It's that time of year again!  The Utah Football season kicks off for 2008 with the Utes heading to Ann Arbor, Michigan to take on the Wolverines.

Early hype for Utah is this team has been compared to the BCS busting team in 2004.  It is way too early to be hyping this team up that much, but they have the favorable schedule and talent to make it a possibility.  The 2004 team was able to avoid injuries to their key players all year and Utah has not been able to avoid the injury bug the past few seasons.  We'll see if the shoe fits this year.

Utah heads to the "Big House" and is looking to do better than the trip in 2002 where they lost 10-7.  Utah returns 7 starters on both offense and defense this year and has experience and talent in almost all the key positions on the football field.  The Utes have a prime opportunity to upset Michigan this weekend since the Wolverines are coming in with a very inexperienced offense that is learning a new system.

Michigan has a new coach in Rich Rodriguez and he is attempting to build Michigan back into the leader of the Big Ten Conference.  He has his work cut out for him as Michigan has been an I-Back formation power team in the past and Rodriguez is one of the main innovators of the spread offense.  He has helped mold the spread offense to what it is today.  The Wolverines return 8 starters on defense and 3 on offense.  They are breaking in a new quarterbacks and also are trying to learn the ins and outs of the spread offense.

I expect this to be a close game that will be a defensive struggle.  The Utes have the experience and talent to explode on offense, but under the coordination of Andy Ludwig, their offensive yards per game have gone down each of the past 3 years.  They will need to turn this around drastically if they are to be compared to the 2004 Fiesta Bowl champs.  Utah's defense is strong, but inexperienced with the front 7.  They will have their hands full on Saturday, but have the ability to perform well.  If they can pressure Michigan force mistakes, then they have a great shot at pulling off the upset.

Phife's Prediction = Utah 20, Michigan 13.  Go Utes!!

Kickoff is at 1:30 PM MT and can be seen on ABC and heard on KALL 700.

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