You should expect a meme like "Relentless Optimism rides again," or the unironic use of the word "glorious," from the likes of the single-minded, Neuheiselian cheerleaders at Bruins Nation. But less partisan sources weren't far from similar excelsiors for Rick Neuheisel's second recruiting effort last week, when UCLA pickpocketed USC for targets Randall Carroll, Morrell Presley and Xavier Su'a Filo, all four-star kids ranked in Rivals' top 100. Even if USC still had a better class, top to bottom, UCLA hadn't posed a legitimate threat to Pete Carroll's larger designs in so long, it knocked some people on their heels. Even Norm Chow was hustling.

Two of those kids, Carroll and Presley, are local L.A. guys who were once committed to USC, exactly the kind of victory that was totally foreign to the Bruins under Karl Dorrell -- for his repeated national coups, Pete Carroll built the Trojan dynasty by owning L.A. from its charity drives to its midnight craps games in the ghetto -- and that Neuheisel's going to have to start pulling out on an annual basis if anyone's ever going to stop laughing the "end of the football monopoly" in that town:

Neuheisel's classes aren't just better overall: On the high end, he's already covered as much ground as Dorrell did in his entire tenure, in less than half the time. Dorrell had one top-20 class; Neuheisel's already had two. Dorrell signed 24 four or five-star players in five years; Neuheisel's already signed 23, and as many of that number have come from in and around Los Angeles (17) as Dorrell managed altogether.

Most importantly, Neuheisel has put together two classes that are at least in the ballpark of Carroll's exceptional hauls, and to some degree at their expense, something Dorrell never came close to accomplishing in his best year. Neuheisel was born for this kind of hype. Now: If the Slick One has another two or three years like this in him, we'll revisit the status of the monopoly in, like, 2012.