2016 Foster Farms Bowl, Utah vs. Indiana: Date, time, location, and everything to know

Also, head over here for the fully updated bowl season calendar as it fills in, from the New Orleans Bowl through the Rose Bowl. We’ll also add picks, scores, and more to that calendar over time.

The Foster Farms Bowl is set for Dec. 28 in California. It’s not a new bowl game, heading into its 15th year. But it feels new, because it’s played in a newish NFL stadium and has a relatively new name. (It used to go by “Fight Hunger Bowl,” “Emerald Bowl” and “San Francisco Bowl,” having debuted after the 2002 season.

There’s been recent intrigue. The Foster Farms Bowl was the scene of a mostly unwatchable, 5-7 Nebraska team making a bowl game on a technicality and then dispatching ranked UCLA last year. The game also hosted one of the better nights of Christian McCaffrey’s freshman season at Stanford, in 2014 and has included at least one ranked team on 11 different occasions.

Levi’s Stadium, the home of the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers, is a pretty big venue, with a capacity of almost 70,000 for football. The first two bowl games there have filled the stadium roughly halfway, and it’s not an amazing college sports atmosphere. Alas, bowl games can be fun, and this is a sometimes pretty fun bowl game.

Date and time: Dec. 28, 2016, 8:30 p.m. ET

TV channel: FOX

Location: Santa Clara, Calif.

Stadium: Levi’s Stadium

Last year’s score: Nebraska 37, UCLA 29

Last year’s attendance: 33,527

Teams with the most all-time appearances: Boston College and UCLA, 3

Teams with the most all-time wins: Nobody’s won more than once in 14 years.

Utah (8-4, 5-4 in Pac-12)

Utah remained competitive in the Pac-12 South throughout the majority of the 2016 season. The Utes got off to an impressive 7-1 record heading into a huge Week 9 matchup against the No. 4 Washington Huskies. The Utes lost by a touchdown, as the Huskies needed a late punt return touchdown to get the victory. Thanks to USC’s win over Washington later in the season, along with Colorado’s resurgence in 2016, the Utes finished third in the Pac-12 South. They could’ve done better, but they wound up doing OK.

Although head coach Kyle Whittingham’s teams are usually known for their defenses, the unit, statistically speaking, isn’t all that dominant, hanging around the top 45 for most of the year in S&P+. The defense boasts a pair of talented defensive backs in Chase Hansen and Marcus Williams, both of whom have combined for over 100 tackles.

Indiana (6-6, 4-5 in Big Ten)

Indiana had a weird year. The Hoosiers went 6-6, which is probably about right for the caliber of the team. But they narrowly missed out on upsets against top-10 Penn State and Michigan, and they could’ve made things a bit better than they were. Things took a surprising turn last week, when the program fired head coach Kevin Wilson, reportedly over player mistreatment concerns. Defensive coordinator Tom Allen has been elevated as Wilson’s replacement.

Coming into the year, the book on Indiana was that the Hoosiers could play offense but not defense. That narrative turned on its head. The offense declined from 37 to 26 points per game, while the defense improved from 38 to 27. The two figures flipped almost perfectly, as Indiana’s strength became a relative weakness, and vice versa.

Quarterback Richard Lagow had an interesting go of things, with 8 yards per throw and 3,174 for the year, but a nearly symmetrical 18-to-16 touchdowns-to-interceptions ratio. The defense’s leader is the excellent linebacker Tegray Scales, who has 116 total tackles, including 20.5 for a loss. Defense is now what IU’s good at.