On the Dan Patrick show former UCLA head coach Rick Neuheisel shared a funny story about the time Jim Harbaugh accused him of cheating. Harbaugh was recently suspended for cheating by the Big Ten and facing more sanctions from the NCAA. so take a moment and let the irony of that one sink in a bit.
With Harbaugh at Stanford and Rick with the Bruins, the two competed for recruits and attended meetings as colleagues back when the league was the Pac-10.
The story came up as Dan asked Rick about the etiquette of ratting out other coaches or programs for breaking the rules, a rather timely topic as Michigan received Big Ten and possible NCAA disciplinary action for their illegal scouting operation led by Connor Stalions.
After stating that what he’d like to believe is that coaches would go to each other first, and not directly to the NCAA or reporters to break a story, Neuheisel reflected on a time when he got a call from Harbaugh accusing him of breaking recruiting rules.
“I know he did that to me,” Neuheisel shared. “He thought I was involved with a recruit when it was legally downtime when I was not allowed to call the recruit and he called me out and accused me of it.”
“I said, ‘Jim, absolutely not. The kid called me,’ the former UCLA head coach shared, noting it was a walk-on fullback named Nick Rule and walk-ons couldn’t get into Stanford.
Neuheisel says that Harbaugh called him every name in the book, and said he was cheating, to which he responded that he was out of his mind and had the phone records to prove his side of the story.
“We had it out over the phone. There was no going back with give-and-take.”
Neuheisel goes on to share a story about how Harbaugh came to a league meeting with a bunch of data wanting Pete Carroll to stop having the use of Pac-10 officials at practices.
Harbaugh contested that their budget at Stanford only allowed him to have officials at three or four practices a year, while USC had Pac-10 officials on hand every day and that was going to lead to a distinct advantage for Carroll and the Trojans because it was allowing them extra time to build relationships with the officials.
Carroll then raised his hand to point out that USC was the most penalized team in the league the year prior, eliciting laughs from the coaches in attendance.