In case you hadn’t heard, DeShaun Foster is excited.
The UCLA football coach’s favorite catchphrase also applied to his players Tuesday morning — so much so that Foster had to intervene.
Before the Bruins took the field for their first spring practice outside the Wasserman Center, they were so animated while singing in the team meeting room that Foster told them to chill.
“I kind of had to calm them down to get them ready for the special team meeting,” Foster said, “but I love the way the team is approaching this and just hopefully can carry this on to the rest of spring.”
Maybe they were just happy to have completed what Foster called “the most demanding winter that I’ve been part of here at UCLA,” which resulted in a legion of transformed physiques. Foster said freshman running back Karson Cox had packed on eight pounds in roughly 10 weeks. Right tackle Garrett DiGiorgio, now a relatively svelte 320 pounds, reported losing 11 pounds of fat and gaining seven pounds of muscle.
The question is whether the Bruins can throw their weight around on the field after going 5-7 in Foster’s first season. They enter the spring with all 17 transfers reporting for duty, including quarterback Joey Aguilar.
Read more:Did UCLA's DeShaun Foster reload roster? Five questions going into spring practice
The transfer from Appalachian State was taking the first repetitions during the roughly 12 minutes of practice drills reporters were allowed to watch Tuesday, firing passes with considerable zing.
Foster acknowledged that Aguilar was likely on track to be the starter based on his massive edge in experience. Aguilar has thrown 850 passes at the Football Bowl Subdivision level. His seven counterparts on UCLA’s roster? Zero.
“He’s gonna go out there first,” Foster said, “but it’s always a competition. Just spring ball, so everybody will get an opportunity to compete, but like you said he does have the most experience in the room.”
Foster said Aguilar’s experience of having played in big-time games against Clemson and North Carolina was one of the reasons the coach wanted to pluck him out of the portal.
“You wanted to get a quarterback that has played,” Foster said of Aguilar, who has thrown for 6,760 yards with 56 touchdowns and 24 interceptions in two seasons, “not somebody that you’re kind of guessing and [trying to] figure out if he can play at this level.”
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