Sorry, Rick.  It was great fun to watch you as a player, an underdog, battle back from the brink in '83, carry our great school back from an 0-3-1 start, blast $C and then embarrass Illinois in the '84 Rose Bowl.  It was entertaining to see you play QB for the Gunslingers in the USFL, and that brief stint as a Charger scab.  It was even nice to see you seemingly do well in Boulder and Seattle as the Head Coach, after learning the trade from a decent man and a great Bruin like Terry Donahue.  Like so many others, I was thrilled when you were given the reins 4 years ago, to take over from another nice guy who was clearly in over his head;  I expected better things - not even great ones, just better.  

It hasn't worked out like any of us had hoped or wanted.  And your presser on Monday gives insight into part of the problem:  you can't even see the problem(s).  There has been no closure of any gap - unless it is the gap between reality and delusion.   The slugs across town got busted, burned, and hired a schlub to replace the pom pom boy.  THAT may be suggested is a temporary gap-narrower.  But you didn't take the steps to shore that up.  That temporary setback for them is coming to an end, and they're emerging, even with a dolt at the helm, as strong as they were under the pom pom boy.  Your lot is continuing to have trouble differentiating between eleven and twelve - at least between the sidelines.  That penalty yard "gap" has become a chasm.  Your defense still can't wrap up after hits, and the hits are often glancers, or are being first delivered 5 + yards past the line of scrimmage.  The intensity gap on defense is widened.  Speaking of gaps,  Your secondary players continue to afford their opponents with so much room to operate, they could be called Free Range receivers, and absence of any consistent pass rush accentuates this problem.  You continue to ignore your best RB in favor of your shorter, quicker, less sure-handed one.  In short,  Rick, nothing you have done has narrowed a single gap.  Your comments evoke an old political term from the Vietnam era, some of the (other) geezers may remember.  Rick,  you have a "Credibility gap."  One that is widening.  

With a great sense of trepidation-tinged nostalgia, the Mrs. and I trekked north for our first “Parents’ Weekend” at the hallowed U on Thursday morning.  Sandwiched around the trip was some family responsibilities, as most of my extended fam still lives in the greater LA area, but the bulk of the time was intended to venerate where we came from, and where we strived and encouraged our youngest child to enroll (okay, both of them to enroll, but alas, the older one only got into Cal, and not the vaunted Southern Branch – but I digress). 

Parents’ Weekend kicked off in fine style with breakfast in the Dickson Plaza, surrounded by the imposing-but-friendly facades of Powell and Royce, followed by a welcome assembly featuring Chancellor Gene Block. It was held in Royce, which has become – for those who haven’t experienced it since the seismic retrofitting – a non-denominational Cathedral for higher learning.  As for Block himself,  for those who have never had the experience – and particularly for those geezed and not-so-geezed among us,  Charles Young was n-e-v-e-r this personable,  Block’s speech was charismatic, down-to-earth, and sincere.  His comment, quoted below, was most telling:

"I read every letter sent - except the ones about football- I read every other one of those;”  this says that he is hearing the chatter, and that it needs to continue.  He is getting the message. 

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For the third week in a row,  despite being advertised repeatedly as the 7:30 game on FSN all week long,  this Bruin awakened on Saturday to find that FSN in these parts = FSNPT.  Now before any of you North Campus alums starts to experience any math-formula/acronym angst, I’m talking about the channel-formerly-known-as-Fox Sport West, now called Fox Sports Prime Ticket.  

For some reason, many years ago, when the Cox-monster gobbled up the cable franchises all over the rambling territory known as North San Diego County, and before there was a legitimate satellite option,  there was no real issue with this kind of Bruin football  pigeonholing.  After all, back in the heady days of Maddox, Cook, and McNown,  Bruin Road games made it on to ABC with regularity, and if not there onto the one Fox Sports channel on the West Coast (FSW) at 3:30pm, and all was right with the world.  In those days, 2-3 Rose Bowl trips a year were manageable with young kids in tow, and the rest could usually be found somewhere on the tube.

Within the past 7 or 8 years, however, there has been this shuffling to the bottom of the deck, for Bruin games.  They’ve been dumped to the bottom of the plate – jostling for airtime with (yecch!)  Kings hockey.   Sorry, puck fans,  Tried it,  don’t like it, and it’s a really poor substitute for Bruin football – even mediocre Bruin football.   Inevitably, when Bruin games have been shunted over to FSWPT, it has been so that FSN may bring you “exciting” Kings hockey.  I’d rather watch highlights of  the confirmation hearings for the Secretary of Agriculture, or maybe  the lost episodes of “Branded,”  but I digress.  This year it has been exacerbated by the constant advertising of the game being on FSN, only to check the local line up and find out that here in SD that FSN will be getting some other option besides UCLA football, usually finding out within a day or less of kickoff.

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(Apologies to Fellow Alum, Randy Newman)  

First,  everyone reading this, go to http://www.firerickneuheisel.com.  Read, breathe, read again.  It's okay to chuckle, really.

Secondly,  as a geezer who has never contributed a blogpost here before, I am offering this one as a way to balance things out, offer perspective. 

I drank the Kool-aid, the belief that Rick Neuheisel was the anti-Dullard – the man with the track record, charisma, and all the tools needed to lift our favorite School/Alma Mater out of the gridiron doldrums and back into (at least) the frayed edges of the CFB spotlight – a place where Doughboy Bob Toledo had toyed with in 97-98 and again in ’01, and where Terry Donahue had flirted with on  comparatively a similar number of occasions (’76, ’80, ’82, ’88, and ’93).

Like many of you, I sat is muted disbelief in the Bowl on Saturday.  First at the comparatively small size of the crowd.  This kind of intersectional game, and a half-full bowl?  Look at all that ugly brown-orange.  And oh, crap, they brought their stupid bovine, too?  Who do they think they are, the jerks from across town?  Then again, there’s a recession on, and those of us from the Public University in town – read the non-trust-fund-alums, are feeling the pinch, too.  

Then kick-off.  Then, uneasy euphoria, because it was a stop on defense.  Maybe that decision to defer made hella sense!  Out trots the Prince.  He of the iron will, but sadly also of the glass jaw.  His cameo appearance was pick and dodge out of bounds as fast as possible. 

Neuheisel could have tapped Troy Aikman on the shoulder and sent him in down 21-0 and the end result would not have changed.   

What the hell is wrong with this program?  When this geezer got hooked on Gutty Little Bruin ball – back in the late 60’s – this was a team that slaughtered intersectional opponents like Pittsburgh (62-7 in ’68),  and had its way with perennial conference doormats (like the Ducks – even with a Fouts at             QB – 65-20 in ’72, or 62-3 over WSU in ’76, or 49-0 over Stanford in ’87).  What’s changed?

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