Northwestern, UCLA Football Announce Future Home-and-Home Series
The Bruins have added three games to their future schedule.
UCLA football and Northwestern have agreed to play a home-and-home series in 2033 and 2034, the schools announced Wednesday. The first contest will be held at the Rose Bowl on Sept. 10, 2033, while the rematch will take place at Ryan Field on Sept. 9, 2034.
In addition to those two games, UCLA also announced it would be hosting UC Davis on Aug. 28, 2027. That rounds out the Bruins' 2027 nonconference slate, which includes a Week 1 game against Auburn at the Rose Bowl and a Week 3 road trip to Hawaii.
UCLA now does not have a nonconference opening until 2028, and it has at least one game scheduled for 12 of the next 13 years. Their only empty year as of Wednesday is 2032.
The Bruins and Wildcats have played six times over the last 91 years, with Northwestern coming out on top in the first three head-to-head showdowns. UCLA is undefeated against their Midwestern foes since losing both ends of the 1947-1948 home-and-home, though, sweeping the 1969-1970 home-and-home in coach Tommy Prothro's final two years at the helm.
UCLA and Northwestern most recently met at the 2005 Sun Bowl, when the Bruins capped off a 10-2 season with a 50-38 victory over the Wildcats. Kahlil Bell and Chris Markey combined to rush for 297 yards that day, taking home co-MVP honors in the process.
In the five bowl games UCLA went to in coach Karl Dorrell's five-year tenure, the Sun Bowl against the Wildcats was the only one the Bruins won. Their .833 winning percentage that year remains tied for the program's best since 1982.
Northwestern, a member of the Big Ten, has been to the Rose Bowl twice in their 140-year history – 1949 and 1996.
As for the Aggies, the Bruins have not played them since before World War II, despite the in-state and UC System connections.
UCLA shut out UC Davis 26-0 in 1932 before blanking them again in a 49-0 win in 1934. Both blowouts took place in the Bruins' old home stadium, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, meaning 2027 will mark the Aggies' first-ever trip to the Rose Bowl.
The more meaningful recent connection between UCLA and UC Davis comes in the form of Joshua Kelley, who transferred from Davis to Westwood in 2017. Kelley spent time on the Bruins' scout team that year before bursting onto the scene in 2018 and holding strong in 2019.
After racking up 2,567 yards and 25 touchdowns from scrimmage in 22 games at UCLA, Kelley earned Second Team All-Pac-12 honors and was selected by the Los Angeles Chargers in the fourth round of the 2020 NFL Draft.
UC Davis is an FCS program, meaning they would have previously been out of place anywhere on UCLA's schedule. Until the Bruins added games against Alabama State for 2022 and North Carolina Central for 2023 back in February 2021, UCLA was next to USC and Notre Dame as the only FBS programs never to schedule an FCS opponent.
USC was set to leave that exclusive group when it scheduled a game against UC Davis for 2021, but the Trojans backed out of that in order to play San Jose State instead. The Bruins will no longer be part of that record-holding trio after this fall, and they will end up playing three FCS schools in a six-year span.
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