AUSTIN, Texas “”mdash; Rick Neuheisel wants to be the coach of Texas.
Don’t get it twisted; the UCLA general isn’t bolting for Austin anytime soon. But to hear Neuheisel talk ““ before, after, and who knows, maybe even during Saturday’s game ““ the Longhorns and their coach Mack Brown represent the pinnacle of college football, a rock-solid program that UCLA can attempt to emulate.
“I can’t say enough nice things about Mack Brown,” Neuheisel said after UCLA’s 34-12 win. “There is not a more first-class human being and a guy who runs a program with such integrity, so hats off to him.”
The two share a history that dates back further than Saturday’s tilt in Austin; they overlapped briefly in the Big 12 in 1998, with Neuheisel the young head coach at Colorado, and Brown having recently relocated to Texas from the same position at North Carolina.
Although Neuheisel moved on to Washington the next season, the relationship persisted, as did the mutual respect. The pair was among a group of seven college coaches that visited troops in the Middle East together in the summer of 2009, a trip Neuheisel still references.
And so when UCLA and Texas clashed Saturday, it was a case of the apprentice facing the master, from both an individual standpoint and, by extension of the men, in terms of the larger programs.
“It is a huge thrill for our program to come in and play in this environment and play the way we did,” Neuheisel said.
“To go in there and feel like now we are maybe getting closer to being a program where we can be counted on, and maybe get back to our roots as a top program in the country.”
In the course of the Bruins’ resounding triumph, could it be true that the feisty Neuheisel outcoached the venerable Brown? Texas’ afternoon was full of head-scratching gaffes which are about as familiar to the Longhorns as home losses ““ something they hadn’t experienced since 2007, before UCLA rolled into town.
Boneheaded penalties in critical moments and a muffed punt that was bafflingly fielded inside the five-yard line headlined a mediocre mental game from the guys wearing burnt orange.
“This one is embarrassing for me,” Brown said. “I’ve got to do a better job. You can’t have that many mistakes when you’re doing my job.”
Entering the game, the key matchup figured to be the UCLA running game ““ fresh off a dominating performance against Houston and continuing to show flashes of brilliance out of the pistol offense ““ against the Texas run defense, No. 1 in the nation after the first three weeks.
It wasn’t a close fight. The Bruins sliced and diced their way to 264 yards on the ground, getting 118 from Johnathan Franklin, 94 from Derrick Coleman and another 50 from quarterback Kevin Prince. Each of those three also rushed for a touchdown in the win.
“Just watching film all week, I thought I could get some good runs just because their ends were so aggressive,” said Prince, who reeled off a number of long runs off of read plays, including a 38-yard run for a score.
Perhaps the most telling drive of the game occurred right out of halftime, when UCLA was able to march down the field on the strength of the running game and score a backbreaking touchdown that made the score 20-3, overcoming whatever halftime adjustments Texas had attempted to make.
“They haven’t seen some of the things we run, and they were kind of set in the way that they try and do things,” UCLA offensive coordinator Norm Chow said of the Longhorns. “We knew we could run it a little bit, but I didn’t think we could run it as well as we ended up doing.”
Nor did anyone think that Texas ““ a program synonymous with discipline and consistency over the last decade ““ could perform so poorly.
“It’s an awful feeling for a coach,” Brown said. “You feel like you let your kids down. You feel like you let your fans down. We’re paid to do it well. We didn’t do it well today.”
Neuheisel did do it well; while the Bruins were by no means perfect, they were ready to play physically and emotionally and were in control for the majority of the game.
The win doesn’t mean UCLA is back in the upper echelon of college football, but it’s a significant step toward that range, a significant step toward consistency and respect, toward Texas status.
“It’s a catapult,” UCLA safety Tony Dye said of the victory. “Our team, we never doubted. This is really a catapult into what we should be.”