Chip Kelly names Ethan Garbers as UCLA's starting quarterback

UCLA has hosted one of the larger quarterback competitions coming into the fall with three players vying for the spot previously held by Dorian Thompson-Robinson. Now, Chip Kelly has his man as he has officially named Ethan Garbers as the Bruin’s QB1.

In the end, Ethan Garbers won out over Collin Schlee and Dante Moore in Los Angeles.

Garbers’ experience at UCLA may have helped him win the job in the end. He has spent the past two seasons with the Bruins after transferring in from Washington. In total, he has seen action as a reserve in a dozen games and has thrown for 599 yards, four touchdowns, and four interceptions off of 88 attempts.

Garbers played high school football at Corona Del Mar in California where he was a four-star prospect. He was the No. 112 overall recruit in the 2020 cycle according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. He was the No. 8 QB in the class and the No. 11 recruit in the state.

Garbers’ brother, Chase, played in the Pac-12 as well over four seasons at California. He is currently with the Las Vegas Raiders after they signed him as an undrafted free agent.

Kelly explains what goes into decision on naming starting quarterback

That amount of talent in their quarterback room is a reason why UCLA tried to rotate who got the reps in practice. As a result, they all have film to look at in the lead-up to fall camp.

“Our goal just going into the spring was just everybody needs to get experience,” Kelly said. “There’s more than just Dante and Ethan. There’s Collin Schlee, there’s Justyn Martin, there’s Chase Griffin. We’ve got a bunch of kids in there and they’re all rotating. If you watch them one day, we’ll start ones with the ones and there’s a different guy in there every day. And that was kind of our gist is how can we get quality film on tape that they can go back and watch?

“Now, they’ll spend a lot of time…before we get back to camp in August of going through what we did in the spring. But you learn by doing, so we were just trying to get those guys as many reps as possible, get them acclimated to what we do offensively.”

UCLA still has some time before it kicks off the season against Coastal Carolina. One thing’s for sure, though: All of the quarterbacks took big strides throughout the spring.

The next step in the process is seeing who stands out come September.

“Obviously, Ethan and Justyn and Chase have been here before, but Collin and Dante weren’t,” Kelly said. “And I think all of them have progressed. All of them are better after training session fourteen than they were with training session one. So there’s a progression going on there that we’re excited about. We have a lot of time before we play our first game.

“We haven’t had one discussion, depth-wise, at the quarterback position. (Quarterbacks coach Ryan Gunderson) just rotates them. And I think their snaps have really been evened out through the 14 training sessions.”

“That’s kind of what we’re trying to do. Just get them as many reps as they can so they can all improve. Then whoever becomes the starter when we get to September? I think that will work itself out down the road.”