With new players and healed injuries, football preps for first game of season

Football is back in Westwood.

UCLA football started its fall practices Wednesday with only 28 days until kickoff against Cincinnati. The Bruins will have 48 new faces on the practice field for the upcoming season, more than a third of the entire roster.

Two wide receivers – senior Theo Howard and redshirt junior Dymond Lee – both wore yellow noncontact jerseys. Howard had a cast on his right forearm, while Lee is coming off an ankle injury that caused him to miss spring practices.

Coach Chip Kelly said he wasn’t worried about either player’s injury, indicating it wouldn’t be too long before they return to live-contact practice drills.

“We’re just being precautionary (with Howard),” Kelly said. “Same thing with (Lee), he may be cleared in the next day or so. He just hadn’t gone full (speed) last spring.”

On the flipside, redshirt senior linebacker Josh Woods returned to the field full-strength for the first time since he injured his knee in preseason practice almost a year ago. Although he didn’t wear a noncontact jersey, Woods still wore a protective brace around his right knee.

Woods didn’t see any on-field action last year and was given a noncontact jersey for spring practices.

Kelly said losing Woods last year was a blow to the team, but his return this week is a product of Woods’ hard work in rehab.

“I was really happy for (Woods),” Kelly said. “We were really counting on him last year, and that we can have him back for a fifth year is huge for him. He’s worked extremely hard in rehabbing (his injury), so it was great to see him back on the field.”

Woods’ senior leadership will be crucial this year, according to Kelly, who said the fifth-year senior earned valuable experience leading from the sideline in 2018.

“We’ve got 87 freshmen and sophomores,” Kelly said. “We have senior leadership with (Woods), (linebacker Krys Barnes) and other older guys and they can help the younger guys get up to speed. But (Woods) did a great job even last year when he was out of helping out mentoring the younger guys.”

And while Kelly made it clear there weren’t any concrete position changes, sophomore and former outside linebacker Elijah Wade was practicing with defensive linemen during individual drills.

Kelly pointed to Wade’s increased size as one of the reasons the staff decided to utilize him as a more versatile defensive threat this upcoming season.

“We’re going to cross-train (Wade) so he can play with a little multiplicity,” Kelly said. “He’s got a little bigger, almost up to 275 now, so he can lend help on the D-line and outside linebacker.”

Redshirt senior linebacker Keisean Lucier-South was in attendance but did not practice. At Pac-12 Football Media Day, Kelly said Lucier-South would be suspended at least until the beginning of conference play due to the same academic issues that caused him to miss the end of spring practices.