Football kaleidoscope: UCLA-Notre Dame

What you need to know in advance of this week’s UCLA-Notre Dame tilt at the Rose Bowl:

>> Freshman quarterback Jimmy Clausen, from Oaks Christian High School in Thousand Oaks, appears likely to start for the Irish. "Jimmy played pretty well," said Irish Coach Charlie Weis at his weekly news conference.

"The team now knows that we have two guys that we can put in at quarterback that can move the team and give us a chance of winning," he said. "A couple weeks ago, we didn’t even know if we had one."

Clausen started against Purdue and completed 18 of 26 passes for 169 yards. Backup Evan Sharpley was 16 of 26 for 208 with two touchdowns.

>> If for some reason Clausen and Sharpley both go down, UCLA will face third-string quarterback Darren Bragg, the younger brother of former Bruin receiver Craig Bragg. Darren is a 6-1 senior from San Jose Bellarmine Prep who hasn’t seen a snap from scrimmage during his Notre Dame career.

Craig Bragg holds the UCLA record for receptions in a career and was drafted by Green Bay, but is out of football after being cut by the Chicago Bears in preseason.

>> The newest Notre Dame threat, and one to be taken seriously, is freshman receiver Golden Tate. Primarily a running back in high school, Tate’s play was widely noticed by Irish fans with three receptions for 104 yards and a touchdown last Saturday. "When you go out there and make some plays like he did (against Purdue)," Weis said, "we’ll try to fast-track him even more."

>> Mathematician Jeff Sagarin’s ratings are an interesting view of this weekend’s game and beyond. UCLA is No. 12 with a rating of 84.70 while the Irish sit at No. 95 at 64.60. Adding in Sagarin’s 2.93 point bonus for home field and the Bruins should win by 23.

Looking ahead a bit to the Cal game on Oct. 20, the Bears are ranked No. 5 by Sagarin with 88.34 points, meaning that if the game were played this week, Cal would be favored to beat the Bruins by 7/10ths of a point: 88.34 to 87.63!

The Las Vegas odds have UCLA a 20-point favorite against Notre Dame with an over-under of 48, so the projected final should be UCLA 34, Irish 14.

>> There are a few thousand tickets remaining for the game. Check Ticketmaster.com or uclabruins.com for availability and price . . . and plan to get to the Rose Bowl early Saturday.