Utah Tech Opens Season at Montana State

It's opening week in college football and Utah Tech gets their season started this Saturday against one of the best teams in the country. Montana State is ranked #3 in the nation and went all the way to the national semifinal last season.

Here's Utah Tech's press release about the matchup from UT Athletic Relations: (Full article here)

FOR STARTERS: • Utah Tech opens up its fourth NCAA Division I FCS season against defending Big Sky Conference champion No. 3/3 Montana State.

• Saturday's game will be the third meeting between the Trailblazers and Bobcats on the gridiron, though this is the first time the two team will be squaring off as fellow FCS opponents.

• Utah Tech is 0-2 all-time vs. MSU in its NCAA era, with both meetings coming in Bozeman when the Blazers were a Division II program. However the two sides have not met since the 2009 season when UT held a 14-13 third quarter lead, only to see the Bobcats score 10-unaswered points. The Blazers scored a late TD with 11 seconds left, but could not recover the ensuing onside kick and fell 23-20 (9/12/09).

• Utah Tech and Montana State met for the first time ever on the football field nearly 16 years ago when the Bobcats rolled to a 61-7 home victory (9/15/07).

• Saturday's opener will mark the third time in Utah Tech's NCAA Division I FCS era that the Trailblazers will have faced a ranked opponent. In the 2021 Spring opener (and UT's FCS debut game), the Trailblazers claimed a 26-14 road victory at then-No. 22 Tarleton State (Stat Perform) on Feb. 27, 2021.

• Utah Tech is 3-14 all-time in season openers (1-3 in the Paul Peterson era; 1-9 on the road overall) in its NCAA era, and has dropped five of its last seven openers overall. However, the last season-opening win did come on that road at Tarleton (2/27/21).

• UT is combined 4-26 (3-26 overall) all-time vs. opponents (FCS and D-II) ranked in the AFCA top-25 Coaches' Poll, which included an 1-8 mark the last two seasons.

I'm excited to see if UTU can keep up the offensive success that they had in the last few games of 2022. It's going to be a huge challenge against the two Montana schools in weeks one and two. Can't wait.