Huskies preview: Taking a Neu direction

Rick Neuheisel appeared recently on Fox's "Best Damn Sports Show Period," which in itself is telling. They don't routinely invite people without a little shtick, or else we'd be yukking it up with Lloyd Carr of Michigan, Washington's opponent in two days.

Anyway, Neuheisel and Michael Irvin, former Dallas Cowboys receiver, were giving it back and forth.

"Hey, Michael," Neuheisel baited. "Got any eligibility left?"

Host Tom Arnold broke in.

"He's not even eligible for parole yet," Arnold shot back, bringing unanimous guffaws.

Neuheisel followers would say that's the beauty of him, the facility for the light repartee, be it with off-color talk-show hosts or 17-year-old recruits. Those who dislike him are leafing through the NCAA manual to see if chatting up Irvin might be a violation.

So it is with the Good Rick and the Bad Rick. He can be a riot, or he can be an illegal bump. With one, it seems that you get the other.

His challenge as he enters his fourth season at Washington is to maximize one and find a convenient dumpster for the other.

Since Neuheisel took the reins at Washington in early 1999, the landscape has changed dramatically. It wasn't a transition from Jim Lambright to Neuheisel, it was a cataclysm.

UW Athletic Director Barbara Hedges didn't think Lambright dealt well enough with athletes or her. Neuheisel has no problem on either count.

When Neuheisel got here, there was a steady tide of in-state talent drifting elsewhere. The hometown program couldn't always keep 'em home. Neuheisel himself pulled away lineman Victor Rogers to Colorado from Federal Way. Linebacker Mac Morrison departed South Kitsap High for Penn State. Others whom the Huskies coveted but didn't get — Jamal Hill of Mercer Island (Louisiana State), Carlos Pierre-Antoine of O'Dea (Notre Dame) — tapped out short of expectations, but it didn't conceal a basic shortcoming.

That flow has largely been choked off. When the Huskies decide they want somebody nearby, they usually get him — Paul Arnold, Reggie Williams, Isaiah Stanback, Nate Robinson.

True, highly touted quarterback Johnny DuRocher of Bethel High has committed to Oregon, which may have something to do with Stanback's presence at Washington. But Craig Chambers of Mill Creek's Jackson High, one of the nation's top wide receivers, is headed to Washington.

Under Neuheisel, the Huskies have done better recruiting speed. Shelton Sampson of Clover Park, fast enough to win three straight state 110-meter hurdles championships, might have been prominent as a freshman three years ago. This year, he might redshirt.

Everybody knows Neuheisel has hired well. He recognized that people such as Randy Hart and Keith Gilbertson were not only proven coaches but immediately respected in homes in the state.

Recruiting is connecting with people, and Neuheisel succeeded on other such levels. When tragedy struck Curtis Williams in 2000, Neuheisel handled it with compassion and leadership. He didn't let the Huskies forget about Williams, and he didn't, either, visiting the paralyzed safety many times. One of those was the day after Thanksgiving on a family trip to his wife's parents' home in central California, when surely there were more uplifting possibilities.

Then there was the Anthony Vontoure case. The father of the late UW cornerback has said he questions Neuheisel's conduct in dealing with his son, who died after a struggle with police late in the spring in Sacramento.

Vontoure had seven recorded violations of team policy in 1999-2000. It became clear that his presence was a distraction on the team, yet it was obvious he had personal problems. Believing Vontoure needed the structure inherent in football, Neuheisel kept him on the squad through the Rose Bowl.

Self-serving? Not when Vontoure played only sparingly in the Rose Bowl, giving way too much of the game to two freshmen cornerbacks. After Neuheisel finally cut Vontoure loose shortly thereafter, it seemed as though he had executed a difficult relationship in a humanitarian way.

That's the Good Rick. So is the one with the incurable instinct for fun — to lead a wee-hours, ritual dive from his backyard into Lake Washington when the Huskies beat the Cougars (the Apple Cup plunge); to have a punt-catching competition among linemen at the end of a long day during fall camp; to appear on the Jay Leno show on a trip to the Rose Bowl.

The Washington media guide has a telling quote about Neuheisel:

"My wife and I are always looking at our kids and saying, 'Why don't they go to bed?'... but when I think about it, I was the same way growing up. It's like when you go to sleep, you lose — the game is over, we have to stop...

"I haven't stopped being that guy who wants to play all night. Let's find a way to play... Let's think outside the dots. One of my main motivations is to figure it out before they can. That's who I am and who I've always been."

Enter the Bad Rick, the one that was in Philadelphia early this month answering to NCAA charges that he and his staff at Colorado committed 51 secondary violations in the late '90s.

In his thirst to be enterprising, to think outside those dots, Neuheisel has done things like speak so loudly to a coach during a recruiting non-contact period that it was obvious his words were directed to a prospect. He has skirted a cap on home visits by parking in a recruit's driveway, calling him on a cell phone and asking him to appear in front of the drapes.

Cute, but not exactly what they had in mind when they crafted the NCAA manual. One informed source says the NCAA, which will act soon on the allegations, is less amused than angered by what it sees as flouting of those contact rules.

The paradox is that Neuheisel doesn't have to do that stuff. All he is, is young, bright, good-looking and coaching the wealthiest and best-backed football program in the Pac-10.

Already, he has said he will take himself out of harm's way by limiting his time on the road. As the Neuheisel regime moves forward, maybe that means staying up late at night, not allowing the fun to stop, thinking outside the dots but inside the bounds of propriety.