College football Thursday

Big-5 futures

Buy—BYU—Northern Iowa will have its hands full with Cougars
Buy—Utah—The Utes have a real shot at beating a BCS team
Hold—Utah State—We'll find out a lot about the Aggies on Saturday
Buy—Weber State—Wildcats start optimistic season with cupcake
Sell—Southern Utah—Air Force is the first stop of a tough SUU schedule

Utah's skill players
Utah offensive players Brian Johnson, left, Matt Asiata, Brent Casteel and Darrell Mack could give the Utes a very potent offense. Only Mack was healthy for the entire 2007 season. Together, they could give Utah a much-needed lift over the still organizing Michigan defense.

Game of the week
Utah State at UNLV
These two coaches, Brent Guy and Mike Sanford have a lot in common: Both are in their fourth year. Both have yet to produce and both know winnable games are not easily mined from their 2008 schedule.

Team on the rise
Weber State
Coach Mac is in his fourth year too and expectations are on the rise. The Wildcats have all the tools on offense and defense to make a run at the Big Sky title and a berth in the Football Championship Subdivision tournament.

Talk of the subdivision
Pac 10
Two Pac-10 teams are assured of having one conference loss before the calendar even reaches September.
The opening weekend of play in the Pac-10 is highlighted by two conference tilts, with Stanford hosting Oregon State on Thursday night and Washington visiting Oregon on Saturday.

Quotable
"They always bring up Michigan. It kind of gets annoying. We didn't win a ring off of Michigan. After that we went through a whole season. Luckily, we had our heads on straight." — Armanti Edwards, QB for Appalachian State, which stunned Michigan in first week of the 2007 season. This year App. State takes on LSU.

State of the state

BYU (0-0)
Opponent: Northern Iowa

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