LOS ANGELES — For better and worse, not much is slick about Rick Neuheisel these days.
The UCLA coach is no longer the flashy young offensive mastermind who engineered big victories and endured messy departures from his previous top jobs at Colorado and Washington.
Neuheisel is now a profoundly earnest 50-year-old man in an old-fashioned sweater vest with a small Bruins helmet embroidered on the breast, looking very much like a direct coaching descendant of John Wooden, one of his idols.
Slick Rick, the nickname once slapped on him by envious opponents and supporters alike, no longer fits a coach who has strived to do everything by the book at UCLA — and who might be five games away from losing his dream job anyway.
“I don’t think that this is the end by any stretch of the imagination,” Neuheisel said Monday while the Bruins (3-4, 2-2 Pac-12) began preparations for California. “As a matter of fact, I look at it as a beginning, and look at it as a fantastic challenge that we should embrace.”
Neuheisel began his fourth season by acknowledging he’s on a hot seat, and his Bruins haven’t done much to cool it down in the past three months. After an embarrassing 36-point loss at Arizona last week punctuated by a brawl and six suspensions, Neuheisel might be nearly out of time.
Neuheisel knows his 18-26 record at UCLA has alienated many fans and alumni who were confident the local boy would make good. Even his biggest detractors acknowledge Neuheisel has been a remarkable advocate for his school, running a largely clean program and landing three elite recruiting classes.
None of it has translated into football success for UCLA, which hasn’t managed a significant conference victory in Neuheisel’s tenure.
Athletic director Dan Guerrero repeatedly has said he didn’t hire Neuheisel for a short-term job, and he insists he will wait until after the season to evaluate the coaching staff.
“I have felt nothing but support from Dan,” Neuheisel said. “I think that we are all in this together. I think that we are all dying to turn the corner and become the program that we all envision it should be.”
