The lines of war have been drawn, and it appears the bull’s-eye lies in Rick Neuheisel’s backyard.
Pacific-10 Conference athletic directors are in San Diego this week for an annual meeting, where they will discuss complaints by Neuheisel, Washington’s head coach, about negative recruiting tactics. Meanwhile, Oregon coach Mike Bellotti and UCLA coach Bob Toledo defended their recruiting methods.
The defense comes after Neuheisel’s criticism of the recruiting process — including references to Oregon and UCLA — last Wednesday, when recruits could first sign national letters of intent.
Neuheisel said many schools did not start their recruiting until they saw Washington’s list.
“The University of Oregon football staff does not practice or condone unethical or negative recruiting,” Bellotti said Monday. “We do not have to. We do not bend or break the rules.”
Neuheisel’s comments came after Chris Solomona, a top defensive line prospect, signed with Oregon. A day later, on Thursday, offensive lineman Albert Toeaina, a 6-foot-4, 345-pound native of Pittsburg, Calif., also signed with the Ducks. Solomona and Toeaina originally made verbal commitments to Washington.
“We recruit from our own recruiting list on many merits of our own program,” Bellotti said. “We don’t recruit against any one particular person or institution; we recruit the best student athletes.”
He did not specifically mention Washington in his released statement Monday, but noted that he “was aware that the first opportunity for a prospective student athlete to officially commit to an institution is on the signing date. Some institutions who allegedly received non-binding verbal commitments seem to have overlooked the fact that athletes in question also visited four other schools and verbally committed to many of them.”
Toledo was more direct.
“We never had a problem in the conference until (Neuheisel) started talking about negative recruiting,” Toledo told The Seattle Times. “Now I’m going to start talking.”
Toledo said Neuheisel is also involved in “negative recruiting.”
“He’s taking a lot of potshots at anybody,” Toledo said.
But Neuheisel has backed down from his comments.
“I made a mistake,” Neuheisel told the Associated Press. “The process in the Pac-10 is to go to the Pac-10 office first. I was wrong to speak publicly.”
Washington has not made an official complaint with the Pac-10, but the conference will investigate recruiting practices.
E-mail sports editor Adam Jude at [email protected].