Every year as the UCLA-USC rivalry game approaches, USC senior linebacker Kaluka Maiava thinks back to his senior year in high school. He had committed to play for the Bruins, but switched once USC coach Pete Carroll offered him a scholarship.
“I made the right decision,” Maiava said. “I’d rather be on this end of the rivalry.”
On Saturday, the sidelines will look a little different.
For the first time in the rivalry, UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel will face USC coach Pete Carroll.
Carroll and Neuheisel coach at universities separated by only 12 miles of L.A. freeway, but their teams, like Maiava said, are at opposite ends of the college football hierarchy.
UCLA, still rebuilding in Neuheisel’s first season, stumbles into Saturday’s showdown with a 4-7 record and no chance at a bowl game, while the Trojans continue to soar. Carroll’s team is 10-1 this season and ranked No. 5 in the BCS. A win will send the Trojans to a fourth straight Rose Bowl, a game UCLA has not reached since 1998.
Neuheisel and Carroll’s coaching styles and personas however, do not seem so disparate.
“I’m a huge fan of his,” Neuheisel said. “You can’t be a fan of college football and not be impressed with what (Carroll) has gotten accomplished there since 2001.”
Carroll arrived at USC in 2001, after a brief stint as the head coach of the New England Patriots. His first matchup against Neuheisel ““ who coached Washington at the time ““ was a low point of his career at USC. The Trojans lost 27-24, after the Huskies kicked a last-second field goal. Carroll’s team had led 14-7 at halftime and the loss dropped its record to 1-4. But the Trojans recovered, finished the season at 6-6 and reached the Las Vegas Bowl.
USC has not fallen in consecutive games since.
Carroll’s unique style and tremendous recruiting ability are perhaps the only ways to explain the string of success the program has enjoyed in those six seasons.
Carroll tries to eliminate the periphery, all the constant distractions on his players’ minds. For example, he said he would not use USC’s loss to UCLA in 2006 as a motivator for his team before Saturday’s game at the Rose Bowl.
“We don’t need rallying cries, we don’t need external stuff, we don’t need the past,” he said. “We don’t operate that way.”
Throughout weeks of preparation, Carroll preaches a one-game-at-a-time dogma to his players.
“He’s a wild man,” Maiava said, who will start Saturday at weakside linebacker. “He’s always pumped up and he never settles because we won last week. It’s never last week. He’s always looking forward.”
UCLA freshman safety Rahim Moore ““ to whom Carroll offered a scholarship ““ said Neuheisel has a similar ability to inspire.
“They’re both good coaches,” Moore said. “Carroll brings a lot of energy; you could say he’s hyperactive … and Neuheisel is the same way.”
Carroll and Neuheisel both translate that energy to the practice field and the pace of play they expect from their teams, players said.
That style attracted Maiava, who chose to commit to Carroll’s team over former UCLA coach Karl Dorrell.
“It was almost like a military type of thing,” Maiava said of the UCLA practices he attended in 2004. “I don’t like that style. I like playing football and having fun.”
UCLA sophomore defensive tackle Brian Price said he had “nothing to say” in response to Maiava’s comment. But Price did describe a general shift in the atmosphere at Bruin practices this season, since Neuheisel took over.
“I went to a USC practice, when I was getting recruited (in 2006), and they were flying around,” Price said. “It’s the same way here now. It’s up-tempo at both places.”
Price and Moore are two of a small group of Bruins who had the chance to play at USC and instead chose UCLA. In fact, only 10 players on the Bruins’ roster had scholarship offers to play for the Trojans, according to Tracy Pierson, a recruiting analyst at Bruinreportonline.com.
That number conveys the vast talent gap that has formed between UCLA and USC during Carroll’s tenure. Under Carroll, USC has become a national recruiting power. The 2008 Trojan roster includes players from 16 states besides California and one Canadian.
But this winter, Neuheisel won a recruiting battle when he convinced five highly-touted high school seniors to stick with UCLA ““ Moore, running back Derrick Coleman, defensive back Aaron Hester, defensive end Datone Jones and defensive back E.J. Woods ““ even though each had received a scholarship offer from USC.
Moore said Neuheisel has a rare ability to relate to players and that Neuheisel “had a lot of guts” to tell the team about his past experiences at Washington and Colorado.
After practice Tuesday, Moore recounted one afternoon earlier this season, when he walked by Neuheisel’s office and Neuheisel tried to teach him how to play the guitar.
“Little things like that; that’s one thing me and him have,” Moore said. “A lot of other guys feel the same way.”
Carroll has a similar, outgoing personality, Maiava said.
“In my experience with other coaches, it’s like coach up here and the player down there,” Maiava said, using two hands to show the disparity. “With coach Carroll, it’s always the same level. He’s a player’s coach. He’s almost like my boy, you can almost consider him like that. His style attracts people.”
UCLA defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker, who has coached as an assistant under both Carroll and Neuheisel, said it’s hard to say they are exactly the same type of coach. But the energy and charisma that each brings to their respective programs will only help fuel the UCLA-USC rivalry, he said.
“It’s excellent for this rivalry to have two coaches like that,” Walker said. “Obviously Pete has a jump on Rick just because he’s been at USC for a while. But at some point, once we can catch up, it’s going to be like the old days with (USC coach) John Robinson and (UCLA coach) Terry Donahue.”
Carroll scoffed at the suggestion that the comparison between he and Neuheisel could one day define the rivalry.
“People can do whatever they want, but I would never sign off on that,” Carroll said. “We’re fortunate to be at these universities where the rivalry has stood way beyond us. I don’t think it’s about people; I think it’s about universities and the history and all of that. … I don’t think it has anything to do with one person versus another.”
But the nature of the rivalry, the sheer proximity of the two schools, almost demands some focus on its protagonists. And it seems like Neuheisel and Carroll share a lot of the same skill, personality and style.
In fact, they both dismissed questions about the importance of a coaching rivalry with similar language, and an emphasis on their players and programs.
There’s no background other than football. Both said they have no relationship outside of coaching. They met in 2001 at an event organized by Nike, and Neuheisel said they spoke after Carroll first received the USC job that year.
“From that point until now, it is nothing short of astonishing what they’ve gotten accomplished,” Neuheisel said. “But, it’s also a blueprint for what I think we can get accomplished here. And I’m looking forward to traveling that road.”