KENT — How might Rick Neuheisel have fared if his lawsuit against the University of Washington and NCAA hadn't come to a settlement?

Like the football play that isn't called, we'll never know. But it's safe to say Neuheisel, the former UW coach, faced tough sledding with some members of the 12-person jury that was finally excused yesterday, five weeks after it had first gathered in King County Superior Court.

"I really didn't feel comfortable that Rick should walk away with four and a half million bucks," one juror said. "Not without deliberating."

Over coffee near the assigned courtroom, four jurors in the Neuheisel trial aired their thoughts — a pastor, an engineer, a forklift driver and a commercial-insurance employee. They didn't want their names published.

They expressed no distaste for the fact that they spent so much time on a case that settled before they could deliberate. But it was clear they held disparate beliefs on who should have won. Without the settlement, Neuheisel needed a 10-2 verdict to gain judgment.

"I probably would have sided with Neuheisel," said the male forklift driver.

"The university," said the male engineer.

"Rick," said the female insurance worker.

"I think the university had a right to fire him with cause," said the male pastor. "I think there was some liability, however, with the NCAA for damages. I probably would have given him $1.5 million to pay off the loan."

One unknown is how the jury might have reacted to instructions crafted by Judge Michael Spearman after discussion last Thursday with attorneys for the three sides. For instance, the instructions govern whether Neuheisel could be fired for just cause.

"I think we would have deliberated quite awhile," one juror said.

Neuheisel was awarded $3 million, including $2.5 million from the NCAA. He also is forgiven a $1.5 million home loan, part of his contract with the UW.

The turning point was the late revelation that the NCAA had provided outdated information for discovery regarding prior notice of topic to interview subjects. Spearman imposed limitations on NCAA attorneys, providing a wider avenue for settlement.

Jurors didn't hear the Spearman limitations on testimony from NCAA witnesses, only the testimony itself. They said references to the revised wording didn't resonate loudly with them, but one juror said, "I think through deliberations, it would have resonated a lot more."

"There were little things ticking away that weren't lined up the way they should have been," said the female juror. "It was just one more thing, that you (the NCAA) didn't dot your I's and cross your T's."

Although the four varied about whom they favored, there was considerable sentiment that the case should have settled earlier.

"They all had really good arguments," added the engineer. "I'm not sure what they were expecting. We're sitting here right now not agreeing, and if you're a lawyer, I would think you'd go into a case pretty confident you could win it. I don't see that any of these teams could have been that confident."

"There were a lot of people not being forthright with the truth," said the forklift driver.

Other juror takes on key issues in the trial:

• Was Neuheisel "ambushed" at the NCAA interview — one of the themes of his case?

"When he was sitting in that interview," said the engineer, "he could have said, 'We're going into uncharted territory. I need to go get some counsel.' And he really didn't do that."

"I would have said, 'I'm going to make a phone call,' and I would have walked out of there," said the pastor.

"You don't know what you would have done," said the female juror. "What people tend to forget is: You're human. All of a sudden you'll say or do things to cover yourself."

• Did Neuheisel read the infamous Dana Richardson memo allowing pools outside the athletic department?

"I think he remembers the memo," said the engineer. "But I don't think he remembers the 'bottom line' (wording at the end that authorized the pools)."

Concurring, the pastor said, "When they called Nevin (Jerry Nevin, Neuheisel's aide), he (Neuheisel) would have said, 'You found it, great, get me a copy right now.' "

But the female juror pointed out that in the NCAA interview, Neuheisel seemed to recall some words from the memo. "I skip the middle (of long memos) and go to the bottom line," she said. "I think he probably did read that."

Regarding Richardson, whose faulty memo went unchecked, the pastor said, "I felt bad for Dana Richardson. I felt she was kind of left out to dry. Three hundred fifty of them went out, and nobody called to say, 'Are you sure?' "

• Was Neuheisel honoring a confidentiality agreement during the lying episode with the San Francisco 49ers in 2003?

"I don't know what the protocol of the NFL is, but his paycheck came from the University of Washington," said the pastor. "If there was anything that should have been protected, it was that relationship with the University of Washington."

For parallel reasons, the same juror said he struggled with the argument that Neuheisel's inability to land one of college football's job openings after the 2004 season was due to the NCAA or Washington.

"Was it because of that, or because he lied to the papers, or because he was gambling?" the juror asked.

The forklift driver said he felt Neuheisel "got the shaft." The engineer was much less forgiving, calling Neuheisel "a classic case of a rising star that just rose too fast and didn't know how to deal with it. He started hanging out with the elite on the east side and just got caught up in it."

Apparently, it was a jury that could co-exist, finding fascination among some of the tedium.

"We were put in position to read an athletic director's notes of a meeting with the president," said the pastor. "Line by line, going through his contract. I was fascinated. It was like sitting in a chair, going through his files.

"Sometimes I almost felt guilty, like I shouldn't be looking at this stuff."