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Rick Neuheisel is interested in Oregon State job, for some reason

By Brad Berreman

LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 26: Head coach Rick Neuheisel of the UCLA Bruins gestures in the game against the USC Trojans at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on November 26, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. USC won 50-0. (Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 26: Head coach Rick Neuheisel of the UCLA Bruins gestures in the game against the USC Trojans at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on November 26, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. USC won 50-0. (Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images) /
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Oregon State will be seeking a new permanent football coach fairly soon, and Rick Neuheisel has thrown his hat in the ring.

Two days after a bad loss to USC on Oct. 7 dropped their record to 1-5, Oregon State and head football coach Gary Andersen agreed to part ways. The Beavers have been far more competitive in losses to Colorado and Stanford since then under interim head coach Corey Hall, but it’s safe to assume a broader search for a new coach is coming or has already started.

We last saw Rick Neuheisel as a coach during the 2011 season at UCLA. Since then, he has been working as a college football analyst, for Pac-12 Network, CBS Sports and Sirius XM, and even as a relatively young man still (56 years old) Neuheisel has not appeared close to a return to coaching at any point.

But Neuheisel was on with John Canzano on 102.9 FM in Oregon Wednesday, and threw his hat in the ring for the Oregon State job.

"“I think everybody saw what’s possible in the effort they put forth against Stanford,” Neuheisel said. “… They need somebody who can recruit the state of California. That has to be first and foremost. They have to go down there and find the guys who Mike Riley and Dennis Erickson got… someone who is going to harvest all that talent.”Is he interested in the OSU job?“Always.”"

On the idea Oregon State needs “somebody who can recruit the state of California,” Hall did not hesitate to fire back at Neuheisel.

"“As far as recruiting California, you do,” he continued. “You have to recruit California and those athletes… I don’t know if I have any memory space left in my phone from players in California that I’ve heard from… top-level guys.”"

Related Story: 5 candidates to be next Oregon State coach

Neuheisel went 66-30 over eight combined seasons at Colorado and Washington (1995-2002), before going 21-29 over four seasons at UCLA (2008-2011). So it’s easy to assume something changed over that time, with recruiting an easy reference point. Or perhaps the coaching game just passed him by to some degree. Oregon State would be a low expectation landing spot for sure, but why Neuheisel would even entertain the idea of coaching a low-tier Pac-12 team right now is the question.

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