In the face of multiple sexual abuse scandals at big-time college athletic programs, it seems only fitting that UCLA football coach Rick Neuheisel is rising above the fray and revealing himself to be a class act just days after being told he would be fired following the Bruins’ upcoming appearance in the inaugural Pac-12 Championship on Friday.

 

It’s about as awkward a situation that any head coach could be in, and that’s saying something considering that soon after he was hired as the coach at the University of Washington in 2003, Neuheisel found himself in violation of NCAA recruiting rules before even coaching a game.

Let’s take a look back at how this teeter-totter season has gone for the former Bruins quarterback…

 

Sept. 3: Opening weekend Neuheisel leads the team onto the field at Houston and rolled up 554 yards of total offense on the Cougars, a figure that usually doesn’t fare too poorly on Saturdays. But Houston had some guy named Case Keenum handling the snaps, and he was outstanding in handing UCLA yet another opening-day loss on the road.

 

Week Two: Beat up on the little guy Not much to say here, as the Bruins looked bad but didn’t have too much trouble dealing San Jose State its 24th loss in the past 27 games. Neuheisel’s seat, which was warming heading into the season, remained lukewarm.

 

Week Three: Get beat up by the big guy Again, not much to say here, except that instead of preying on a weak team early in the season, the Bruins were smacked around by No. 23 Texas at home, and alumni and boosters were quick to start grumbling after an embarrassing 49-20 loss.

 

Week Four: Righting the ship UCLA starts to settle into what will be a year-long pattern with a close win over Oregon State in its Pac-12 opener. Neuheisel starts Richard Brehaut at quarterback after Kevin Prince’s horrific showing against the Longhorns, but he won’t be starting for long after…

 

Week Five: Take a whooping from Stanford Brehaut can’t hang with the high-powered Cardinal offense, which puts up 45 on the porous UCLA defense and sees Andrew Luck make one of the top catches of the season.

 

Week Six: Squeak out another win over a mediocre team Like Tim Tebow, Neuheisel comes alive when his back is up against the wall. With his seat quite hot now, Tricky Rick improves to 2-1 in conference play with a late rally to beat Washington State.

 

Week Seven: Lay an egg on the road Apparently, Rick doesn’t like to get in any kind of rhythm, as he manages to rally his troops on national television to a huge win over Arizona in a key Pac-12 matchup. Or not. UCLA comes out flat, falls flatter and makes the most noise not with its offense, but via massive brawl sparked by a streaker on the field. Going down 42-7 at halftime isn’t usually the way to say you want to keep your job.

 

Week Eight: Sneak up on a great California team That was a lie. I just lied. Cal was neither great, nor did the Bruins sneak up on them. But somehow UCLA rushed for 294 yards and beat its bear brethren in Pasadena.

 

Week Nine: Shock the world for real I know Arizona State isn’t really very good, and it’s always a bad sign when you are a trendy dark horse BCS pick in the preseason, are in position to make some moves midseason and then tank like the Sun Devils did this year. UCLA wins by one point when Arizona State misses a last-second field goal and takes the inside track to the Pac-12 South title, otherwise known as the crown of shame.

 

Week Ten: Throw it all away The Bruins give it all back by losing to a Utah team that was winless in its first four conference games. It wasn’t pretty (Prince threw two picks and the Bruins mustered two field goals on offense), it wasn’t close (31-6) and Neuheisel apparently told his players to take a snow day and not show up.

 

Week Eleven: Crush the Buffs Beating Colorado should be a given, so let’s just skip over UCLA’s one game this year that lived up to expectations.

 

Week Twelve: End of the road Like I said earlier, it’s hard to have a rollercoaster ride with more twists and turns and ups and downs than Neuheisel’s tenure in Westwood. But after clinching the Pac-12 South title when Utah lost on Friday night, USC hung half a hundred points on them, and it really looked like the Bruins would have had trouble stopping a good high school team, let alone Matt Barkley, Marqise Lee and Robert Woods. Add in that Rick said earlier in the week he felt UCLA had “closed the gap more” with the Trojans–who would have won the Pac-12 South except for NCAA sanctions prohibiting them from postseason play–and it was truly a no-win situation for the old ball coach.

 

So let’s summarize: Loss, win, loss, win, loss, win, loss, win, win, loss, win, loss. And still the Bruins have a chance to make it to the Rose Bowl. They’d have to beat Oregon–which would be about as likely as undefeated Houston getting to play for a national championship–but still Neuheisel got the axe.

 

But back to my main point, which is that right now you’d be hard pressed to find a coach in a similar situation saying and doing the same things (and the right things) right now. “I thought we had moved the needle as we had been asked to do,” he told the L.A. Times this week. “But I guess I was naive and I wasn’t aware of all the negativity on the outside.”

 

Clearly not, because plenty of people saw this coming from a mile away–he did go 21-28 in four seasons at UCLA. “No one should feel sorry for me,” he says. “I had my shot.”

 

True. But I applaud him for stepping up and taking the blame for a program that simply isn’t attracting recruits in the shadow of USC and is going to struggle for several years no matter who is at the helm.

 

 

As much as Miles likes Neuheisel, he will be quite bitter if the Bruins do end up in the Rose Bowl. Remind him that this is basically impossible at milesbs “at” stanford.edu and check him out on Twitter @smilesbsmith.