Teaming up to jump-start UCLA's offense

Neuheisel, Mazzone share a bond that has produced yards and points for the Bruins.

- BEN BOLCH

NOEL MAZZONE ran UCLA's offense from 2012 to 2015, with Jerry Neuheisel as a backup quarterback.

(DON LIEBIG UCLA Athletics)

They’re calling their favorite audible again.

One quarterback guru contacts the other, asking for help in creating a dynamic offense.

The answer is always yes. The results say as much about Jerry Neuheisel’s and Noel Mazzone’s devotion to each other as they do about their ability to mass-produce yards and points for UCLA.

“No matter what happens,” Neuheisel said in an interview with The Times, “as long as you're around him you have a smile on your face.”

The latest call came from the longtime apprentice to his mentor.

With the Bruins sputtering toward an 0-4 start, Neuheisel spoke with Mazzone about possibly returning to Westwood to assist with the offense. Just as he routinely had when he was UCLA's offensive coordinator a decade earlier, Mazzone cultivated the necessary intelligence, learning that Neuheisel would be promoted from tight ends coach to playcaller before Neuheisel did.

“He was in the car, I believe, the next morning and he was here that evening,” Neuheisel said, “and it was onto try to beat Penn State.”

Beat Penn State they did, reviving an offense and a team that have become the talk of college football. UCLA's average of 40 points in its two victories has nearly tripled its previous output during that winless start, spawning reminders of the offense the Bruins ran under Mazzone with Neuheisel as a backup quarterback from 2012 to 2015.

That was just the start of a winning combination.

Not long after they had parted ways at the end of their four seasons together in Westwood, Mazzone reached out to Neuheisel, persuading him to give up playing for the Obic Seagulls of Japan’s X League so that he could help Mazzone in 2017 during his second season as Texas A&M's offensive coordinator.