Rick Neuheisel

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Rick Neuheisel
Sport	Football
Born	February 7, 1961
Place of birth	Madison, Wisconsin
Career Highlights
Overall	66-30
Bowls	4-3
Coaching Stats
College Football DataWarehouse
School as a player
1983	UCLA
Position	Quarterback
Coaching positions
1995-98 1999-2002 2005-Present	Colorado Washington Baltimore Ravens (Offensive Coordinator)

Richard Gerald "Rick" Neuheisel, Jr. (born February 7, 1961 in Madison, Wisconsin) is an American football coach. Formerly a college head coach, he is currently the offensive coordinator for the NFL's Baltimore Ravens, after being promoted from quarterbacks coach on January 15, 2006.

Contents 1 Early years & UCLA 2 Pro career 3 Assistant coach 4 Head Coach 5 After Washington 6 Record 7 External links

[edit] Early years & UCLA

Rick Neuheisel was born in Madison, Wisconsin, the youngest of four children and the only son of Dick and Jane Neuheisel. Rick grew up in the Phoenix, Arizona area and attended McClintock High School in Tempe, where he lettered in three sports (football, basketball, baseball) and was named its outstanding athlete during his senior year. He graduated from McClintock in 1979 and then played his college football at UCLA, beginning his career as a walk-on, holding for placekicks.

He secured the starting quarterback position four games into his senior year, leading the Bruins to the Pac-10 championship in 1983 and a 45-9 victory over Illinois in the January 1984 Rose Bowl, in which he was named the most valuable player. He also set an NCAA record that year for single game pass completion percentage (since broken) by completing 25 of 27 passes (92.6%) in a win over Washington.

He was named to the Pac-10 All-Academic team and graduated from UCLA in May 1984 with a B.A. in political science and a 3.4 GPA.

[edit] Pro career

His professional career included two seasons with the San Antonio Gunslingers (1984-1985) of the USFL and three games with the San Diego Chargers of the NFL in the strike season of 1987. He closed out the season's final two games with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but did not receive any playing time.

[edit] Assistant coach

While attending law school at USC on an NCAA postgraduate scholarship, Neuheisel served as a graduate assistant with UCLA, where he tutored Troy Aikman. He graduated with a J.D. from USC in 1990 and passed the Arizona State Bar in May 1991 and the Washington, D.C. Bar in March 1993.

He later became a full-time assistant coach, and stayed at UCLA through the 1993 season. In 1994, he moved to Colorado as an assistant to Bill McCartney

[edit] Head Coach

McCartney retired following that season and Neuheisel, age 34, became the head coach. He stayed for four seasons (1995-98) in Boulder, then left for Seattle in January 1999 to coach at the University of Washington for four seasons (1999-2002). In the 2000 season, the Huskies won the Pac-10 title and the Rose Bowl over the Big Ten champ Purdue Boilermakers, led by quarterback Drew Brees. Washington, led by quarterback Marques Tuiasosopo, the Rose Bowl MVP, finished the season at 11-1 and was ranked third in the final national polls.

His 2001 and 2002 teams posted records of 8-4 and 7-6 respectively, as criticism began to mount that the team was becoming less physical and playing more of a finesse style. Passing yardage records were routinely broken while Washington's running game fell off dramatically.

Neuheisel was fired in the summer of 2003 from the University of Washington for playing in a neighborhood pool for the NCAA Basketball Tournament. However, the gambling case became a local sensation when it was revealed that he had received an internal UW memo which authorized this type of gambling. Analysis revealed that the NCAA rules were ambiguous and inconsistent (the NCAA website itself was found to have old versions of its rules by posters on the "dawgman.com" website) seeming to allow gambling within certain contexts, and it became apparent that the NCAA violated its own rules when questioning Neuheisel about the gambling.

[edit] After Washington

Legal proceedings enabled Neuheisel to collect a substantial settlement and essentially clear him of wrongdoing as the NCAA and University of Washington were forced to abandon their case. He served as a volunteer coach for Rainier Beach High School in Seattle for two seasons (2003-04), then became an assistant coach (quarterbacks) with the NFL's Baltimore Ravens in January 2005. In 2006, the Ravens acquired quarterback Steve McNair and won the AFC's North division with a 13-3 record.

[edit] Record

Year	Team	Overall	Conference	Standing	Bowl Game	Bowl Opponent	Outcome	Rank#
Colorado (Big Eight) (1995)
1995	Colorado	10-2	5-2	T-2nd	Cotton Bowl	#12 Oregon	W, 38-6	#4
Colorado (Big 12) (1996 — 1998)
1996	Colorado	10-2	7-1	2nd	Holiday Bowl	#13 Washington	W, 33-21	#8
1997	Colorado	5-6	3-5	T-4th
1998	Colorado	8-4	4-4	4th	Aloha Bowl	#21 Oregon	W, 51-43
At Colorado:		33-14	19-12
Washington (Pacific 10) (1999 — 2002)
1999	Washington	7-5	6-2	2nd	Holiday Bowl	#7 Kansas State	L, 24-20
2000	Washington	11-1	7-1	T-1st	Rose Bowl	#14 Purdue	W, 34-24	#3
2001	Washington	8-4	6-2	T-2nd	Holiday Bowl	#9 Texas	L, 47-43	#19
2002	Washington	7-6	4-4	T-4th	Sun Bowl	Purdue	L, 34-24
At Washington:		33-16	23-9
Career:		66-30
National Championship          Conference Title
†Indicates BCS bowl game. #Rankings from final Coaches Poll of the season.

Preceded by Bill McCartney	University of Colorado Head Football Coach 1995–1998	Succeeded by Gary Barnett
Preceded by Jim Lambright	University of Washington Head Football Coach 1999–2002	Succeeded by Keith Gilbertson

[edit] External links

• Baltimore Ravens - Rick Neuheisel
• Linde, Richard, "The Neuheisel Chronicles"
• Rose Bowl Legends.org - Rick Neuheisel profile
• Neuheisel enjoying life with the Ravens - The Seattle Times - 13-Jan-2007