Neuheisel, Chow ready to take ball and run

Last season’s UCLA football team, one that started with great expectations, didn’t qualify for a major bowl game and was ranked toward the bottom among the nation’s 119 major college offenses – 101st in passing, 99th in total yards, 92nd in scoring. Since then, the Bruins brought on Rick Neuheisel as head coach and Norm Chow as offensive coordinator, men who have directed high-scoring and successful teams. Neuheisel’s Colorado and Washington squads averaged 30 points or more in five of eight seasons; Chow has mentored three Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks. Times staff writer Chris Foster recently had separate interviews with the coaches, who talked about their plans for the Bruins:

* Question: Have you settled on an offense?

Neuheisel: “We’re formulating a scheme. I don’t know if it has the moniker that all the trendy offenses have now. I certainly wouldn’t call it Spread or the West Coast. I think where Norm is centered on is just being able to run the ball and protect the ball. It sounds overly simplistic, but if you can do both those things you can force defenses into a position where now big plays are available.

“That doesn’t necessarily sound exciting. ‘Run the ball and protect the ball’ sounds very conservative. But I think if you can do both of those things successfully and commit to both of those things, the excitement then comes because the field now opens because you have to stop the run. You will bleed to death if you don’t stop run.”

Chow: “We’re going to run the ball. To win in this game, in any league, you have to run the ball. I don’t think we’re going to revolutionize football. We’re going to continue to do things that [Neuheisel] and I know best.

“I think now it is a matter of what skills what kids can do. We’re not going to ask our kids to do something they are not capable of doing. Right now we put in base stuff that will fit just about anything, then we’ll wait and see.”

* Q: Have there been any differences in philosophy between you two?

Neuheisel: “It’s been interesting to me how few there have been. Sometimes you have this picture of the ‘geniuses’ in the game as being, ‘My way and only my way.’ But the ones who are the real geniuses are the ones who realize that other people have ways to do these things that might be better. They are open to those kind of suggestions.

“I smiled as the first conversation went on because it sounded like I was talking to [former UCLA offensive coordinator] Homer [Smith]. Homer and Norm have a lot of similarities. They have gone their own path. But in terms of their beliefs and the core of how they teach it, they do things in a unifying way.”

Chow: “As long as there are two people there are always going to be differences. That’s good. I told him, ‘I made a policy that I would not go to work for an offensive head coach.’ I have only been at a few places, but they have always been defensive guys. I broke my rule going with him because he is such a good guy and very willing to work together. Philosophically, we’re very much alike.”

* Q: Do you have the personnel to do all you want offensively?

Neuheisel: “I think we need to adapt what we do to our personnel rather than say, ‘Here’s our offense, oh we don’t have it.’ I think our offense needs to be able to morph into whatever we have and take advantage. I was a three- and four- wide receiver guy at Colorado, with a lot of vertical stuff. The Washington experience was completely different because our players we completely different. We got into the option. I did very little option at Colorado once [quarterback] Kordell [Stewart] graduated because option wasn’t Koy [Detmer’s] forte. But that was the way to spread the field.

“All offenses are going to try to make you cover the whole field… . But the ability to take your offense and match it to your personnel is what makes geniuses.”

* Q: Where do you start?

Chow: “Right from the beginning, how to line up in the huddle. How we’re going to call the plays. It’s ground zero. What I keep telling them theory wise, if you’re learning Japanese, as long as I tell myself, ‘The Japanese word means this in English,’ it is going to slow me down. I have to learn, ‘That’s Japanese, that’s what I got to learn.’ I don’t want us to say, ‘OK we’re going to run this play, but it’s like what UCLA used to call this.’ We don’t want them to learn it that way. I told the guys I don’t care what you called it before, this is how we run it. Don’t translate.”

* Q: You say you want to run the ball. What is the situation with running backs Kahlil Bell and Raymond Carter, who are coming off serious knee injuries?

Neuheisel: “Raymond will get a chance to be in part of spring practice, but he won’t do the physical stuff. Kahlil won’t be back until the fall. So those guys will have to learn as it goes along. Christian Ramirez will be back and [Chane] Moline will be back. So those two kids will get the brunt of the tailback carries. Craig Sheppard, the walk-on kid, will also compete there. Then we’ll look and see what happens with the incoming kids. There will be a group of guys who get here in the fall. It will be hard to get everybody a whole bunch of reps, but it will be fun competition. What’s most important is we create a culture of ‘What can I do to help?’ ”

* Q: Have you had a chance to evaluate the quarterbacks?

Chow: “I looked at the tapes of all of them. Rick made the statement, and a very accurate one, that every job is open. I try to look at the tapes not to form hard and fast opinion. I want to see them work. Looking at the tapes, I think they all had moments where they played pretty well.”

* Q: Is there an entertainment value that an offense has to have in Southern California?

Neuheisel: “Terry Donahue talked about that ad nauseam when I was a freshman and sophomore here. The veer was really successful for UCLA, but you got to sell some tickets. In Los Angeles, the heart of the entertainment industry, we want to be as flamboyant as anyone. But we can be flamboyant as long as we stick to our plan. If we stick to our plan, and with Norm’s reputation as a play caller, we’ll be fine. We’ll make enough plays to get the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs,’ and to get the best wide receivers, the best quarterbacks, the best running backs, the best tight ends and the best linemen to want to come here.

“That’s the whole deal. Dominique Johnson is going make enough plays so the next Dominique Johnson says, ‘I want to go there,’ which is exactly what has happened at [USC] the model across town.”

Chow: “They always say that offense fills the stands and defense wins the championship. But you want to put a product on the field that you can be proud of, whether it’s running the ball 100 times or throwing the ball. The bottom line is you want to win. You can be as fancy as you want to be, and as tricky as you want to be, but if you don’t win, it won’t make no never mind.”

chris.foster@latimes.com