He played his college football at UCLA, beginning his career as a walk-on, holding placekicks for John Lee.
He was the starting quarterback in his senior year in the 1983 season. UCLA opened with a loss at Georgia, a tie with Arizona State and then a 42-10 loss at #1-ranked Nebraska. Neuheisel was benched after the Nebraska loss in favor of Steve Bono. On October 1st, the Bruins lost to BYU to start the season 0-3-1. Bono was injured during the Stanford game, and Neuheisel came back to finish the season.[3] Neuheisel led the Bruins to an eventual 6-4-1 record, culminating with a win over arch-rival USC that, combined with Washington State's upset of Washington, gave UCLA the Pac-10 championship in 1983 and sent them to the Rose Bowl on January 2, 1984.
Neuheisel led the Bruins to a 45–9 victory over 4th-ranked (& heavily-favored) Illinois in the 1984 Rose Bowl, in which he was named the MVP; two of his four touchdown passes were caught by a sophomore wide receiver from San Diego named Karl Dorrell, Neuheisel's immediate predecessor as the UCLA Head Football Coach.[4] The victory vaulted the Bruins, unranked through most of the season, into the top 25 in wire service polls. Much like his rise to stardom at UCLA, the road to the victory was a bumpy one. Neuheisel and two other players on the defensive side of the ball suffered from food poisoning hours before the Rose Bowl and it was unsure that Neuheisel would start. Neuheisel would end up starting the game. He also set an NCAA record that year for single game pass completion percentage (since broken) by completing 25 of 27 passes (92.6%) in a Pac-10 win over Washington.
He was named to the Pac-10 All-Academic team and graduated from UCLA in May 1984 with a B.A. in political science and a 3.4 GPA. Neuheisel still holds the UCLA single season record for completion percentage, completed 185 of 267 passes (69.3%) for 2,245 yards in the 1983 season. He was also a member of Sigma Nu fraternity while a student.
In 1998, Neuheisel was inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame.
Neuheisel had his first win on September 1 with the Bruins as they defeated No. 18 Tennessee 27-24. The win came in overtime as Tennessee's field goal try sailed wide left.[23] However, the team's newfound momentum would come grinding to a halt in successive weeks. A brutal 59-0 defeat on the road at the hands of No. 18 BYU was followed by a disappointing 31-10 loss at home to unranked Arizona in the Bruins' Pac-10 opener. The UCLA offense failed to score a touchdown in either contest. The team finished the season 4-8 (3-6 in conference).
Despite this record, Neuheisel was still able to sell the program and secure the #5 class in the nation by Scout.com. The class was headlined by two former USC commits, Morrell Presley and Randall Carroll. Neuheisel also demonstrated impressive recruiting closure, finishing with offensive linemen Xavier Sua-Filo and Stan Hasiak as well as running back Damien Thigpen on the last day—a huge boost to the team's offensive line as well as the overall team speed.
Neuheisel will be one of several college football coaches participating on the 2009 Armed Forces Entertainment college football "Coaches Tour" to help rally U.S. servicemen and women in the Middle East and Europe and show appreciation for their efforts. They will go to U.S. military installations in Germany, Turkey, Spain, Iraq and Djbouti (Africa)
