{"id":575219,"date":"2026-04-10T04:12:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/575219\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T04:12:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:12:18","slug":"ucla-dc-colin-hitschler-after-day-4-of-spring-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/575219\/","title":{"rendered":"UCLA DC Colin Hitschler after Day 4 of spring camp"},"content":{"rendered":"

UCLA defensive coordinator Colin Hitschler<\/a> is used to being a part of teams that have achieved some \u201ccrazy dreams,\u201d most notably College Football Playoff appearances at Cincinnati and James Madison in past stops. Now, he\u2019s trying to do the same with the Bruins.<\/p>\n

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Hitschler met with reporters Thursday to give background on a motivational quote that Bruin Report Online learned of in recent weeks that is often attributed to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think your dreams are crazy, show \u2019em what crazy dreams can do,\u201d Hitschler said, noting that it stemmed from his time as an assistant at Cincinnati from 2018 to 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a good friend from high school who passed away of pancreatic cancer,\u201d Hitschler shared. \u201cand that was kind of her motto.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe kind of started that in defensive back\/safety room at Cincinnati when we made the playoffs there. So, it\u2019s carried over at a few different places, and just a belief, right? \u2026 A lot of people think we\u2019re crazy when we talk about the abilities of what this team can do. We just gotta show \u2019em what crazy dreams can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hitschler 9 1\/2-minute meeting with the media after Day 4 of spring practice also touched on his initial thoughts of Oklahoma transfer linebacker Sammy Omosigho<\/a>, the strengths of James Madison transfer nickel back DJ Barksdale<\/a>, the versatility in the entire secondary, and much more:<\/p>\n

UCLA DC Colin Hitschler after Day 4 of spring camp<\/p>\n

Transcript<\/p>\n

WHAT ARE THE CORE PRINCIPLES AND BELIEFS THAT HAVE ALLOWED THIS STAFF TO THRIVE EVERYWHERE IT HAS GONE?<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I mean, it\u2019s \u2014 I guess I was with Ches, like, 18 years ago at Salve Regina. So, I mean, he\u2019s the same guy he was all the way back there, and I think it\u2019s his enthusiasm, his excitement for the game, his energy that he brings daily. It\u2019s unique, it\u2019s special and it rubs off on the staff and then the staff brings it to the players and together it\u2019s just a lot of fun out here. I think everyone that\u2019s around feels it and I think eventually that\u2019s gonna lead to wins.\u201d<\/p>\n

WHEN YOU WENT ELSEWHERE, WHAT DID YOU TAKE FROM BEING WITH HIM THAT HELPED YOU IN YOUR OTHER PLACES?<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, that\u2019s a long time ago so I\u2019m trying to remember, but his energy, his enthusiasm, his work ethic. I mean, nobody worked harder. We had a lot of fun. Didn\u2019t have a very big staff back then, and we all worked together and he grinded and figured it out and whatever needed to be done to be successful. Especially when you\u2019re at that Division III level, and that\u2019s the mentality that he\u2019s brought even here which is, like, no job is too small and you do whatever it takes to be successful. That\u2019s probably the biggest thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

WHEN YOU DEFENSE IS PLAYING THE WAY YOU WANT IT TO, HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE IT?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really multiple up front. Front multiplicity and coverage consistency is kind of what we talk about, and then the brand. We have a brand that the kids believe in and we\u2019ve kind of taken everywhere we\u2019ve gone. It\u2019s called different things at different places, but the principles are just competitive, a brotherhood and just some fundamentals that we play with. That carries over, and I think energy and fun and go make plays.\u201d<\/p>\n

WHAT HAVE YOU SEEN FROM SAMMY OMOSIGHO THROUGH FOUR PRACTICES?<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, what a special pickup that was. Great kid, was in an unbelievable program there (at Oklahoma) with a lot of NFL backers and made a lot of plays for them. We played \u2019em two years ago when we were at Alabama and he made plays in that game. So, just a leadership, a knowledge of what it takes to be successful. Then, just a passion for the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

LOGAN HIROU HAS MADE SOME PLAYS OUT HERE. WHAT HAVE YOU THOUGHT OF HIM?<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a freshman so for any freshman that can show up and make plays, that\u2019s a confidence and ability to learn and process and just play fast and free. It\u2019s the surfer mentality, I guess, but he\u2019s a lot of fun to be around.\u201d<\/p>\n

DJ BARKSDALE IS ONE OF THOSE GUYS YOU BROUGH OVER FROM JMU. WHAT\u2019S MADE HIM SO IMPORTANT TO YOUR DEFENSE IN THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS AND WHAT DO YOU THINK HE\u2019S GOING TO BRING HERE?<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I mean, he was a good player at JMU for a number of years. His ability to lock a man up and play in that slot, which is a tough, tough position to play man coverage, and he excels at it. But the biggest thing is his effort and attitude. There\u2019s some clips in that Louisville game where I think they ran a reverse and he runs it down on the far side, and that toughness, that desire to get to the ball, that\u2019s showing up in practice and it\u2019s rubbing off on other guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

AND THE MIX IN THE SECONDARY, A GOOD MIX OF RETURNERS AS WELL AS TRANSFERS? SCOOTER JACKSON IS SOMEONE WHO HAS PLAYED THAT NICKEL SPOT BEFORE, SEE HIM AT CORNER WITH RODRICK PLEASANT LIMITED (NONCONTACT JERSEY).<\/p>\n

\u201c(Jackson\u2019s) moving all around, yup. Rod being out kind of makes us kind of move some people around, but there\u2019s a lot of really good football players. (Dante) Lovett\u2019s come over from (Virginia) Tech and he was a starter there; Ta\u2019Shawn James was a starter at Iowa State; Tao (Johnson) was a starter at Utah; Malik Hartford has played a lot of snaps, but he hasn\u2019t been healthy right now. So, I mean, then you add in the mix of guys that played a lot of snaps for this program last year, it\u2019s a lot of versatility back there and that\u2019s a coach\u2019s dream when you can move pieces around and let them kind of do what they do best.\u201d<\/p>\n

HOW HELPFUL IS IT TO HAVE JMU GUYS THAT CAME OVER, JUST BECAUSE YOU ALREADY HAVE A HEAD START ON SCOUTING THEM AND KNOWING WHAT THEY CAN DO?<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, and their belief within the system is probably the biggest thing, right? Anytime you start at a new place, you have to install a scheme but you have to install a belief, and when you bring kids that have lived through it and a success of the program, they can bring others with them. They can say, \u2018No, this works, like, we gotta do this.\u2019 It\u2019s gone a long way to have that leadership in the room, but there\u2019s a lot of great kids, a lot of great leaders here.\u201d<\/p>\n

HOW IMPORTANT OR VALUABLE IS IT TO HAVE YOURSELF, COACH KENNEDY AND COACH CHESNEY COME OVER AT A TIME WITH SO MUCH CHANGE AND TURNOVER IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL?<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I mean, (Curt) Cignetti and (Bryant) Haines, their offensive coordinator (at Indiana). It\u2019s definitely a different comparative to other (inaudible) to programs that I\u2019ve been a part of. When you can have that group kind of come together, there\u2019s a knowledge of what it takes, kind of what\u2019s gonna appear next, you know, being ahead of some things. It\u2019s allowed us to have pretty competitive practices early and I think that\u2019s a big reason why.\u201d<\/p>\n

WHAT GUYS HAVE YOU SEEN STEP UP FOR LEADERSHIP ROLES ON DEFENSE SO FAR?<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, what\u2019s cool about this group is even though we haven\u2019t been together for a while, there\u2019s a lot of kids that have played a lot of football. So, there\u2019s a lot of leaders in this locker room. I think just a little bit of jockeying for position, a little bit on the field, but we\u2019re gonna have great leadership. We just got to continue to master our craft and kind of master the scheme, master what it takes, right? I think, though, there\u2019s a lot of kids that played a lot of football, there\u2019s a lot of different places they\u2019ve been, right? Some teams won a lot of games, some teams didn\u2019t win a lot of games, so kind of meshing that all together has been a fun start. But, man, we\u2019re way ahead of where probably most teams would be in this situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

WE\u2019VE SEEN A LOT OF RECRUITS HERE. WHAT\u2019S YOUR RECRUITING PITCH WHEN YOU GET A BIG-TIME KID ON CAMPUS?<\/p>\n

\u201cWho wouldn\u2019t want to be a part of this, right? What a better city to be a part of and a school that all it does is win. The energy and enthusiasm that\u2019s out here, I think they feel it. We\u2019ve had a lot of success as a defensive system, so when we\u2019re talking to defensive recruits a lot of it\u2019s kind of where they fit in with the previous kids that have played their position within these systems and how they can make plays.\u201d<\/p>\n

THERE\u2019S A QUOTE THAT I\u2019VE SEEN ATTRIBUTED TO YOU A FEW TIMES. \u2018IF THEY THINK YOUR CRAZY DREAMS ARE CRAZY, SHOW THEM\u2013<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think your dreams are crazy, show \u2019em what crazy dreams can do. Yeah, I had a good friend from high school who passed away of pancreatic cancer. That was kind of her motto and she survived for a long time past when she should have, and we kind of started that in defensive back\/safety room at Cincinnati when we made the playoffs there. So, it\u2019s carried over at a few different places, and just a belief, right? If people think your dreams are crazy, show \u2019em what crazy dreams can do. People would\u2019ve said we were crazy if Cincy was gonna be in the final four, if JMU was gonna be in the playoffs, but speak it into existence. Everyone get together and have a common belief and do whatever it takes to be successful. So, a lot of people think we\u2019re crazy when we talk about the abilities of what this team can do. We just gotta show \u2019em what crazy dreams can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

PAST INTERVIEW YOU TALKED ABOUT YOUR DAD BEING A HIGH SCHOOL COACH, A WRESTLING COACH, AND THAT\u2019S WHERE YOU FOUND YOUR LOVE FOR COACHING. WHAT HAVE YOU TAKEN FROM HIM AND LEARNED FROM HIM THAT IMPACTS THE WAY YOU COACH HERE?<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I mean, I think there\u2019s a lot of us on staff \u2014 coach Smith has his dad out here, coach Ches\u2019 dad has been out. It\u2019s deep in people\u2019s blood, right? I was a little kid sitting on the corner chair with my dad. I was probably 8, 9 years old, yelling at high school kids out on the mat, thinking that I was helping them but I was just probably a fool out there. But I grew up coaching, without even knowing I was coaching. So it was deep within me. When I had that opportunity in college to start to experience it, I knew what I always wanted to do. I\u2019m grateful, and I\u2019m living a crazy dream myself to be able to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

THERE\u2019S A LOT OF SIZE WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE FRONT SEVEN. A LOT OF NEWCOMERS AND RETURNERS. WHAT DO YOU SEE WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE FRONT SEVEN AS A WHOLE?<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I mean, we\u2019re in the Big Ten so we better have some size. We got some big games coming up with some really good O-linemen, so we got the size up front. We gotta play with the mentality, and we\u2019re building that. That initial get-off has to be as violent as possible to overcome some of the size that we\u2019re going to play against. But we\u2019ve got the number of people in there to do it. They gotta start separating from each other and figure out who\u2019s best, but there\u2019s a lot of talent in that room.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UCLA defensive coordinator Colin Hitschler is used to being a part of teams that have achieved some \u201ccrazy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,4504,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-575219","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-regwall","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}