Sports

College football is better late than ever

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Games are ending so late these days that public address announcers have taken on additional duties of mopping up, calling for taxis and issuing last beverage calls.

Here’s what you may have missed Saturday night.

UCLA 31, Houston 13.

The game ended at 10:42 p.m., two hours past traditional bedtime in Pasadena, and more than an hour past this newspaper’s deadline. Also ended was speculation about whether UCLA Coach Rick Neuheisel can respond to a crisis.

It may have been the most important win of his increasingly desperate tenure, with the Bruins playing with a passion and purpose that had been AWOL (absent without linemen) in opening defeats to Kansas State and Stanford.

It was ridiculous, though, for chat-roomers and sideline speculators to suggest Neuheisel’s job would have been in danger had UCLA fallen to 0-3, or maybe you don’t know how these things work. Bruins Athletic Director Dan Guerrero put his reputation on the line when he fired Karl Dorrell and hired Neuheisel.

Athletic directors tend to have limited tolerance for coaches they didn’t hire — tuck that in your pocket with regard to USC AD Pat Haden and Lane Kiffin — but the patience of Job if they handpicked the head coach.

No way in Westwood was Guerrero going to pull the (pistol) trigger on Rick and his new UCLA offense three games into this third season — but that doesn’t mean the win wasn’t huge, with a capital “H,” as in Houston.

Full story: College football is better late than ever – latimes.com