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Two days until kickoff

| August 31, 2006 1:00 AM

By CARL HENNELL

The Daily Inter Lake

NCAA Division I-AA's third-ranked University of Montana football team kicks off its 2006 season Saturday at I-A's 16th-ranked University of Iowa.

That's right - the Hawkeyes. Kickoff is set for 10:03 a.m. MST in Iowa City, Iowa.The Grizzlies and Hawkeyes have faced each other only once. It was back in 1954 - when stop signs were black-on-yellow, the French (before Americans) were still warring in Vietnam and the last new episode of The Lone Ranger was aired. Iowa won that game, 48-6. This time around … Well, those Hawkeyes may seem more like the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers than just their uniforms.

The notion around western Montana is simple: Hope nobody gets hurt.

"It's going to be a tough one," UM defensive tackles coach Tom Hauck said.

The Grizzlies have won 16 of the last 18 season openers, including seven on the road. UM's last season opener on the road against a I-A foe was in 1996 against Oregon State and they beat the Beavers, 35-14.

This will be the first time since 1985 - and the second time in school history - the Griz have played a Big Ten Conference team. They played the Lou Holtz-coached Minnesota Gophers in '85 and lost, 62-17. The only other time was that '54 meeting in Iowa City.

"We are looking forward to playing a game in Kinnick Stadium," UM coach Bobby Hauck said. "It's an historic Big Ten stadium. It will be fun for our team to get back there and check out what the Big Ten is like."

Kinnick Stadium holds 70,585 people - that's more than three times the size of Washington-Grizzly Stadium's 23,183 capacity. UI enrolls more than twice as many students as UM - 29,697 to 13,602.

"We don't have any illusions on who Iowa is and how good of a football team they have. They are one of the favorites to win the Big Ten Conference and ESPN, among others, picked them to be one of the top five teams in the nation."

The Hawkeyes are one of four teams in the nation to play in a New Year's Day bowl game for the past four years. USC, Georgia and Florida State are the others. They have 16 starters back from last season's 31-24 loss to the Florida Gators in the Outback Bowl. Their big team strengths are the offensive and defensive lines … And they've got a senior quarterback in Drew Tate who is ranked fifth in school history with 5,669 passing yards. All-Big Ten running back Albert Young rushed for 1,334 yards and eight touchdowns last year and is on the Maxwell Watch list. Like the Heisman Trophy, the Maxwell Award is given to College Player of the Year.

"They are a complete football team," Hauck said. "On offense, they have the ability to maul you. We expect them to come out and try to shove the ball around the field on us with their run game."

Iowa held Wisconsin to just 19 yards rushing in a game last year.

"The thing that sticks out in my mind is that we're trying to figure out how to run the ball on them," Hauck said. "It's a tough, tough task to figure out how to move the ball on them - not to mention how to stop them."