Why Washington is UCLA's 6th-Most Important Game

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. 6 -- Week 13 vs Washington.

We're officially at the halfway point in the rankings, and this matchup against the Huskies is the perfect fit. Washington projects to be a better team than UCLA going into the season, and, if the season plays out the way UCLA hopes, Week 13 could be the difference between a seven or eight-win season.

Not to mention, it comes in the middle of UCLA's toughest portion of the schedule that includes matchups against Nebraska 20th-ranked, third-ranked Ohio State and USC.

If something goes wrong for the Bruins early in the season, this matchup may very well have bowl game implications.

Analyst Previews Washington

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

"You need more than 153 dropbacks to create an accurate, predictive sample of what you're going to be capable of moving forward. For most freshmen, that's good, as their first 153 dropbacks probably aren't successful.

"But for Demond Williams Jr., it took only that many for him to build serious excitement.

"Williams started the last two games of a relative lost season for the Huskies and went 0-2 because the defense gave up 84 combined points. But he completed 43 of 52 passes for 575 yards, 5 touchdowns and only 1 interception, and not including sacks, he rushed for 137 yards and another score. He took an eye-popping 15 sacks in those two games -- he was clearly still learning what he could and couldn't get away with at the college level -- but still produced an 84.3 Total QBR, which would have been nearly Kurtis Rourke-like over an entire season.

"If Williams is genuinely good -- and doesn't take a million sacks -- then there's a legitimate chance for a second-year leap for the UW offense. He'll have a relatively experienced line in front of him and a skill corps that includes 1,000-yard back Jonah Coleman (and a physical backup in sophomore Adam Mohammed), receivers Denzel Boston and Penn State transfer Omari Evans, and another sophomore in big-play tight end Decker DeGraaf. The overall depth of experience on offense will be minimal, but there are mountains of upside.

"With Williams, the offense has a pretty wide range of outcomes, but the range for the defense might be even larger because of newness. Only five of 15 players with 200-plus snaps return, and Ryan Walters replaced Stephen Belichick (who left to coach for his dad at North Carolina) at coordinator. Walters was a successful defensive coordinator at Missouri and Illinois before bombing as Purdue's head coach. Fisch aimed for known disruptors in the portal and found quite a few, such as tackles Ta'ita'i Uiagalelei (Arizona) and Simote Pepa (Utah), linebackers Jacob Manu (Arizona), Taariq Al-Uqdah (Washington State) and Xe'Ree Alexander (UCF), corner Tacario Davis (Arizona) and safeties CJ Christian (FIU) and Alex McLaughlin (Northern Arizona). There aren't many proven returnees, but edge rusher Isaiah Ward and corner Ephesians Prysock are solid.

"Fisch generated lots of traction in his second season at Arizona, and it's not hard to envision something similar happening at UW. But he'll need to hit on a lot of transfers, and he'll need his faith in a guy with 153 dropbacks wholly rewarded."