Not one to tiptoe, he steps right into cross-town fray

Rick Neuheisel is in town and he brought his cannon with him.

In less than eight hours, starting with the morning papers and continuing with his homecoming news conference Monday afternoon, the new UCLA football coach fired several shots across the bow of Battleship Trojan and its admiral, Pete Carroll.

Some people in Neuheisel’s position like to sneak in under the cover of darkness and gain a foothold quietly. Neuheisel is about as quiet and subtle as Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve.

He told a Times reporter that he’d take a run at Norm Chow to become his offensive coordinator, and repeated that several times after his news conference.

Right or wrong, Chow was considered the mastermind of USC’s offense when Carson Palmer and Matt Leinert were toying with the rest of college football. Every time there is a little burp in USC’s fortunes, as there was this year against Stanford and Oregon, a large portion of the USC faithful screech for Chow’s return.

So it is not hard to figure out how those same faithful reacted to a story with the words UCLA and Norm Chow in the same paragraph.

Nor is it hard to figure out that Neuheisel had figured out how they’d react.

The truth is, Neuheisel hasn’t even talked to Chow yet, although he said he would soon. Yet there is no reason, other than possible unhappiness over his departure from USC, to believe Chow would leave his post as offensive coordinator of the NFL’s Tennessee Titans to join the Trojans’ archrival.

Still, just the image of Chow in powder blue has to enrage some Trojans, which, in turn, has to delight some Bruins.

Including one named Neuheisel.

Tighten your seat belts, fans. This is going to be fun.

At his news conference, Neuheisel kept repeating a goal: Take back the city. Get the Bruins back to the days when Terry Donahue not only stood up to the Teams of Troy, but kicked them around a lot.

“Time to get even with the guys across the street,” Neuheisel said.

For the last five years, while the dynamic and colorful Carroll turned USC into a perennial power, UCLA and its soft-spoken coach, Karl Dorrell, tiptoed around, almost in awe. When they beat the Trojans in 2006 in one of the most inexplicable results ever seen in college football, they seemed as much in awe about what they had done as secure in their accomplishment. It was as if they had gotten away with one, and afterward celebrated with winks and nods.

Neuheisel’s style is more of a front-door entrance. USC has its Trojan horse and UCLA has its General Sherman. Expect great explosions in the years to come.

Neuheisel’s news conference, jammed with players and fans as well as media, was a delight. Frankly, these things seldom are.

It began with Athletic Director Dan Guerrero saying New Year’s Eve was a time to celebrate, and UCLA was celebrating by bringing back one of its own.

Neuheisel was MVP of the 1984 Rose Bowl when he quarterbacked the Bruins past Illinois, throwing four touchdown passes. He was an assistant coach under Donahue before moving on to Colorado and Washington as head coach. He won the Rose Bowl for Washington in 2001. UCLA hired him from the Baltimore Ravens, where he was their offensive coordinator.

“This is my greatest thrill,” Neuheisel said. “To come back here as head coach, at my alma mater, the greatest university in the world.”

And he was off and running, a study in how to win friends and influence people, say all the right things at the right time. He spoke with wisdom and humor. He was serious and fun. He was not cocky, just quick.

If he can coach as well as he can present, Bruins fans better start becoming familiar again with the acronym BCS.

They presented him with his old UCLA jersey, No. 10.

“When I walked on in 1979, they didn’t have a jersey for me, so they gave me No. 24x,” he said. “Freeman McNeill was No. 24, and nobody was confusing us much.”

He introduced his wife, Susie, and their three sons. Then, his parents.

“Dick and Jane Neuheisel,” he said. “I was this close to being named Spot.”

He talked about his first days as a walk-on.

“I remember walking out on the intramural field, and playing catch with a guy from Indiana, Rick Sharp,” he said. “Right away, I was a little nervous because his spiral was tighter than mine. He was a tight end.”

He talked with respect, warmth and even some humor about the quiet man he was replacing, Dorrell, to whom he threw a touchdown pass in that ’84 Rose Bowl and with whom he coached at Colorado and Washington.

“We were here at the same time,” Neuheisel said. “I wore No. 10, he wore No. 8. Our lockers were about a foot apart. It took him until our sophomore year to say hello.”

He was asked about recruiting, an area where he violated enough rules at Colorado to get a figurative asterisk placed next to his name every time a job opportunity came up. And he turned it into a chance to laugh at himself.

“You’re going to be surprised that I know the rules,” he said.

Neuheisel also knows the score.

Asked how many times he has faced USC’s Carroll, he said, “We’re one and one. I won the first one, then he got me back.”

That was serious stuff. That was USC versus Washington.

This is USC vs. UCLA. In these parts, that’s religion.

The meek shall inherit the earth, except when a Trojan lines up against a Bruin.

Let the games begin.

In the case of new Bruins Coach Rick Neuheisel, they already have.

Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.