Ah, it's summer, the season to get outside, do fun stuff, sip on drinks with umbrellas in them, and start thinking about the opponents Iowa will face in the upcoming football year.

If you, like me, you're wondering how Iowa's season will go, The Skinny is an early look ahead at Iowa's competition for the upcoming football season.

Utah State made the First Responder Bowl after the 2022 season -- and promptly got clobbered by Memphis, 38-10.

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Utah State's deal is that they are a solid and occasionally very good Mountain West football team. They've made a bowl game every year since 2011, with the exceptions of 2016 and 2020, and finished ranked in the top 25 of both polls three times (most recently in 2021).

Their biggest bugaboo is that their coaches have tended to bolt just when the going gets good for the Aggies. In 2012, Gary Anderson parlayed an 11-2 record and 16 ranking into the head gig at Wisconsin. Matt Wells left in 2018 amidst another 11-2 campaign to take the head job at Texas Tech. (And if you go back several years, John L. Smith used Utah State as a stepping stone gig, going from there to Louisville, and from Louisville to Michigan State in the early '00s.)

Their current coach, Blake Anderson, might be the salve for that, as he is more journeyman than up-and-comer, having coached in college football since the early 1990s, leaving his most recent stint as the Arkansas State head coach to coach the Aggies in 2021. With a Mountain West Championship and two bowl appearances to his name, things are looking solid in Provo.

Before the aforementioned bowl game, the Aggies were a so-so 6-6, but if you look under the hood of that record, this was a team that struggled to reach that middling record. They were 4-0 in games decided by one score or less, with two of those games eked out over the likes of 3-10 Hawaii and 3-9 Colorado State.

The high point of the Aggies' season was beating a very solid 10-3 Air Force squad 34-27. As far as the low point of their season , there was a 55-0 whooping against Alabama, but that was also a game against Alabama. Utah State also lost to FCS Weber State 35-7, and Weber State is decidedly not Alabama.

This is a team that got to a bowl game by the skin of its teeth in a relatively weak conference.

Utah State’s biggest strengths were on offense and special teams. While not a world-beater in either category, the Aggies were fifth in the Mountain West in total yardage/game (345.5 ypg). Their 4.9 yards/play was nothing spectacular, which makes sense when you look at their 3.8 yards/carry average and 6.4 yards/attempt in the passing game.

Utah State squeezed out more yards by running more plays than anyone else in the Mountain West, thanks in large part to going for it on fourth down more than anybody else in the conference, converting 18 times on 35 attempts. They also averaged 62 yards/game in penalty yardage from their opponents.

SP+ ranked the Aggies 78th in offensive efficiency and 64th in special teams efficiency.

The 7.2 yard/attempt they gave up in the passing game is not quite as bad as the 4.8 yards they gave up in the running game, but the Aggies' defense in general was pretty poor. Here's a useful measuring stick re: Utah State’s defense: they gave up functionally the same number of yards on either a per-game and per-play basis as Nevada. Even the beleaguered Hawkeye offense was able to move the ball against the Wolfpack last season.

SP+ ranked Utah State a dismal 123rd in terms of defense efficiency. It's not a stretch to say that Utah State had one of the ten worst defenses in college football last year.

Probably clawing their way back to another bowl game. They don’t appear to have the firepower to compete with the likes of Boise State, Fresno State, or San Diego State in the conference. Getting to a bowl game in what looks sort of like a rebuilding year would be a success for the Aggies.

The Aggies are dealing with some key turnover on the offensive end. Five-year starter and first-team all-Mountain West left tackle Alfred Edwards graduated. Senior WR Brian Cobbs is gone, as is running back Calvin Tyler, both All-Mountain West second-teamers. The Aggies' third wideout, Justin McGriff, has also graduated.

Senior quarterback Cooper Legas is back at quarterback after stepping in for the injured Logan Bonner. Legas has, um, some legs on him, finishing 23rd in the conference rushing overall (averaging 30.3 ypg), despite playing in three fewer games and having sack yards factored in his rushing totals.

Freshman running back Robert Briggs solidified himself as second on the depth chart (35.3 ypg, 4.8 ypc) before an injury shortened his season. He will get his chance to be the lead back in 2023, and Utah State’s second receiving option and All Mountain West Honorable mention Terrell Vaughn slots in to take the lead role in the passing game after catching 56 passes for 624 yards and five touchdowns last year.

There were not a lot of standout performances on a defense that struggled, but DB Ike Larson (four interceptions, two passes broken up) earned a spot on the all-Mountain West second team as a freshman, and will likely be a very early test for Hawkeye transfer Kaleb Brown. Larson was also credited with 3 (!) blocked kicks/punts in 2022, so he'll be a player to watch on special teams as well.

We also have to mention Utah State's super-senior Aussie punter Stephen Kotsanlee, who was good in 2023 (43.3 yards per punt, 4th in the conference) but is certainly no Tory Taylor.

Iowa and Utah State have played twice, and the Aggies have had the misfortune of facing some all-time great Hawkeye teams. The first Utah State-Iowa game was in 1957, when Forest Evashevski’s Hawkeyes routed the Aggies 70-14; Iowa finished that season 6th in the AP Poll. The other matchup between Iowa and Utah State came in 2002, when another future top-10 Iowa team won easily, 48-7. Maybe the Aggies are a good luck charm?

This really should be a comfortable Iowa win. It’s college football, a sport famous for making predictions look stupid, so "should" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, but even if you assume Iowa’s defense gets somewhat less excellent and the offense gets no better than it was last year, Iowa is probably still a three-touchdown favorite. (Iowa is currently favored by 23.5 points.) Even if you factor in Utah State getting less terrible on defense, Iowa isn’t likely to face a worse defense all season.

While 2022 Utah State was basically Nevada with a not-terrible offense and a solid return game, the Aggies lost some key players on the offensive side of the ball, so it seems unlikely that they'll get a lot better on that front in 2023.

This should be a clear opportunity for Brian Ferentz to easily hit the over on his 25/ppg scoring average and for Iowa fans to feel some optimism about a revamped Hawkeye offense. If the offense struggles to move the ball in this game, that would be a very, very bad sign for the rest of the season.