Utah will play Indiana in the 2016 Foster Farms Bowl

After a disappointing end to the regular season, the Utes now know where they’re going this bowl season, and who they are playing, the perfect recipe for moving on past a disappointing couple of losses. Not to mention this is a good opportunity to help develop the young players as well as give the seniors one last game.

The Utes will be facing the Indiana Hoosiers on December 28th in the 2016 Foster Farms Bowl, a game that Utah has played in the past, while it was under a different name — the Emerald Bowl. The Utes took on, and beat Georgia Tech in the 2005 Emerald Bowl at the Giants’ stadium in San Francisco. The current game is now in Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, and the matchup is a against a Big 10 foe.

As for that foe, Indiana is 6-6 out of the Big 10 East, and placed 4th in their division. We’ll dig more into Indiana over the coming days and weeks, but this was a very competitive Indiana team in one of the toughest conferences and divisions in college football. The Hoosiers are in a strange place of having to replace a successful head coach who was dismissed/stepped down from the team after some off the field issues. This is a team Utah can’t overlook, and with Coach Whitt’s ability to prepare the Utes for bowl games, I wouldn’t expect them to.

For the Utes, this is their 3rd consecutive bowl game appearance, after missing two straight. The Utes played in the Las Vegas Bowl in back-to-back seasons, winning both times against Colorado State and BYU.

What are your initial thoughts on the bowl destination and matchup?