COLLEGE FOOTBALL : Neuheisel Must Feel Alone in His New Home

He was not supposed to have had the career arc of Macaulay Culkin, but you know how it goes with child stars.

Rick Neuheisel got the Colorado job--what was he, in kindergarten?-- and has been answering for it ever since.

He was born lucky, Venus in the seventh house, and for years everything broke his way, like the time in 1983 when UCLA quarterback Steve Bono’s broken hand set the stage for understudy Neuheisel’s flash dance to Rose Bowl fame.

Other than the fact he was personable, quotable, blond, went to law school, played the guitar and helped develop Troy Aikman, Neuheisel did not have a single thing going for him.

Even that 1994 slap in his face--UCLA coach Terry Donahue promoting Bob Toledo to offensive coordinator instead of Boy Wonder--turned golden when Neuheisel left UCLA to become an assistant at Colorado.

Golly gee, wouldn’t you know it, nine months later, Bill McCartney quit and Neuheisel was named coach.

“When you get the opportunity I was provided at 33 years old, a lot of coaches say, ‘Why the hell did he get that?’ ” Neuheisel said recently. “In all fairness, they’re right. But this business is not about fairness.”

Well, at 38, it’s fair to say Neuheisel’s luck may have run out.

Once top cub on any prospective UCLA coaching short list, Neuheisel already finds himself in duck-and-cover mode in Seattle, a prince aging like the picture of Dorian Gray.

Washington is 0-2 in the Neuheisel era, with Colorado coming to Seattle on Saturday; yes, the coach who took the money and ran pitted against his former recruits.

“If it helps them prepare for the game, the revenge factor, ‘Let’s get coach, he left us,’ that kind of thing, they’ll probably use it,” Neuheisel said this week.

Aside from becoming rich enough to afford a waterfront home--Neuheisel actually means “new house” in German--almost nothing has gone right in the nine months since Washington lured Neuheisel from Colorado for $997,000 a year.

A few veteran coaches privately fumed at his sweetheart deal, and it has been an upstream swim since.

Almost before he downed his first cup of joe at Starbucks, the school sacked Neuheisel for minor NCAA rules violations, mostly for “improper visits” to recruits.

Some accused him of improperly trying to lure former Colorado players to Washington, charges new Colorado Coach Gary Barnett does not confirm or deny.

Barnett said this week he would stick to the answer he gave an earlier interviewer.

“The answer I gave him was, ‘only Rick knows,’ ” Barnett said. “That’s what I’ll stand on.”

Neuheisel says he has made honest mistakes, but his knock-the-door-down entry rubbed so many Pacific 10 Conference coaches the wrong way he felt it necessary to clear the air at a May meeting.

Neuheisel told his colleagues: “We can compete any way we want to compete. We’re all trying to win the conference, but if we take the competition off the field, to the media, and sling arrows in the newspapers, the 10 of us are never going to coach five years. None of us will survive that.”

Four years ago, Neuheisel was a Boys’ Life cover, the clean-cut kid rafting with players down whitewater rapids. His first two Colorado teams finished 10-2, and he left Boulder after four years with a 33-14 record and a 3-0 bowl record.

But his decision to take the Washington job only days after he said he might become the Joe Paterno of Boulder, coupled with his decision to read a prepared statement to his players upon his exit, led to considerable Rocky Mountain residue.

The coach who served ice cream to his players at practice got creamed on his way out of town.

“My reputation is very important to me,” Neuheisel said in an interview before the season. “But, as John Wooden said, my character is more important. Reputation is something other people think of you.”

All this might have blown over had Washington run roughshod in September, but two losses to Mountain West Conference teams have left the Pacific Northwest to ponder:

Is Neuheisel the million-dollar deal?

Was that really Neuheisel’s hand in those two 10-2 Colorado seasons or the ghost of Bill McCartney?

How do you explain Neuheisel’s last two teams finishing a collective three games above .500? (Add this year’s two defeats and he’s 13-12 in his last 25 games).

The fun-guy frolicking that played so well in the press when he was winning turned against Neuheisel during Colorado’s 5-6 season in 1997.

“At 10-2, it’s new and refreshing, exciting,” Neuheisel said of his coaching approach. “When you lose, it’s son of a gun, you’ve got no discipline.”

Neuheisel’s last two teams were undisciplined and deservedly derided for their penchant for penalties. It was no coincidence that Barnett, late of Northwestern, stormed into Boulder promising to restore order to Camp Snoopy.

Neuheisel must have chuckled a bit when Barnstorm Barnett debuted with a 41-14 loss to Colorado State, but Colorado has rebounded with two victories.

To punctuate his purpose, Barnett dressed up as Gen. George Patton for last week’s pregame pep talk and ordered his troops to go slap Kansas silly.

There was nothing subliminal about this: See how much tougher Gary is than Rick?

“People use gimmicks,” Neuheisel said of Barnett’s Patton ploy. “When the result is good, you often come back and say it worked. It’s not clear as to whether that’s really the case.”

Both coaches can only be thankful the three early losses between them have chased some of the national interest away from Saturday’s soap opera.

But in Puget Sound, Neuheisel is desperate for any win; this week’s opponent only adds irony to the intrigue.

“Watching Colorado on videotape, I’ll be honest with you, I can remember being in every one of those kids’ homes, going through the recruiting process,” Neuheisel said. “But my focus and attention is solely on fixing our team.”

Can he do it?

“It will turn around,” he said. “And when it does, and all the dust is settled upon this Colorado-Washington, Neuheisel-Barnett issue, hopefully down the road they’ll look back and say he was right.”

Some of that will depend on the forgiveness factor.

Well, Gen. Patton, any bad blood between you and the scrub?

“No,” Barnett said.

We’ll see.

RICKY II

Neuheisel is trying his best to win over the Pacific Northwest. He has switched back to the gold helmets of yesteryear and sought advice from former Washington coach Don James.

He has even made a public point to show due deference.

“At the BYU game, I was on the field with LaVell Edwards and Don James prior to the game, and I felt like I should have been carrying their clubs,” Neuheisel said, “because these guys have forgotten more football than I know.”

TWILIGHT DOME

Irish death-watch report: Teams coached by Notre Dame coach present, Bob Davie, and his predecessor, Lou Holtz, are a combined 1-6. And, as far as the bowl championship series rankings are concerned, Notre Dame’s victory against Kansas in the Eddie Robinson Classic doesn’t count because it was a 12th game on the schedule.

That means, on Sept. 18, the Irish were eliminated from consideration for a $13-million BCS bowl because Notre Dame cannot win the nine games necessary for qualification.

More Irish: When was the last time Notre Dame won its opener and then lost three in a row to Michigan, Purdue and Michigan State?

Answer: 1997, Davie’s first season.

Still more Irish: Big Ten officials must be having a belly laugh at the expense of Notre Dame, which rebuffed an offer to join the prestigious conference last winter. September scoreboard: Big Ten 3, Notre Dame zip.

HURRY-UP OFFENSE

* What’s this talk about shutting down the Big West? Last weekend, the nation’s worst Division I-A conference scored three stunning upsets against schools from major conferences: Idaho beat Washington State, North Texas defeated Texas Tech and New Mexico State crushed Arizona State.

On our jaw-dropper scale, New Mexico State’s 35-7 victory ranks with Temple’s upset at Virginia Tech last season. It wasn’t just the score. New Mexico State, which had been 0-14 against ranked opponents since 1979, amassed 565 total yards against Arizona State.

* This just in . . . in the throes of their conference’s abysmal start, Walnut Creek officials dashed out a fax this week reporting that the Pac-10 led the nation with 218 players on NFL opening-day rosters. The Big Ten was second with 206 players, followed by the Southeastern with 202.

Based on what we’ve seen, that 218 number for the Pac may hold up next year.

* The most meaningless statistic this side of ESPN comes from the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, which reported Sunday that Miami is 4-2 in games played the week after a hurricane warning was issued in South Florida. Wow.

* After a 2-0 start, Nevada Las Vegas lost its home opener to Iowa State, 24-0.

“People started talking about miracles,” first-year Coach John Robinson said. “We’ve brought them back down to earth pretty good.”

* Because of a production error, the following prediction was omitted from my college football preview: What I wrote a month ago, um, honest, was this: “Don’t be surprised if Iowa State, Illinois, Minnesota, Maryland and Pomona-Pitzer all start the season 3-0.”