I’m still kicking myself for not having faith in Rick Neuheisel and his alma mater UCLA. After the Bruins’ upset of Tennessee a couple of weeks ago all of Neuheisel’s teams are 24-10 ATS when installed as underdogs. You’d think for a guy who has a pretty quick mind that Slick Rick’s coaching style would be more cerebral. But he lives for the opportunity to motivate his players in the face of an uphill climb. I wonder how much of his style was influenced by his playing days at UCLA. His coach there was Terry Donahue. For the first years of his tenure Donahue was spectacular when motivating his players to seek revenge for a loss the previous season. My database doesn’t go back far enough, but I believe Donahue covered 15 of his first 18 or 19 games in that spot. Included in that mark was a game that still shows up on ESPN Classic once in awhile. In ‘88 Donahue & UCLA hosted Nebraska. The Bruins had already lost twice under Donahue to the Cornhuskers. Donahue whipped his kids into a frenzy and in about 20 minutes UCLA raced out to a 28-0 lead before coasting. The Bruins D separated a number of Nebraska players from their consciousness that afternoon. If you get a chance to see it again you should enjoy it. In any event, it wouldn’t be a great surprise to see UCLA spring the upset on BYU this Saturday.
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