Red Flags: 5 college football teams on upset alert in Week 1

4. Utah Utes

Opponent: Florida | Time: Thursday, Aug. 31, 8 p.m. ET (ESPN) | Spread: UTAH -4.5

If circumstances were normal for the Thursday night tilt between defending Pac-12 champion Utah and this Florida team, there's a good chance that I'd be taking Kyle Whittingham's Utes to make a big statement.

Not only is this game in the always-raucous Rice-Eccles Stadium, but Utah should be out for revenge. The Utes dropped a wild one to the Gators and Anthony Richardson at the start of last year with some late-game blunders. And if that weren't enough, I'm not particularly convinced that Florida is all that good this season. Richardson is gone, replaced by Graham Mertz, and there is a ton of unproven talent on both sides of the ball.

And despite all of this, everyone has good reason to be concerned about Utah in this game with the uncertainty -- trending toward doubt -- around quarterback Cam Rising.

Rising tore his ACL in last year's Rose Bowl and has been trying to make his way back for Week 1. In typical college football injuries fashion, we have little-to-no clarity around whether that will happen. What we do have, though, is a line that opened at Utah -10 that has now moved down to -4.5, including a two-point drop in the past day.

That indicates Rising isn't playing in the eyes of oddsmakers and, as such, Utah is going to have to rely on a run game behind an offensive line that must replace stalwart Braeden Daniels and running back Tavion Thomas. Rising was a huge factor in last year's game and not having him is crucial.

Again, this isn't a huge buy on Florida -- not by any stretch. But the factof the matter is that it's a tricky spot for Utah to start and it puts them in danger of losing in back-to-back seasons to the Gators.