Houston? We're playing Houston

You may be familiar with my arguments that UCLA and Georgia would be well-served to play a home-and-home series against each other.

You also likely heard much of the same argument from Kyle over at Dawg Sports, who also sees the benefit of the SEC and Pac-10 matching up in strong inter-conference games:

"By contrast, barely a quarter-century has elapsed since the Bulldogs opened their 1983 season against U.C.L.A. in a game featuring Bruin quarterback Rick Neuheisel. It would be nicely symmetrical to welcome Coach Neuheisel back to the Classic City to face Coach Richt, a contemporary of his whose playing career at Miami (Florida) partly overlapped with the U.C.L.A. skipper's tenure under center in Westwood. I also would be willing to bet that the fact that Coach Richt was a 'Cane as a collegian would give the Bruin faithful a little extra interest in scheduling such a contest."

In reference to the 'Cane jab: Melsby's knee was down, dammit. His knee was down.

I've mentioned that there is a window for such a scheduling opportunity in both 2012 and 2013, but UCLA also had open dates in 2010 and 2011 for an out-of-conference opponent. However, it appears those spots have now been taken by the very formidable team of....Houston:

"The first game will be played at the Rose Bowl, with the 2011 game being played at Robertson Stadium and the final game, in 2012, at UCLA."

This really kills any opportunity for UCLA to schedule another out-of-conference game in 2012, which pretty much kills the idea of UCLA and Georgia scheduling any sort of home-and-away in the next ten to twelve years. Following playing a home-and-home with Arizona State in 2008 and 2009, Georgia has already scheduled a home-and-home with Oregon in 2014 and 2015.

So we're probably looking at 2016 at the earliest before anything like this could happen. There's still a chance for UCLA if they want to make this happen, but this would make the UCLA out-of-conference schedule in 2012 and 2013 as follows:

2012:
Nebraska (Home)
Houston (Home)
Georgia (Away)

2013:
Nebraska (Away)
TBD Non-Conference Opponent
Georgia (Home)

So, it's still possible - given that Houston isn't top-tier BCS quality, but it seems much more unlikely now that this scheduling arrangement has been put in to place. I can still dream, though.