The bowl season begins tonight as the Utes take on the Midshipmen. Navy comes into this game with an 8-4 record and on a 4 game winning streak. Utah comes in with an 8-4 record as well and winners of 7 of their last 8 games in the regular season. Utah has also won their last 6 bowl games and look to continue that streak.

Navy:

Navy will be playing their first game under their newly appointed head coach Ken Niumatalolo. Paul Johnson left for Georgia Tech after 6 seasons with Navy. The Naval Academy an option attack offense and they pride themselves on their ability to run a disciplined option attack. They force defenses to play assignment football and will burn you if each defender does not perform his job. The offense averages 351 yards per game on the ground and really wears on you with the monotonous option attack. They are a high scoring team averaging 39.9 points per game and try to outscore all of their opponents.

Navy's defense is a completely opposite as they are giving up 438 yards per game and their secondary is giving up 265 yards in the air. The run defense isn't much better, giving up 172 yards per game. They also allow teams to score an average of 36.5 points per game. The Midshipmen are undersized and don't have the team speed on defense to force teams to make plays against them.

Navy will grind the ball on the ground and force the Utah defense to make plays on every down. Defensively they will try to attack the Ute offense from different spots and force the Utes to make mistakes or turn the ball over.

Utah

Utah is looking to bounce back from the disappointing loss against BYU at the end of the regular season and extend their bowl winning streak to 7 games. Utah's offense has been a thing of inconsistency this year as they have spectacular performances on occasion and really lack luster performances at other times. The Utes should be able to have a balanced attack against the undersized Midshipmen. The offense should be able to put together long sustaining drives and force the poor Navy defense to make plays in order to get them off the field. Utah comes in only averaging 362 yards per game on offense, but they should have more yards against the Navy defense.

Utah's defense has a big challenge ahead of them tonight against Navy. They are facing a team with a very disciplined and assignment sound option attack. The good news for the defense is they have seen the option before against Air Force in past years, but experience can only do so much. The Ute defenders need to scheme properly and execute their assignment. One misread or missed assignment can lead to big plays for the Navy offense. Coach Whittingham has plenty of experience in preparing to play an option team and with the extra time to prepare for this offense, you can expect his defense to be prepared. Utah had been great against the run this year giving up just 130 yards per game and only 98 yards in the last 10 games of the season.

Utah will control the ball and make Navy march the entire length of the field on every drive due to their great special teams play. Utah needs to control the ball and not allow the Navy offense to have big plays. If they play assignment sound football and protect the football, they should be able to control Navy and pick up their 7^th straight bowl victory.

The game kicks off at 7:00 PM MT and can be seen on ESPN and heard on Kall 700 Sports (700 AM) .

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