<\/p>\n
Like mustaches Sharpie\u2019d on campaign posters, there are times when changing an ad is not so much vandalism as much as it is performance art. And like an invisible box for a mime, Rick Neuheisel seems to strive to be that perfect comic foil, that setup just waiting for the punchline. Alas, I am only human and cannot resist taking my fair share of potshots at him, but I will never top what some USC bloggers did to Neuheisel\u2019s first big ad- in the LA Times, Neuheisel and UCLA ran a picture of the coach pointing at who-knows-what, that said: \u2018The football monopoly in LA is over.\u201d Simple, delusional, it\u2019s what we\u2019ve come to expect from college programs that have fallen on hard times. But almost immediately someone online added a \u201cthere\u201d to the ad so that it read \u201cThe football monopoly in LA is over there\u201d and suddenly Neuheisel looked like he was pointing towards USC. It was the perfect putdown, the prelude to the 28-7 USC would put on UCLA that December. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n That 21 point victory was just another notch in the bedpost for Pete Carroll. <\/span>In fact, coach Carroll is one Pat Cowan-led miracle away from a full decade of LA dominance, USC instead will have to settle for winning 9 of the last ten (7 of those wins under Carroll.) <\/span>But the last decade of USC isn\u2019t just marked by victories over UCLA, or Notre Dame (7 in a row); it\u2019s marked by USC\u2019s dominance of the Pac-10 (also 7 in a row) and by their Heisman Trophy haul (3 in the last 6 years.) <\/span>In fact just in these last 6 years they have more Heisman wins than all but 3 schools have in their entire history. <\/span>But look a little deeper and you\u2019ll notice that USC had 3 Heisman winners 4 years ago and they haven\u2019t won one since. <\/span>Going a mere three-plus seasons without winning a Heisman wouldn\u2019t be a blip on the radar of most schools- it would be the equivalent of complaining you haven\u2019t won the lottery in the last two months- but there might be cause for alarm in Trojanville because something is different now\u2026 <\/span> Something is different now and his name is Norm Chow.<\/strong><\/span> <\/span>Coach Chow was the offensive coordinator during those 3 Heisman seasons and also during Ty Detmer\u2019s Heisman winning season at BYU. <\/span>He left USC for the NFL\u2019s greener pastures, and coincidentally enough it was allegedly a certain QB\u2019s trouble with Chow\u2019s playbook that led to his firing- damn you Vince Young, when will you stop torturing USC!?!<\/em><\/span> <\/span>All of that though was just prelude to Neuheisel\u2019s coup d’\u00e9tat: bringing Chow back to LA. <\/span>As far as Benedict Arnolds go, this one is rather underrated. <\/span>It would be hard to imagine this happening to any other proud and prestigious organization, I mean could you imagine this happening in the NFL- like say a famous quarterback leaving and then coming back to join up with the archrival of his original team? <\/span>That would never<\/em><\/span> happen! <\/span>(You hear me? <\/span>What\u2019s happening in Minnesota right now never happened! <\/span>We\u2019re all going to agree on it five years from now so I\u2019m just getting a headstart.) <\/span>But in all seriousness, USC turns out so many great QBs (3 top ten draft picks during the Carroll era) that even their backups get drafted (could Matt Cassell happen at any other program?); meanwhile who was the last UCLA QB drafted in the first round? (Give up? <\/span>Cade McNown. <\/span>10 years ago.) <\/span>So bring on the QB guru, the Bruins need it. <\/span> Something is different now and his name is Matt Barkley.<\/strong><\/span> <\/span>Wanna piss off Pete \u201cI\u2019m going to save LA\u201d Carroll? <\/span>Leave USC early. <\/span>Sure you\u2019re going to get millions upon millions and all the New York tail you could want, but Pete\u2019s already got millions and you\u2019re costing him a National Championship. <\/span>Sanchez\u2019s early exit changed the entire dynamic. <\/span>Unlike Palmer to Leinart, Leinart to Booty, and Booty to Sanchez, there was no heir apparent waiting in the wings. <\/span>As nice as it must be to have Aaron Corp and Mitch Mustain sitting on the bench, for the first time in possibly his entire tenure Coach Carroll finally seems to be looking to the future rather than the here and now. <\/span>And suddenly USC\u2019s starting QB is a guy I watched get picked off a couple of times by St John Bosco just 10 months ago. <\/span> <\/span>Something is different now and his name is Kevin Prince.<\/strong><\/span> <\/span>While it\u2019s weird to see a freshman start at USC, it\u2019s become old hat in Westwood. <\/span>After Olson, Cowan, Olson, Bethel-Thompson, Raashan, and Craft, UCLA Freshman Kevin Craft just looks different. <\/span>Better. <\/span>It\u2019s only one game so I don\u2019t think any Bruin fan is counting their chickens, but last season\u2019s opening win over Tennessee happened despite their QB while this season\u2019s W happened because<\/em><\/span> of their QB. <\/span>Of course both LA freshmen QBs had some rookie mistakes, and both are seeing a serious upgrade in opponents this week (Ohio State for SC, Tennessee for UCLA) so the glass slipper could break any minute now but there is an air of optimism for both teams despite the growing pains that are guaranteed to occur. <\/span> Something is different now and his name is Rick Neuheisel.<\/strong><\/span> <\/span>From his smarmy, little-too-flirtatious interviews with Erin Andrews, to his over-the-top helicopter recruiting visits, to his \u2018nobody look at the messes I left in Colorado and Washington\u2019 style, something about Rick Neuheisel always makes me uneasy. <\/span>And his recent quotes have only made it worse- saying things like \u201cLast season is so last season\u201d and describing his \u201cpassion bucket,\u201d Neuheisel sounds like a bad self-help book. <\/span>But he\u2019s not wrong when he calls the LA football scene a monopoly, it\u2019s been years since UCLA was relevant- even worse is the fact that relevance, already waning, has taken some serious blows since Pete Carroll came to town. <\/span>So like the less talented child crying for a parent\u2019s attention, Neuheisel is willing to do just about anything to get you to pay attention. <\/span>If there really is no such thing as bad publicity then Neuheisel is your man. <\/span>But despite my urges to ignore everything that Neuheisel says, something really is different now. Something is different now and suddenly UCLA is getting just as good a recruiting class as USC. <\/span>Something is different now and suddenly both schools have the same level of experience under center. <\/span>Something is different now and suddenly the Bruins remember that they too have a strong football history. <\/span>Something is different now and suddenly we could be at the dawn of seeing 4 straight Prince\/ Barkley December games. <\/span> Or maybe USC could just be reloading, Prince could turn out to be just another mediocre Bruin QB, and Neuheisel could turn back into himself; but for right now something looks different and suddenly we might be seeing a real rivalry develop again. <\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Leaky Pipes is hoping that the Trojan Bruin rivalry will develop into an actual rivalry once again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3343"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=3343"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}