As he stood at his pulpit, Rick Neuheisel preached execution. He wasn’t talking about his punishment for mistakes, but rather, how to erase the errors his team ran into last year.
When the third-year UCLA football coach opened fall camp Aug. 9, he expounded on the importance of his team minimizing mistakes, taking better advantage of opportunities and backing up all their talk.
“We are anxious to get back into a conference title race,” said the man who led the Bruins to a 7-6 record and a victory in the EagleBank Bowl last season. “Looking forward to having that happen. Easy to talk about, now we have to go execute it.”
Clearly, Neuheisel feels it’s time everything is ironed out; in the third year of his regime, nothing short of crispness will suffice. This is a UCLA team that suffered through its fair share of self-destructions last season, including a memorable meltdown against Oregon that saw the Bruins concede a kickoff return for a touchdown and an interception return for a touchdown on consecutive plays.
“We can’t beat ourselves,” Neuheisel said. “We’re going to talk openly about turnover margin and make sure that we’re as fundamentally sound as we can be.”
The Bruins aren’t the only ones talking openly. Preseason prognostications placed UCLA at eighth in the conference, ahead of only anemic Arizona State and woeful Washington State. With that ranking in mind, it’s rather evident from Neuheisel’s tone and body language that his squad will have no shortage of motivation.
“Hopefully, we’re going to be better than that,” he said, before growing more emphatic with his claims. “I believe we’re better than that, I believe we’re going to prove that. I’m looking forward to that opportunity.”
In seeking to disprove the doubters, Neuheisel will have at his disposal what is arguably his most talented Bruin squad. Thanks to a series of strong recruiting classes, the UCLA coaches have plenty of young talent to fill the depth chart, a luxury that isn’t to be understated.
“(It’s) huge, huge,” Neuheisel asserted. “You have competition, and competition makes everybody work a little bit harder. To know more about their position, to work harder to be ready to play more snaps. Playing time is the ultimate carrot coaches possess. The more people fight for it, the better your team gets.”
With the season opener at Kansas State less than a month away, one of the more intriguing storylines surrounding the UCLA practices is the development of the Pistol, an offensive formation that the UCLA coaches are borrowing from the University of Nevada and installing in Westwood, all in an effort to boost what has been a tepid rushing attack.
It was readily apparent from Neuheisel’s opening remarks that addressing the running game was priority No. 1 on the laundry list of offseason introspections. UCLA’s inability to move the ball on the ground was clearly the elephant in the room.
“Like someone looking in a mirror, we couldn’t tell ourselves we’re skinny when we’re not,” Neuheisel quipped. “You’ve got to go get on a diet. You’ve got to face the facts. And we had to face the facts that we need to change who we were as a running football team.”
Schematics and statistics aside, the pending arrival of autumn means it’s that time of the year again. For one blue-capped man during one press conference on one Monday in early August, that appears to be enough reason for enthusiasm.
“It’s an exciting time,” Neuheisel said. “It’s what we work around the calendar pointing toward. Obviously we’re thrilled that it’s finally here.”