49ers’ Bono Scores UCLA Triple : Pro football: He will take over for Young against Saints, joining former Bruins Aikman and Schroeder in starting quarterback roles.

Here’s a little statistic for UCLA fans. Three former Bruin quarterbacks will be starting NFL games today.

They are the Raiders’ Jay Schroeder, Dallas’ Troy Aikman and San Francisco’s Steve Bono.

Bono will be making his first real NFL start in the 49ers’ game at New Orleans. He replaces Steve Young, who is sidelined for at least three weeks because of an injured ligament in his left knee.

Team physician Michael Dillingham performed arthroscopic surgery on Young’s injured knee Friday night, and a team spokesman said Saturday that the knee appears to be healing.

“They found that the ligament was repairing itself,” the spokesman told Associated Press. “There was no damage to the cartilage at all.”

It was feared that Young might be sidelined for the season, but it is conceivable he could return for a Dec. 1 game against the Saints at Candlestick Park.

Young replaced Joe Montana, who is sidelined for the season because of an elbow problem.

Now Bono takes over, with former Oregon quarterback Bill Musgrave as the backup.

In six years since leaving UCLA, Bono’s only previous starts came with the Pittsburgh Steelers during the 1987 strike.

Now he gets thrown in against a team that leads the NFL in sacks with 34.

“Sure, the Saints have a good team, but it wouldn’t be easy no matter who we were playing,” Bono said from his home in Palo Alto before heading for New Orleans.

Bono was a sixth-round draft choice of the Minnesota Vikings in 1985 but played in only two games before being cut in the middle of the 1986 season.

He joined the Steelers during the player strike the next season. In leading the Steelers to two victories in three strike games, Bono played well enough to stick with the team through the 1988 season.

He has been the 49ers’ No. 3 quarterback since 1989.

Bono said he is excited about starting, but he doesn’t expect it to affect his career.

“The important thing is that we win the game,” he said.

Young was the NFC’s top-rated passer when he was injured while scrambling shortly before halftime of last Sunday’s 17-14 loss to the Falcons at Atlanta.

Bono, who played briefly against the Detroit Lions earlier in the season, completed nine of 16 passes for 111 yards.

He threw a 30-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor, giving the 49ers the lead with 53 seconds left, and was mobbed by his teammates.

But Atlanta’s Billy Joe Tolliver answered with a 44-yard desperation pass that Michael Haynes caught in the end zone with one second remaining for the Falcons’ victory.

“It was a dream turned nightmare in less than a minute,” Bono said. “I’ve never been so high, then so low so fast.”

Coach George Siefert is confident the 49ers can win with Bono.

“There are many ways to win football games,” Siefert told the Associated Press. “There are a lot of teams that win games without having great quarterbacks. I think, though, that we have a very good quarterback in Steve Bono.”