If you’re going to lose more than you win. If you’re not really very good. If you’re not going to get to a bowl.

May as well do it the way the Bruins did.

UCLA is being destroyed by BYU, in Provo, in a game more than a little reminiscent of last year’s 44-6, Week 3 faceplant at Utah.

It is 28-0 BYU, but the Bruins just turned it over on a kickoff return …

Oops. BYU just went in again: 35-0, halfway through the second quarter.

Anyway, if you’re going to not be very good, at all … the Bruins did it the right way.

They got their good win — 27-24, in OT, over 18th-ranked Tennessee — in the first game of the season. A nationally televised (the whole nation; not just chunks of it) event with a heroic comeback, etc.

That set off 12 days of warm-and-fuzzy feelings toward the Bruins and their new coach, Rick Neuheisel. Which they weren’t going to get under any other circumstances, barring the impossible — beating USC on Dec. 6.

This team is just flat undermanned. That was the situation before the Tennessee game, and then it got worse when the Bruins lost their starting tailback, tight end and receiver in the first quarter, against the Vols.

The Tennessee game, then, was a sort of miracle, and a great story (the preening visitors going flat, the underdogs hanging around long enough to believe they could win, the crowd getting into the game, the drama of a new coach), and it showed what the Bruins’ coaching staff is capable of, given some vaguely reasonable amount of talent, a home crowd and a few breaks.

At Provo, however, the Bruins have run into an interested and competent opponent, and are far away from their  Rose Bowl faithful, and anyone who says “no way I saw this coming” hasn’t been paying attention to this program.

Now, expectations are back to where they belong — 6-6 would be a nice season, and 5-7 wouldn’t be all that bad, either. Even 4-8 wouldn’t be horrible.

You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken lips. Neuheisel needs another year, at the least, before we come down on him too hard.

Oops. UCLA just had a punt blocked. This could end up 70-0.

But the Bruins are still 1-1 — and beat a ranked SEC team! (And were undefeated for 12 days!)