Bruins’ loss to Arizona a new low for UCLA athletics

Unbuckling the mailbag:

Question: What are the chances Rick Neuheisel coaches UCLA’s next game?

50/50?

Snowball’s in hell?

Josh McCool

Vancouver, Wash.

Answer: I’d go with the snowball as long as it’s the size of Jupiter. UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero made it clear after Thursday’s debacle in Arizona he would not make a coaching switch until the end of the season.

That said, I can’t remember a more embarrassing half for UCLA athletics in any sport.

It wasn’t just the score — it was everything.

UCLA has not been so quick to get out the back door since Princeton’s basketball team shocked the Bruins in the 1996 NCAA tournament.

Yes, Brigham Young routed UCLA in 2008, 59-0, but that BYU team finished 10-3.

Yes, UCLA lost in Eugene last year, 60-13, but that Oregon team played in the Bowl Championship Series title game.

UCLA went paws up to an Arizona team that had not won a game against a Football Bowl Subdivision team since it defeated UCLA last Oct. 30.

Arizona had just fired its coach.

UCLA couldn’t tackle, block or catch. The Bruins couldn’t get out of their own way, but they sure got out of Arizona’s.

Trailing 42-7 at the half would have been merely horrible if not for a bench-clearing melee that embarrassed both teams, and the Pacific 12 Conference, on national cable television.

The funniest/saddest part was Neuheisel — down 28-7 to a team that would score touchdowns on its first six drives — calling on a former soccer team manager to kick a field goal that would have made the score 28-10.

The kid pushed it wide right.

Everything else went “wide wrong.”

Q: Wisconsin has beaten a team you rank No. 12, has the third biggest line in the NFL, two of the best running backs in football, and a legitimate Heisman candidate. Who has Boise State beaten, and why do you rank them ahead of Wisconsin?

Mitch Paradise

A: Whoa there, Paradise, don’t choke on your cheeseburger. I love Wisconsin, but it is Oct. 21 and the Badgers are just now leaving Madison for their first true road game. (They played Northern Illinois at neutral-site Chicago.) How can you judge any team that hasn’t left home?

Boise State opened the season in Atlanta (not really a neutral site) and manhandled a Georgia team that may be back in Atlanta for the Southeastern Conference championship game. Boise also won at Fresno State and Colorado State.

If Wisconsin wins at Michigan State, against one of the nation’s better defenses, the Badgers will be judged accordingly.

Q: You, sir, are brilliant! I was sharpening kitchen knives the other day and accidentally cut myself. Similar to nearly 100% of your columns, the cut was painless at first; I hardly knew I’d been wounded . . . then the blood appeared and then the pain.

I’m not on Facebook, yet, but when I do, would you friend me? I’d hate to have you as an enemy!

Bill Mull

Roseburg, Ore.

A: You don’t need a friend, you need a doctor.

Q: Question about Michigan’s Denard Robinson. Why would a coach remove the most dynamic player in college football, and replace him with a freshman quarterback, against the nation’s No. 1 defense, in a hostile environment? Do you have any insight into this reasoning?

Dr. Daniel Schuetz

Illinois State University

A: Same thing happened last year at Nebraska when Bo Pelini yanked quarterback Taylor Martinez out of the Texas game after he had been mostly sensational in five previous wins.

Denard Robinson was clearly having trouble throwing the ball in gusting winds at Michigan State. He completed only nine of 24 passes.

Michigan Coach Brady Hoke thought, at that time, Devin Gardner might provide a spark.

“I think Devin at times can throw the ball a little more accurately,” Hoke said after the game.

This was a situational substitution. Robinson remains one of the nation’s most dynamic players and he’ll now have a bye week to heal several nagging injuries.

Q: How bad do you think Notre Dame and Stanford are going to beat USC?

It is going to get so ugly for USC the rest of the season.

Geno Apicella

A: Associated Press voters are holding back on USC (5-1) because nobody trusts the Trojans yet. It’s hard to forget USC defeated Minnesota by only two points in the Coliseum. Minnesota has since lost to New Mexico State, North Dakota State and was shut out, 58-0, by Michigan.

My gut says USC will lose to Notre Dame and Stanford. Notre Dame has won four straight since self-imploding in those two opening defeats. The Irish have scored 97 points in their last two wins, over Purdue and Air Force.

Stanford visits the Coliseum on Oct. 29. It won’t be the same, though, without Jim “What’s Your Deal” Harbaugh.

Q: When was the last time you had an original, coherent thought? Probably never.

Joe Bart Moss

Russellville, Ala.

A: Probably the last time I received a letter from an Alabama fan who didn’t have three names.

Q: Who do you think is better, LSU or Alabama?

Nerderd1

A: That’s like asking me to choose between sweet potato pie in Baton Rouge or Dreamland ribs in Tuscaloosa.

The best part is dinner is being served Nov. 5.

Q: Stanford is WAY overrated.

Brian Hoyt

A: I hope you mean football, because Stanford is generally considered a pretty decent four-year university with an above-average faculty.

Not all their students are bright bulbs, but I think one or two turned in a term paper that led to “Google” and another handed in an extra-credit homework assignment titled “Yahoo!”

And I’m not sure Stanford is overrated in football. The Cardinal has won 14 straight games, by an average of 28.8 points, dating back to last year’s loss at Oregon.

Stanford has the best player in the country in quarterback Andrew Luck, yet debuted at only No. 8 in the first BCS standings.

Did you want Stanford ranked behind Minnesota?

Stanford’s ranking is just about right. The team is No. 5 in the coaches’ poll, No. 7 in Harris and No. 8 in the computer index. The Cardinal has played a weaker schedule so far but should improve with wins over Washington, Oregon, USC and Notre Dame.

Q: Did you notice how the services that make up the BCS ranking ranked each team? The one that ranked Stanford 20th ranked Texas and Penn State ahead of Stanford. Some system.

Doug Ward

Grover Beach

A: Looking at BCS computer index formulas, especially this early in the season, gives me an ice cream headache.

Ken Massey is the computer operator who has Stanford at No. 20 behind Texas (11), Penn State (15) and Houston (19).

Texas is getting computer credit for losses against Oklahoma (BCS No. 3) and Oklahoma State (No. 4).

Penn State’s only loss, remember, came against Alabama.

Houston? I can’t explain Houston. Must have been that big win over . . . UCLA?

Remember, the high and low rankings are thrown out in the calculations, so Massey’s No. 20 doesn’t count against Stanford’s number.

The computers tend to start matching the polls once they have more data to input.

Massey also has Wisconsin at No. 17.

Massey’s No. 11 ranking for Texas is 13 positions higher than the Longhorns’ No. 24 BCS ranking.

My advice is to use the printed BCS standings to line your bird cage until at least November. After that, use them only to soak up oil spots in your garage.

Q: Thank you for spelling “shoo-in” correctly. When I see “shoe-in,” I throw coffee cups at the wall.

Ric Jangle

A: I actually spelled it “shoe-in” but thankfully it was corrected by an editor before your next cup of Joe took off.

You wouldn’t believe how many times I have been saved by copy editors — journalism’s unsung heroes.

I should have known better, though, on some of these goofs:

•Melancholy, not “melon collie.”

•Heretofore, not “ear-two-four.”

•Kowtow, not “cow toe.”

•Pedal to metal, not “petal to medal”

•Flu shot, not “Flew shot.”

•Told reporters, not “tolled reporters.”

•Shoots winning basket, not “chutes” it.

•Hoosiers, not “Whose yours.”

chris.dufresne@latimes.com