Toledo’s Turmoil

After seven years of surviving everything from humor to pathos, Bob Toledo’s UCLA career wobbles today on the precipice of irony.

His cross-town rivals have beaten him to within a whisker of losing his job.

Yet he must help them Saturday to save it.

Indications are that Toledo may have to defeat Washington State -- thus landing USC in the Rose Bowl -- to avoid being removed as coach.

Nobody is saying anything official. But the signs are as obvious as the empty Rose Bowl seats in the second half of the Bruins’ recent blowout loss to the Trojans.

The athletic department is receiving piles of angry correspondence. Alumni are reportedly making elaborate proposals to buy out Toledo’s contract at $1.3 million.

Some boosters are already discussing replacements. Others are openly hoping the Bruins lose to the Cougars so USC and Toledo will be nailed at the same time.

And the only guy who can quiet the mob refuses to talk.

Dan Guerrero, the athletic director who was so open in his support of Toledo earlier this season, refused an interview request Monday.

“It’s not an appropriate time,” a spokesman said.

Not only does such a refusal potentially hurt recruiting, it also doesn’t do much for a coach’s confidence.

“It’s all up to them,” said Toledo, referring to university officials. “It’s all about how much pressure can the administration handle, and whether they are willing to stand by me or not.”

He added, “They have to know they will always feel heat about their coaches. The question is, how will they handle it?”

In the past, the Bruin athletic department was impervious to heat.

In the past, it would have taken something extraordinary for UCLA to fire a coach with a 49-31 record, six bowl qualifications in seven seasons, and a school-record 20-game win streak.

But Guerrero, a former Bruin baseball player who was hired as athletic director last spring, has never run a program with a football team. His history with Toledo only goes back eight months.

And at such a relatively quick glance, Toledo’s numbers are an electric clash of positive and negative.

Negative: Toledo is only the second Bruin coach in history to lose four consecutive games to the Trojans.

Positive: The other coach was Terry Donahue, who rebounded to have a Hall of Fame career.

Negative: Since that 20-game win streak ended in 1998, Toledo’s teams are only 24-23.

Positive: With only seven senior starters, the Bruins have won three of their last four games.

Negative: Toledo has been the coach during a handicapped-parking scandal, a marijuana scandal, a drunk-driving scandal, a borrowed-car scandal, and an alley full of barroom scandals.

Positive: Since he implemented tighter controls this year, the hijinks have apparently stopped.

“People forget about things, remember some others,” Toledo said. “It’s all about, what have you done for me lately. I understand that. I accept it.”

Lately, in his case, is a 79-21 deficit to USC over the last two years.

Lately is a questionable quarterback change that hurt UCLA’s momentum against USC, and a questionable running play that led to a long missed field goal that could have beaten Oregon.

But lately is also a 2002 season that has been free of problems off the field, and full of effort on it.

For those who say they laid down against the Trojans, well, then what did Notre Dame do?

“I’ve been proud of this team, and I really think we’ve responded to each other,” Toledo said. “And with all these great freshmen, I really think we’re going to get better and better next year. I would like to be around for that.”

But will he?

“There’s a lot of pressure to win this next game,” Toledo acknowledged. “This is a big, big game. This is the one.”

If the Bruins beat Washington State, they will finish the regular season 8-4 and in third place in the Pac-10. With the best players returning, how can you fire a coach after that?

But if they lose to Washington State -- which is beatable because of an injured starting quarterback -- they are 7-5 and headed for a lousy bowl game and you know what?

It could happen.

Guerrero could act on a belief that Toledo, whose easygoing personality hinders his fight for locker-room respect, has lost the team.

He could respond to fears that if UCLA doesn’t make a move now, USC will dominate for the next several years and Bruin recruiting might never catch up.

The very un-Bruinlike firing that could never happen might actually happen.

“I think I should be judged on, have we had a competitive football team?” Toledo said. “Do we play hard? Do we give our best effort?”

The usual answer to all those questions has been yes.

But there are two glaring exceptions.

In one of the most crushing losses in program history, against Miami in 1998 -- breaking the 20-game win streak -- the Bruin defense seemingly missed tackles on purpose after chafing under Toledo’s season-long public criticism. The Bruins were so distracted the week of the game, they even discussed wearing black armbands in protest of a then-ambiguous college athlete movement.

Many thought Toledo had lost that team.

Then, last November, the Bruins quit in a shutout loss to USC after quarterback Cory Paus admitted he had been charged with drunk driving the previous summer. Paus’ infraction was reportedly made public by associates of DeShaun Foster, the suspended running back who was angry at what he perceived to be Toledo’s derisive comments about his borrowed car incident.

Many thought Toledo had also lost that team.

“Yes, I’ve made some mistakes,” Toledo said Monday. “And if I had to do some things different, I would do them. But I’ve learned. I’ve made adjustments. I feel I’ve improved.”

He recently showed how much when he publicly admitted that he never should have brought in quarterback Matt Moore for hot quarterback Drew Olson against USC.

The old Bob Toledo would never publicly admit he was wrong, at least not until he had fired a defensive coordinator.

“I was never trying to pass off blame, I was just trying to be honest,” Toledo said. “But I’ve learned from that too. I’m now much more careful with what I say. And I’ll admit when I was wrong.”

Critics will say, yeah, fine, but the quarterback switch is another example of how Toledo is too flighty on a sideline, how his best work came when since-departed Al Borges helped him upstairs, how Toledo would be a better offensive coordinator than coach.

Critics are increasingly saying lots of things about Toledo, none of which will matter if he beats Washington State, even though that would help the one team trying to destroy him.

During Monday’s conference call, Cougar Coach Mike Price was asked to imagine playing a game in which a victory would help rival Washington.

“I’d tank it,” he said.

Moments later, Bob Toledo heard the quote, laughed, then pounded his fist on the table.

“I’m not tanking it,” he shouted, seriously, a renewed charge or last call.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.