So far as we know, and according to reliable “sources” as well as respected internet scuttlebutt, LSU is still in Louisiana and does its football bidding in the Southeastern Conference.

Go ahead, take them at their word for it.

But you can’t really trust anybody these days.

Take UCLA. The Bruins will be at LSU Saturday afternoon for football fare. Something a little different for Tigers fans.

But it’s not what it seems.

UCLA is one of your glamour schools by any ranking — a beautiful campus convenient to beaches, golf courses and future Hollywood starlets, nestled up there amongst the likes of Santa Monica, Marina Del Ray and … well, you get the idea.

Opposite from the beaches there’s a mountain range view of some renown, fairly pleasant on the eyes if you’re into that sort of thing.

So of course the Bruins play their home games in the Rose Bowl, where they look forward to the sun going down for the gorgeous sunset, not just for getting things dark. Granted, it’s 25 miles of a tangled traffic jam away from campus and they don’t have a floral-themed parade for every game. But, again, you get the idea.

It’s also says here that UCLA is the No. 1-rated public university in the nation for, uh, academics, I guess it is — not that that has anything do with anything of football importance — but perhaps it’s a nice conversation starter around the tailgate.

A lot of Nobel Prizes and Pulitzers to show off, along with a fair number of Rhodes Scholars.

But only one football national championship, a split decision with Ohio State in 1954.

Anyway, you get the point — more a traditional basketball school that always wins a boat load of gold medals in Olympic sports. So it’s not exactly a college landfill we’re talking about here.

Now this might catch an eye or two in Louisiana: Five years running, UCLA has won “Best College Food in America” as determined by something called Niche.com.

Fighting words, perhaps. But I can only guess that Niche.com must have spent more time in LSU’s press box than its tailgating scene.

And you sure don’t want to get into a celebrity name-dropping contest with the Bruins.

Forget the athletes, notables like Jackie Robinson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Troy Aikman, just to name a few. They’ll also counter you with a Carol Burnett, a Francis Ford Coppola, a Ben Stiller, maybe even a Jim Morrison gets into the discussion. And short people — Randy Newman, anyway.

 I give you this background to ask this: What in the name of Van Nuys and Malibu is UCLA doing in the Big Ten?

You turn your back for one minute and …

Someone pulled a fast one, the old switcheroo.

Remember, this is the return game from LSU’s ill-fated trip to get unexpectedly hammered by UCLA in the Rose Bowl to open the 2021 season.

The home-and-home series was scheduled in good faith.

Back then — the good old days as it were — UCLA was a member of Pac-12. As was its crosstown rival Southern Cal and most anything else of football relevance on the West Coast.

For LSU to play both in the same season, it almost looked as if the Tigers were auditioning for Hollywood, or the Pac-12 anyway.

And yet the games get here and it’s two tussles in one season against the Big Ten (which is 18 schools, actually, by last count).

UCLA? The Big Who?

In truth, the UCLA team making the football program’s first-ever trip to Louisiana, let alone Tiger Stadium, will arrive in a bit of disarray.

That 2021 LSU-UCLA affair was best remembered for the verbal jousting match before the game when then-head coach Ed Orgeron got into it with some Bruins’ fans who couldn’t understand a word out of his Cajun mouth — but knew it was something about “sissy” baby-blue jerseys they were wearing.

They got the last laugh — 38-27 — as Orgeron didn’t last the season and the Bruins turned out to be pretty good that season.

They were 8-4, including a 62-33 win over USC, but their Holiday Bowl appearance was canceled just hours before kick off due to the team wide-spread COVID outbreak.

This year’s problems are more football related.

For reasons still not clear, head coach Chip Kelly quit after last season to take the offensive coordinator job at Ohio State.

The Bruins also lost their respected defensive coordinator, D’Anton Lynn, who bolted for the same job at — ugh — Southern Cal.

So the transition to the Big Ten is not going well.

The Bruins, with former legendary running back DeShawn Foster now the head coach, struggled to beat Hawaii 16-13 in their opener.

It got worse in the Bruins’ first Big Ten game last week, in what sounded like a 1970s Final Four matchup: UCLA vs. Indiana.

The Hoosiers, not exactly football royalty in the B1G, pretty well destroyed UCLA 42-13.

So, to put it in Hollywood terms, click you heels.

Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in the Pac-12 anymore.

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com