Despite their season-opening loss, the Bruins had one position group shine.
In the 48-42 defeat at Colorado (1-0), UCLA football’s (0-1) tight end group left Boulder as a bright spot of the night.
The bulk of the production came through redshirt sophomore tight end Greg Dulcich, who had four catches for 126 yards and a touchdown in his first career start. The current conference leader in receiving yards said he was feeling good in the days after the game because of his offseason training.
“I definitely feel a lot sturdier in my blocks,” Dulcich said. “That’s just kind of comes off of what (football performance coordinator Frank Wintrich) and all the strength staff helped us out with in the offseason. (Despite) the limited amount of stuff that we were able to do, we still got a lot of good work in over the summer when there were restrictions on the type of workouts that we were able to do.”
Coach Chip Kelly also praised Dulcich, saying he was pleased with his game and the tools he adds to the Bruin offense.
“He’s a kid that walked on here as a big receiver with the potential to maybe grow into a tight end and I think he’s really grown into that role,” Kelly said. “But he’s also unique because he still possesses wide receiver speed, so he’s a little bit of a matchup (problem) for some people because he’s not your traditional tight end.”
Dulcich was not the only tight end to find the end zone Saturday. Sophomore tight end Mike Martinez had two catches that went for 24 yards and a touchdown.
After scoring for the first time in his UCLA career, Martinez said even though junior quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson’s pass was underthrown, he still had to make the catch to try and help the Bruins back into the game.
“I just had to react to it, you know,” Martinez said. “Football is like life. It’s never perfect, but you just react to it and you just make the play. So I just came back to it and came down with it.”
COVID-19 concerns
Utah was forced to cancel its season opener against Arizona this past weekend, and the Pac-12 moved back the Bruins’ home opener versus the Utes one day to try to accommodate the team and allow for more players to pass clearance protocols.
Kelly said UCLA had not yet looked into a possible replacement opponent for Saturday and continued to hope the changes his program made during fall camp would keep his team clear of any infections.
“(We changed) how we run our meetings, how we practice on the field, how we operate in this building, how our coaches meet – our defensive staff all of camp met outside,” Kelly said. “We’ve been fortunate so far in terms of our players’ contact with the virus, but we also know that can change on a whim. I know it’s an extremely highly infectious disease and you have to do everything you can to stay away from it.”
