Bruins are in Pac-12 championship game, but their coach's future isn't secure. Trojans are looking at a top-10 season and possible national title bid next year.
 UCLA Coach Rick Neuheisel, left, and USC Coach Lane Kiffin will lead the Bruins and Trojans into battle during the 81st edition of the schools' rivalry game. (Photos by Luis Sinco and Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) |
How about the future of both programs?
For UCLA, it's the short term. It's survival for Coach Rick Neuheisel. And, astonishingly, with Colorado's upset win against Utah on Friday, a chance to possibly conclude the season in the Rose Bowl — or no bowl game at all.
For No. 10 USC, it's a chance to build on a signature victory, for Coach Lane Kiffin to keep momentum going into a recruiting season that will be unlike any other in Trojans history and to possibly set his team up for a national title run two years after being hammered by the NCAA.
"These are long memories," Neuheisel said. "It's better to make them good ones."
Neuheisel might be only a memory as the Bruins coach unless he beats the Trojans on Saturday night at the Coliseum and leads his team past Oregon or Stanford in the Pac-12Conference title game.
The Bruins are 6-5 overall and 5-3 in conference play. However, if they don't win either of their next two games, they would have a sub-.500 record and have to petition the NCAA in order to be eligible for a bowl game.
Forget that Neuheisel said this week that the Bruins had "closed the gap more" with the Trojans. He is 0-3 against USC, 21-27 overall in four seasons and the recruiting divide with USC seems to be growing larger.
The former Bruins quarterback has been on the hot seat since before the season began. It grew scalding during an Oct. 20 blowout loss at Arizona that included a bench-clearing incident.
But Neuheisel rallied his team for victories over Californiaand then-division leader Arizona State, which subsequently folded. Meantime, UCLA got routed at Utah and then rebounded by blowing out Colorado.
So here are the Bruins, 14-point underdogs against a Trojans team coming off an upset victory that ended Oregon's shot at a Bowl Championship Series title.
Asked this week if he thought he had to beat USC to save his job, Neuheisel said, "I don't," adding, "All that other stuff is on someone else's desk."
That would be the desk of Athletic Director Dan Guerrero, who, if he has not already decided to do so, would surely keep the coach he hired if the Bruins defeat their rival and then win the Pac-12 title game next week.
"One of the goals we established as a team when we entered camp this fall was to play for the first-ever Pac-12 title," Neuheisel said in a statement after Colorado defeated Utah. "Keeping in mind that we are still focused on beating USC tomorrow night, we are certainly excited to represent the South Division on December 2nd in the conference championship game."
Earlier in the week, noting that a UCLA victory over USC would give the Bruins the South title whether the Trojans were eligible or not, Neuheisel said, "There is no asterisk on it if we win it."
USC, of course, has a monopoly on asterisks.
The Trojans' media guide includes hundreds of them courtesy of NCAA sanctions related to formerHeisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush.
Were it not for a two-year bowl ban, and the Pac-12's decision to also deem them ineligible for the conference title game, the Trojans would be playing to stay alive for the Rose Bowl.
Now, they can't even play spoiler by keeping UCLA out of the Pac-12 title game. But they could send a message that their monopoly on L.A.-area college football is nowhere near over.
No comments:
Post a Comment