Ranking UCLA's Most Important Games: No. 7

We're officially three weeks away from UCLA's season opener, and the Bruins are one of the biggest stories in college football.

With a ton of expectations preceding them, let's rank the Bruins' most important games on the schedule, moving on to No. 7 -- Week 7 vs Michigan State.

The Spartans sit at a crucial point in UCLA's schedule -- a 9 a.m. PT game in October immediately following a projected loss to the No. 2-ranked Penn State Nittany Lions. This game is where the Bruins show who they are after a loss (barring a miraculous upset to PSU).

Not only that, but, depending on how good UCLA does during its non-conference slate and against Northwestern the week before Penn State, the matchup against Michigan State -- and against Maryland the following week -- could yield a 5-2, or even 6-1 start for the Bruins.

All these hypotheticals aside, this is an important Big Ten Conference game in the middle of the season against an opponent that might be slight underdogs against the Bruins. It's the ultimate test to show if UCLA really is what many around the program think it is.

Analyst Previews Michigan State

Want to know more about the Spartans going into the season? Well, ESPN's Bill Connelly previewed them, here's what he had to say:

"Michigan State basically pulled a "reverse UCLA" in Smith's first season. The Spartans were 4-3 after a 32-20 win over Iowa, as sophomore Aidan Chiles damaged a Hawkeyes defense that usually makes the lives of young quarterbacks hell. But it was almost all downhill from there. MSU topped 17 points only once in its final five games and beat only Purdue (and by only seven points).

"Chiles is a very dangerous scrambler, but he took at least two sacks in 10 of 12 games, and he threw over half of his 11 interceptions when State's in-game win probability (per FPI) was between 30 and 70%, meaning they were particularly costly.