Monday Media Day II: "Whatever it takes to win this last game"

"Me, personally, I am trying to do whatever it takes to win this last game," said senior running back Chris Markey on Monday. "If everything goes right for us, we’re going to be in the Rose Bowl. Who would ever guess that 7-5 UCLA would be playing in the Rose Bowl. So, we’re just excited; we’re ready to go; we’re just really excited about playing this weekend."

Markey was happy to get so much action in against Oregon, but knows the Bruin offense has to be a lot better than it was last Saturday:

"I was very sore, I still am sore. It’s the first action I’ve gotten in a while. But I was excited to be out there, helping the guys out. It was a great feeling, being that it was Senior Day, too. It was a great win.

"We definitely have to play better than we did against Oregon. We know SC is a great team. They’ve been playing very well lately. We have to focus on execution. We made a lot of mental errors on offense [vs. Oregon]. Against USC, we have to focus on the little details, getting back to executing little things."

Asked about how he felt about the Bruins’ up-and-down season, he said "I feel we’ve just been an injury-prone team this season. A lot of key guys have been down and that hurt us a lot and that’s why we’re 6-5 now. But we keep fighting and that shows the character of this team. For us to still have a shot at the Rose Bowl, for me as a senior, it’s a great feeling. I know all the guys in the locker room are still optimistic about this season. We just got to go out and handle business this weekend against USC.

"We have to go out and play ball. We can’t focus on or worry about what happened last year."

Markey was also enthused, if also a little confused, about the improving health of the quarterback position. "Ben [Olson] did pretty well in the second half for us. All our quarterbacks are great leaders, I feel. I think Pat [Cowan] is going to be back this week, so it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out."

Chris Markey photo courtesy UCLA.