UCLA hopes Nevada will be decent at football in four years

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UCLA scheduled a three-game series with Nevada, prompting the football gods to yawn.

It’s a minor gamble for the Bruins, appropriate in dealing with a state where it’s legal to do so. Two games will be in the Rose Bowl (2013 and 2014), with one in Reno (2016). To put that in perspective, UCLA’s freshmen on that road trip are about to graduate fifth grade, and some still haven’t played a down of organized football.

Until this week’s announcement, UCLA’s future nonconference plans only extended to 2013, featuring a number of traditional powers such as Texas and Nebraska. This season will include games against San Diego State and Kansas State and at Tennessee.

The gamble with scheduling a WAC team is that they could turn out to be, well ... whack. USC played Idaho two years ago. Their Tuesday practice was more competitive than the Saturday game. The same is expected when the Trojans open the coming season against San Jose State.

The Wolf Pack are impossible to project. They’ve been to four straight bowl games, which is something UCLA can’t say. On the other hand, they’ve only won one bowl game in the last 22 years. Last season, they finished 7-6, including a 69-17 loss to Missouri, and had the third-best overall record from the WAC.

Of course, nothing seems like a safe bet in college football these days. Notre Dame is an embarassment, and Utah punked Alabama in the Sugar Bowl to go undefeated and create a legitimate argument that the Utes should have played for the national championship. Maybe Nevada will be a BCS- buster. So try to forget all of this, because it won’t matter for four years and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Or, if you’re really excited about going to Reno, here’s what you can add to your calendar: Nevada at UCLA on August 31, 2013, and Sept. 19, 2015; UCLA at Nevada on Sept. 17, 2016.

-- Adam Rose