Bruins can’t fill the college football void in town

From Tempe, Ariz.

And so the opportunity has been lost, now and forever, disappearing in a chilly, shadowy desert that provided the metaphor for a failed autumn.

A UCLA football team hoping to fill a sullen Los Angeles college football landscape with heat and light will stagger away huddled and dark.

USC was benched, but UCLA couldn’t step up. USC was in jail, but it was UCLA that spent three months in the hole.

USC crashed, but it is UCLA that is twisted and smoldering, its season officially a wreck Friday after a 55-34 loss to struggling Arizona State.

Only the Bruins’ football team, it seems, could watch its crosstown rival be put on two-year probation and still wind up being the scoundrels.

“Am I hurt, disappointed, angry?” a somber Coach Rick Neuheisel said after his team fell to 4-7. “Absolutely all of the above.”

The defeat ended the Bruins’ bowl hopes, as they can no longer win the required six games. The defeat also stole any extra incentive from next week’s USC showdown beyond the usual chest-thumping, with both teams simply playing out the season.

More than anything, the defeat damaged the hopes that the Neuheisel era will get better before it gets worse. USC is on probation for another fall, but on another lost afternoon, did it look as if the Bruins are any position to capitalize?

They blew a 17-0 lead in the first quarter by allowing the Sun Devils to score 21 consecutive points before halftime. They blew a chance to regain the lead in the middle of the third quarter when they couldn’t convert a fourth-and-goal from the one-yard line.

They gave up touchdowns on a 71-yard run and a 99-yard kickoff return. They allowed a backup quarterback who had not thrown a touchdown pass this season to throw four and run for another, and Brock Osweiler will be forever grateful.

It was so embarrassing that as the Bruins walked off the Sun Devil Stadium field afterward, they were cheered by all of four UCLA fans, and wound up tossing their game gloves to folks in Arizona State shirts.

“This is a little bit of a setback,” Neuheisel said.

That’s like saying his program is in a little bit of turmoil.

Bob Toledo’s UCLA teams never seemed this dazed. Karl Dorrell’s UCLA teams never appeared this confused. The Bruins aren’t just losing to good teams, they are losing to lost teams, witness the combined 114-48 beating handed them by Cal, Washington and Arizona State.

Neuheisel is 15-21 in his three UCLA seasons, and he’s going in the wrong direction, without a win this season against a team currently with a winning record, and without any choice but to start making big changes now.

So, famous offensive coordinator Norm Chow, will you be one of the fall guys?

“Of course,” said Chow, barely speaking above a whisper while standing in another quiet locker room. “You’re the coordinator. You have to take the blame.”

The guess here is that even though Chow’s two-year contract extension was just approved for about $1 million, he will soon be asked to share his duties or be relieved of them entirely. The same fate also probably awaits defensive coordinator Chuck Bullough, whose team has given up more than 50 more points twice this season.

Both are good football men — goodness, Chow is a Hall of Famer — but they are not connecting with the head coach, and the battered and beaten players are suffering.

I still believe Neuheisel can finish the job here. I like his relentless optimism, he can clearly motivate for big moments, and that 81-51 career record is surely no fluke. But he’s going to have to shed his cool and dirty his hands to get it done.

“I know there is an answer, this is a great university and it can rise again,” Neuheisel said.

For now, though, there are only questions, none more pointed Friday than the one that arose midway through the third quarter, with Arizona State leading by four, when the Bruins drove to the Sun Devils’ one-yard line.

On fourth down, they smartly decided to go for the touchdown. But instead of lining up under center, quarterback Richard Brehaut remained in the pistol position, from where he handed the ball to Johnathan Franklin, who was stuffed, and why no quarterback sneak again?

“We thought we saw something there that would work,” Neuheisel said.

It was as if the vaunted Bruins’ coaching staff was again too smart for its own good. But then it got worse, when Neuheisel strangely publicly called out Franklin for not getting the job done.

“We were hoping Jet Ski would jump, we were talking about it on the sideline, I don’t know why he didn’t do it,” said Neuheisel, referring to Franklin by his nickname.

Cornered in the locker room with the criticism, Franklin humbly shook his head and said, “I know I should have jumped.”

This is still college. The kid should not have had to answer that charge. The coach never should have made it. Neuheisel is better than that. But his Bruins are not. Again.

bill.plaschke@latimes.com

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