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LOS ANGELES — The audience for the new UCLA coach was SRO.

Rick Neuheisel sat at a round luncheon table Thursday at the Pac-10's media day, nine other seats filled by reporters. Others lingered behind him, listening to the man, nicknamed "the Gutty Little Bruin" during his playing days at UCLA, talk about taking down what has become the Trojan monolith.

"Ultimately, you want to get to be one of the top programs in the country," the former UCLA quarterback said. "It just so happens the team we have to beat to make our alums happy is already there.

"So if we can catch them, you'll end up being where you want to be anyway."

Twenty feet away, Paul Wulff sat with an audience of one. The new Washington State coach could not be more different than Neuheisel.

"I would probably put a lot of money that that's the case," Wulff said, smiling.

His suit, and wordiness, cannot match Neuheisel. It doesn't have to.

In the customized world of college coaching, they both fit.

The 41-year-old former WSU center, who came from Eastern Washington to replace Bill Doba, drives his pickup truck to work. He takes the back way — three stop signs, no stoplights.

He calls Pullman, Wash., a "beautiful place to live," and laughs that he can still go to the grocery store without being spotted.

Neuheisel wants to be noticed. He was hired, in part, because of who he is — quick-witted, charming and maybe the only coach in the Pac-10 who one day could rival USC coach Pete Carroll's gravitas.

He assembled a coaching staff of all-stars — Norm Chow, maybe the best-known offensive coordinator in the game's history, and defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker, UCLA's interim coach in last year's Las Vegas Bowl.

Chow has made inroads with recruits just by showing up, Neuheisel said.

"Every quarterback in the country calls us and wants to see if they can come," he said. "His résumé gives him rock- star status."

But none of that matters, Neuheisel knows, if the Bruins can't become relevant in L.A. That means competing with the Trojans — on the field, for recruits and for attention.

"We're going to fight them on every corner," Neuheisel said.

Karl Dorrell took the Bruins to five bowl games in five years before being fired. UCLA didn't have a football problem, as much as an image problem.

Neuheisel spoke Thursday of his school's 103 NCAA titles that sit one floor below his office. UCLA can get the "finest in the land" in every sport, he said.

He said beating USC would be a matter of "when, not if."

Bombast? Sure. USC was a near unanimous favorite by the media to win the conference.

UCLA figures to land somewhere in the middle.

"I think you have to embrace it," Neuheisel said. "They're that elephant in the living room. They have earned it.

"You can't be the head football coach at UCLA and not find a way to compete successfully with USC."

Both Neuheisel and Wulff have their problems.

In May, the Cougars lost eight scholarships in the NCAA's Academic Progress Rate report. In the past 18 months, at least 25 WSU players have been arrested or charged with offenses that carry jail time, according to the Seattle Times.

Wulff said more "dirty laundry" is aired when a coach leaves, but he has a plan in place.

"The No. 1 thing we want to do is create leadership with our players," he said.

That applies as much off the field as on, he said. Wulff said he will use his players' opinions of recruits to lessen the chances of problems.

Neuheisel's past — he was driven from Washington amid a scandal concerning his involvement in an NCAA basketball pool in 2003, before working for the NFL's Baltimore Ravens — still looms. The first thing he did Thursday was thank UCLA administrators for hiring him.

Maybe that's the Rick Risk. But perhaps no one else could get UCLA talking about beating USC — even if it's all talk.

"When we catch them, we're going to not only have caught the leader in the pack," he said, "but hopefully, we'll be among the programs that can rightfully challenge for the big prizes."