Pretty interesting nugget from Jon Gold:

Leading 21-3 with 1 minute, 41 seconds left in the first half, UCLA (2-2, 1-0) squandered a drive with poor time management, wasting nearly a minute on two running plays before trying to move the ball downfield. Unable to convert a 3rd-and-1 with 32 seconds left, the Bruins were forced to punt.

Only Neuheisel forgot to convey his intentions to punt it out of bounds and Beaver returner Jordan Poyer corralled a Jeff Locke punt and took it 85 yards for a momentum-swinging touchdown.

Neuheisel marched into the locker room and instead of lambasting his squad, he offered his apology, putting it squarely on his shoulders, asking his players, 30 years his junior, to lift him up, perhaps to save his job.

They did.

"We got his back," middle linebacker Patrick Larimore said. "All the players have his back. Sh*ts going to happen. People are going to make mistakes. He knows that, but for him to say that to us really fired us up. We knew we came out, had a solid first half - we didn't care, we were gonna come out here and fight for his ass. Fight 'til the end."

Uh, I doubt Neuheisel asked players to "save his job." That Gold adding his color to the story without substantiating it. However, it is good to hear from Neuheisel's own words that he took responsibility for the miscue. More from Gold:

"I told them, I take full responsibility for the punt return, that's on me, now you guys gotta pick me up, just like you pick each other up," Neuheisel said. "And we're gonna wrestle momentum back from them, and that's what happened."

I really appreciate this note from Neuheisel. That said we can't continue to see this kind of miscues. FWIW we always heard lot of mea culpas from Ben Howland too in last two years when he stuck with same rotation of players (who didn't really deserve to be on the court due to their lack of commitment to defense), only to have Howland do the same thing all over again. To be fair there were only 4 penalties this weekend, so that's an improvement from recent weeks. But the Bruins must clean up the mistakes. Getting this kind of mea culpa directly from Neuheisel to players could help. We will see.

Now if he can find a way to shed his conservative play calling perhaps Bruins will have a shot. I will have my full GPA breakdown tomorrow am.

GO BRUINS.