This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Thirty guesses about what will happen around here this college football season:

1. On account of his ability to keep moving forward after the initial hit, having gained 815 yards after first contact last season, Devontae Booker will approach running for 2,000 yards, but fall just short.

2. Taysom Hill will stay healthy enough to rush for 1,000 yards and pass for more than 3,000.

3. Travis Wilson will have the best season of his career — if his offensive line takes good care of him.

4. BYU will miss the explosive running of Jamaal Williams even more than it thinks it will.

5. Chuckie Keeton will remind everybody why he was so highly regarded before his run of injuries.

6. Matt Wells will punch up another impressive coaching performance, attracting more attention from bigger programs.

7. BYU will be fortunate to get two wins in September.

8. The Utes will make hay with and take major advantage of their seven home games and Pac-12 teams will go on hating to play in Salt Lake City.

9. Mitch Mathews and Nick Kurtz will roll up huge receiving numbers for the Cougars.

10. Rice-Eccles will be the toughest ticket in the state — and rabid fans will clamor for expansion plans, more for practical reasons than any matter of pride.

11. Utah State will finish with the second-best record in the Mountain West.

12. Not a single BYU player will get thrown out of a game for brawling.

13. Guy Holliday, again, will have a hugely favorable impact on the Cougar program not just for his technical coaching, but for his home-grown, ground-level common sense.

14. Harvey Langi will be a hell of a linebacker once he learns how to play the position.

15. Utah's defensive front will straight stone more than a few Pac-12 offenses.

16. Residents of the state of Utah will be glad to see Utah State play Utah and BYU.

17. Residents of the state of Utah rightly will miss the Utah-BYU game, again, recognized locally and nationally by writers and commentators, who not only have no rooting interest in the game, but also have plenty of other things to write and talk about, as one of the best rivalry games in college football.

18. As he coaches the daylights out of fairly average overall talent on his defense, Bronco Mendenhall will 1) see better results than he should, and 2) will recite either a scripture or a quote from an LDS general authority conference talk, probably with an expletive mixed in. Football may be fifth, but it's more important to Mendenhall than anyone realizes.

19. With his contract securely extended, Kyle Whittingham will slacken the reins on his offense and occasionally even allow his quarterbacks to throw on first down.

20. Utah's home game against the orange-and-black Oregon State Beavers on Halloween will be frightful for Gary Andersen and Kalani Sitake, making the head coach and his assistant, at least for those few hours, rue the days they decided to leave Madison and Salt Lake, respectively.

21. Some of the so-called "lesser games" for BYU, the ones outside of Nebraska and Boise State and UCLA and Michigan and Mizzou, will be tougher than a lot of people suppose. Many of those games are at LES, but remember what Nevada did to the Cougars a year ago.

22. BYU will wish four of their top five toughies weren't on the road.

23. Tom Hackett will again be one of the best punters in the nation and Andy Phillips will be one of the top kickers.

24. Memory of the Oregon game or not, Kaelin Clay will be missed.

25. Utah will have somewhere between five and 10 players on this year's defense drafted by the NFL in the years ahead, either after their eligibility runs out or when they make themselves available.

26. Freshmen Tanner Mangum and Chase Hansen will go on to have terrific seasons as college quarterbacks, but not this year.

27. Nick Vigil and Kyler Fackrell will be two of the best defenders in the state and in the Mountain West.

28. BYU's players will be more fit and better conditioned later in the season because of the presence of new strength coach Frank Wintrich.

29. There will be a minimum of 10,000 empty seats at LaVell's Place for BYU's game against Wagner.

30. Utah and BYU will meet in the Las Vegas Bowl. Book it. Or don't.

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Big Show" with Spence Checketts weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone. Twitter: @GordonMonson.