Slick Rick Neuheisel is back in the Pacific-10 Conference.
Neuheisel was introduced as the head football coach at his alma mater, UCLA, on New Year’s Eve, taking the place of his former teammate Karl Dorrell. Neuheisel quarterbacked the Bruins to a 1984 Rose Bowl victory, then tutored Troy Aikman in 1986 as volunteer coach. Oregon fans will remember him as being the thorn in the side for Duck football in the ’90s. The UCLA administration remembers him as the one that got away, however.
You remember him, right? The last time major college football saw Neuheisel, it was in 2002 as he was being fired after taking part in an NCAA basketball tournament betting pool while still the head coach at Washington, a violation of NCAA rules. His ugly dismissal – Neuheisel won a $4.5 million settlement against the NCAA and UW – kept him out of college coaching, until now.
Don’t let his ugly exit fool you, though. The man wins. Whenever Neuheisel takes over a program, two things can be expected: lots of wins while he’s there, and turmoil when he leaves. Neuheisel lied to UW officials about interviewing with the San Francisco 49ers and to the NCAA about betting in the pool. Immediately after he left Colorado, the football program was penalized for two seasons due to recruiting infractions under his watch.
But for UCLA, it’s water under the bridge – they hope. “I know there are some issues in Rick’s past that concern our constituency,” said UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero at Neuheisel’s hiring.
In hiring Neuheisel, they get the man who bolted Westwood for Boulder, Colo., in 1994, becoming the Buffaloes’ head coach the year after at age 33. The stoic Dorrell followed the straight and narrow, but didn’t win enough games.
Neuheisel, however, is energetic and charismatic in front of the camera, wins over recruits and plays the kind of high-scoring football that a team needs to win the Pac-10. He likes to have fun while he wins. He’s like Jim Harbaugh, but with a winning record. His eight-year record as head coach is 66-30. He’s won one Pac-10 title, and four bowl games. In other words, he’s the anti-Dorrell. Besides Mike Bellotti, who briefly spoke with the school about the opening, Rick is UCLA’s best hope to compete against Pete Carroll’s USC Trojans.
And then there’s the Oregon connection. As a player and coach, he’s 4-2 lifetime against the Ducks. It began with the golden-haired whiz kid calling a fake punt during the 1995 Cotton Bowl against the Ducks, while the Buffaloes were up comfortably in the fourth quarter. In his final year in Boulder, Neuheisel did it again, beating the Ducks on Christmas Day 51-43 in the Aloha Bowl.
Much to Oregon’s chagrin, he moved five hours up the freeway to Seattle in 1998. While at the helm of the Huskies, he went 2-1 against Oregon (although Oregon’s lone victory was the Huskies’ only loss in their 2000 Pac-10 title season).
His journey back to the college sidelines has been an interesting one. First, he coached high school football in Seattle. Since 2005, he’s been the quarterbacks’ coach for the Baltimore Ravens. The results? Mixed. Quarterback Steve McNair led the Ravens to 13 wins in 2006, but then 2007 (and Kyle Boller’s 75.2 quarterback rating) happened. Suddenly, Osaar Rasshan doesn’t look so bad.
The hard work begins now for Neuheisel. He’s been given the jumper cable to resurrect UCLA’s once feared program, and all joking aside, he’s more than capable. Until spring practice, all eyes of Los Angeles and the Pac-10 will be watching. Not only will he have the unenviable task of resurrecting the UCLA offense into the high-scoring type we all came to recognize from his Colorado and Washington teams, he’ll have to resist putting his name in the hat for another office pool come March.
After all, the Bruins men’s basketball team is looking pretty good.
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