting the challenge Coach T is doing a great job of coaching them up now we just got to continue growing with the process is your uh approach with college players have to be different than NFL I mean maybe you know a little bit slower or um you know just just cuz you know they're at a lower level I think you still I don't I think you just need to teach and coach teaching and coaching does not change you still have to do a great job of overcommunication clarity you got to make sure that you're reaching your guys in the room uh it's never easy regardless of whether it's the pro is college or high school because everybody accepts or or retains information differently you just got to learn how that particular player or that particular person processes information but that's our job as position coaches and coordinators to figure that out and when it's all said and done with we just got to make sure we're putting the right people in the right place to be successful and three days into this is not an opportunity to say well he can play and he can't play nah you want to have your full body of work for of Spring ball just to truly get an assessment of what people what the uh the young men can do or not how does it feel to be back at UCLA after 20ish years you know what it feels pretty damn good I should say that I I mean everybody think it's misery out here with this weather is cloudy and it's windy this feels great you guys have no idea I mean it's it's beautiful I mean look at this this facility this facility wasn't here I remember once one time this used to be the old coaching running back room here you know so there's tons of things that have changed coach fost is doing a hell of a job I'm glad he considered me it feels good to be back home uh I got family all over uh the place uh like I said the sun is starting to come out right now it's peeking through and you you you can't pick a better place to be you know than UCLA I mean it's it's beautiful the last time we were here you had the uh title of recruiting coordinator and obviously A lot's changed in the landscape of college football on that side what do you think of just how college football's uh changed in the recruiting aspect well first of all recruiting is still the same that hasn't change you still got to you got to have um relationships built you still got to do an effective job of communicating with the people and connecting with the people that you want now obviously there's a lot of different things that have changed with the nil and I'll tell you like this honestly I don't know very much about it because that's a head coach's question but one thing I do know is this you always want to identify the best players you want to excuse me you want to identify the best people who wants to be the best student athlete and wants to come out here and pursue a degree if they're talented enough they'll have an opportunity to make it to the next level but if a young man wants to come to this institution and earn a degree and they happen to have some Talent we'll coach them up and find out if they can play at the next level but when it's all said and done with recruiting is about the relationships that you're building with the people what made you want to come back to college when desan presented the opportunity you know what it was it was it was a very unique situation because uh I was still weighing through a number of decisions and uh when Des sha had reached out I thought it was it was it was pretty neat you know uh obviously it was it's first of all It's UCLA second of all I I remember watching desan play Not only as a player here but when he came out of high school out of out there in uh o Tustin I was about to say out there in U Fontana but that's a damn shame not like yeah you know but playing at Tustin right but we've always had a relationship and I thought it was unique for him to give me a call and for him to get hired I I had told him congratulations and I told him listen you know I said right now just just be patient I got to wait through a few things but we don't have this opportunity to work together like this and help each other and so I thought that was huge that he would want me to come out and I just wanted to jump on the opportunity and and and come and help thean build the program up to what he wants his vision to be Eric you'd said in an email when you got appointed that sorry you're good go on that that you weren't you weren't fired in Washington did Dan offer you a job or what were some of the other opportunities you were weighing here's what I'm going to say is this I'm here coaching at at UCLA all that other stuff you can go talk to the commanders okay I'll leave it just like that what kind of a relationship do you want to have with the players I mean it seems like you're pretty firm with them out there but you've mentioned like teaching a few times well you always want to develop personal relationships with guys because I've had a relationship now with Maurice Jones uh Drew Chris Horton uh Dennis Keys Matthew Slater Mercedes Lewis um I mean hell Matt Moore so those personal connections that you make with the people are very important and you hear me keep referring to them as people because they're young men all right and I think sometimes we lose sight of that all right It's always important to connect with the people that you want to work with because this isn't just about football all right it's about helping young men to improve themselves to grow in this world and learn how to be successful off the field as well as being um successful on the field so it's all about developing the per the personal relationships and allowing those relationships to just grow over time because yes I understand they do want to play football everybody has a dream of playing in the league but my job is to make sure that these kids are going to understand that at some point in time that itenerary is going to be taken away from you and you're no longer going to be required to step out on that field so what do you what are some of the life lessons that you going to learn while we're together that's going to help carry you over in life to helping you to become the best husband all right the best worker all right and just having a way of understanding of how we survive in today's world so it's always connecting about connecting with the people because if you connect with the people guess what the player is going to shine and that's what it's about what are some of the life lessons that you've learned through football that you want to kind of pass on well it's just like when I talk to some of these young guys that are coming in that uh that want to be that are being recruited now you have to learn how to develop your consistent habits all right every day they get these guys are going to step out here and there's going to be some everyday drills that they're required to do but there's some everyday drills that they need to do to help them to become the best student if they can apply that same work ethic that they have on the field all right at home and in the classroom guess what those consistent habits that help carry them over in life so those are the things that that they need to do those are some of the life lessons yeah it just doesn't apply just on the field now we got to be able to transfer it over where it can help me off the field as well how much did you Lobby for uh coach Castillo to come uh and what does he bring as well you know what coach Castillo brings a great deal of experience he's a heck of a coach he's a great man I've known coach Castile since uh 1999 when I played with the Philadelphia Eagles uh he's been a a huge Mentor in my life for a number of years and uh he's he's a guy that I know he's going to work to get the very best out of those young men that he's working with and um you know what I don't think I had to liby very very hard cuz uh when uh the opportunity came about he was wearing me out but I'm happy to be having this I'm happy to have this opportunity to work with Coach Juan because like I said it's always about the personal relationships that you make along the way cuz you're going to see the same people going up as you do going down and I established a relationship with him as a player when I played with the Philadelphia Eagles when he was the old line coach and we've always remained in contact I did the internship uh with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2004 and 2005 when he was still the old line coach and obviously just having that connection with him and then having that opportunity to work with Coach Reed that the bond has been there and you always want to work with good people and that's another thing you learn in this profession it ain't necessarily where you work UCLA is a special place but more importantly the people that you work with let's talk a little bit about the offense what what do you want it to look like what will be working well if it's going as as planned so first of all I want to be on an office that's diverse we do want to run it obviously uh I do want to throw it we just want to to make sure that we can come out here and efficiently and effectively move the ball up and down the field my job right now and it's a tough question to answer right now not that it's tough I just want to see who can do what all of this right now is about an evaluation and obviously it wasn't our best day but I want to see how guys handle things when things ain't going well that's a part of the evaluation okay who can be resilient enough to overcome the adversity and find a way to pull everybody together making sure that we can find a way to have the success that we need to have in order to achieve the goals that we want to achieve so the biggest thing right now is just making sure that as a new staff that we're evaluating everybody and making sure we know exactly what they can do because now it's going to give us a better understanding of their strengths and their weaknesses things that we can work on and things that hey we know we can continue moving forward with as far as uh the instars and what we're going to do with the office offense moving forward how much of the offense do you want to have installed by the end of spren uh I mean not very much I mean I shouldn't say not very much you want to give him a good chunk because you want to challenge him okay but on top of that you got to know when to challenge him and know when to pull back and so right now we'll install twice a week and then that third practice throughout the course of the week will be just a review of those two installs so those installs you know they won't add up like they do in the league yeah sorry not to get to into the weeds but um how different is the terminology do you pay attention to the terminology that chip used at all and like how how different or similar your stuff is in terms of how you're installing it and no you know what you you you I know some of these guys are used to a different terminology so one thing uh and I know when you as a player when you're going through that you're trying to apply things well one thing you want guys to do is to learn the language that you're speaking because now I want those words to start triggering pictures in their head so like I said right now it's always going to be tough because every day is a brand new day that's why you got to watch the number of installs you have on top of that the volume but like I said Tuesday we had a better practice because of the installs that they have known for the past few weeks so now we added a few loon wrinkles where everybody was a little hesitant to go out and do what they were supposed to do but that's okay that's part of the learning process now we just need to figure out how to get how to play faster but also too making sure that we're digesting it and spending the time together working on it so we can come out here and do what needs to be done in terms of evaluation what's it been like working with Ethan garbage you know what it's been good you know all of those guys are doing a heck of a job I've been very very impressed with that room I got some good young men in that room and they're very very competitive and the only thing they want to do is they want to digest as much information and then they you know obviously with all the film that we have uh everybody wants to ask about Pat and Sam and all the number of players that uh that I've had an opportunity to work with so it's been they got a a good uh group of young men and they they're doing a heck of a job you know under the circumstance they're doing a heck of a job a couple more guys you work with you work with Dal in Kansas City and he he went back to e MCC oh I'm sorry Mulla yeah did did you ask him what what it was like coming back to Modern college or just any other coaches about going from the league back to college so first of all d d is a great coach okay he did a heck of a job for us in KC so he had these three young men that were growing up and they all pretty damn good college football players so we knew at some point in time he was probably going to leave us but uh is doing a heck of a job and um I have no problems coaching at either level because when it's all said and done with teaching is teaching and coaching is coaching all right and if you have good personal skills guess what the recruiting takes care of itself and so why not have this opportunity to share all my experiences to to to help young men and to help young people so Dean was a great example but I also know why deing went back because it gave him an opportunity to keep up with those those young grown men that he was Raising because at that time he had three of them that were coming out of high school that were pretty damn good how big of a role does the fullback play in your offense you know what we we're going to find one and uh we're going to make sure that he can play a huge role when needed yes you know I want to uh basically have a fullback I think if you have a fullback it helps you in the number of ways because we ask those guys to do a number of things whether it's blocking for uh halfback whether it's participating in the pass game or even taking some of the stress off the tight end so you know I think that position is not something that is lost but something that is very very valuable and you'll notice around the league Now teams are starting to discover that fullbacks are are more of a priority than than not we saw you talking to TJ Harden quite a bit that first practice what are your just general thoughts on uh what he brings as a player toughness kids a kid I mean he works at it it's important to him uh I I like everything he's put on table you know it's it's it's he's a quiet kid I want him to be a little bit more outspoken if anything but uh he's not a kid that has many words he allows his actions to speak but uh I've enjoyed watching him it's been fun and he's he's a leader by example and I'm I'm impressed with what I've seen so far the last one over just how much leeway do you have in designing this offense like what are the conversations with deshaan like you know what they're they're always open anytime we're putting something in I always want him to feel a part of it because I'm going to give everything to him and I want him to say hey you know what ah if he likes it or if he doesn't so it's it's all inclusive and when it's all said and done with it's our offense it's not just anything that I've designed yes I got tons of ideas I got a ton the plays but I want this to be ours we're new coaching staff so we have to build it together and that's why I was saying I want to see exactly what we have as a team that's why this process right now with Spring ball it's all about evaluating I want to evaluate what we have I think we got a good collection of young good student athletes that can do a a lot of different things now we just need to figure out how to do it together and do it together well so thank you guys I appreciate yall to