After a hot start to last year's campaign in the Mountain West, the Wyoming Cowboys won just two of their final eight games to cap off the year. However, that was enough to get them into a bowl game against Kent State where they dispatched the Golden Flashes via a 52-38 victory in the Idaho Potato Bowl.
Illinois meanwhile missed out on a bowl game altogether last season, but did enjoy solid wins against Penn State and Minnesota and will look to get their second consecutive Week 0 start off to another flyer after polishing off Nebraska last year by eight points in Champaign.
Saturday's meeting will be the first time either side will have faced each other in competitive football action.
The Cowboys enter 2022 with one of t he youngest rosters in the entire country, ranking #1 in terms of overall percentage of underclassmen (84.2%) that make up the team as a whole.