Colorado Writers Taking Note of "Rick Ball"

"Rick Ball".

Race over at the Husky Half Brains posted a simple definition for it:

Win the 4th quarter, win the game.

I think we will go ahead and run with it.

Looks like it’s not just Washington, but folks in Colorado also took note of Monday night’s Rick Ball at the Rose Bowl. From B.G. Brooks at the Rocky Mountain News:

With Southern California already entrenched in its role as a college football monster, UCLA needed to answer with a monster hire last winter in replacing Karl Dorrell.

Enter Rick Neuheisel, whose "baggage" fortunately wasn't a deterrent for the Bruins administration. He was (and is) the right guy to go cool on cool with USC's Pete Carroll, and quite possibly restore UCLA football.

The Neu Era in Westwood began smashingly Monday night, with the Bruins overtaking then-No. 18 Tennessee 27-24 in overtime. There's a lot of season left, but being on national television (ESPN), it was the kind of win Neuheisel can carry into recruits' living rooms come December.

John Henderson from the Denver Post joined Brooks in taking note of CRN’s “masterpiece”:

I've always said that Neuheisel's type of coaching — player ski trips, guitar solos, outrageous quotes — is needed in college football. But maybe it shouldn't be by him. He's called Slick Rick for a reason. He's smarter than you and he knows it. He has a law degree and thinks the NCAA has gray areas, just like the law does.

It doesn't. That's what got him in trouble at Colorado and Washington.

However, betting in an NCAA basketball tournament in which he received written permission from Washington to participate and skirting one contact rule at Colorado were no reasons for Neuheisel to get blackballed by college football.

The game not only needs his type of coaching, but UCLA needs Neuheisel. His charm can match USC's Pete Carroll even if his record can't. When Karl Dorrell won 10 games for UCLA in 2005, a persona more appropriate for the World Series of Poker couldn't win over fans weaned on Jay Leno and Rambo.

Neuheisel swears he had nothing to do with last week's full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times showing Neuheisel pointing to the distance, presumably at USC, with the proclamation, "The football monopoly in Los Angeles is officially over."

But he sure didn't mind the marketing department's chutzpah.

"They must've come to a practice where we looked good," Neuheisel joked. "As I think about it, it's really a call to arms to our fans. Our fans have to get some swagger about them."

At this point, we could care less who decided to take out that ad, wrote the text for it and gave the final approval to run it in the LAT. It is clear to us that CRN sent that message to members of the Bruin Nation. He backed it up by giving us a little early taste of Rick Ball at the Rose Bowl.

We get that it was a perfect storm and it’s a good bet that we are going to take it in the chin few times before the season is over. However, none of that really matters. We have now gotten a little taste of “Rick Ball” and a real hope for the long term of future of this program. Everyone can sense "it" around here and its clear that vibe is not confined within the borders of Westwood.

GO BRUINS.