VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds, ranked seventh in the country, will travel to Calgary to face the No. 4 Dinos on Friday night at McMahon Stadium, in the Canada West regular season opener for both squads.

The top-10 battle is one of the marquee match-ups of Canadian Interuniversity Sport play this weekend, and promises to be an emotional one for many of the main characters.

UBC head coach Blake Nill will make his return to Calgary, where he coached the Dinos for nine years before moving to Vancouver to take over the Thunderbirds program in December of 2014.  

"It's going to be very different to be honest," Nill said. "There's going to be a lot of emotions going through my head about the success I had at Calgary and the challenges that I'm going to face at UBC. But once the game starts, I think everything will fall into place and hopefully, we're come in there and compete fully."

Nill won't be the only former Dino coach who will be wearing blue and gold on the sidelines on Friday afternoon, as Steve Buratto and Greg DeLaval are also on the UBC staff. Nill's replacement in Calgary is Wayne Harris, Jr.

The Nill era at UBC got off to a spectacular start last weekend as the Thunderbirds went into Quebec City and beat the Laval Rouge et Or 41-16.

New starting quarterback Michael O'Connor (Orleans, Ont.), who joined UBC after a redshirt year at Penn State, as Nill's biggest recruit in the offseason. He completed 18 of 32 passes for 292 yards and two touchdowns against Laval.

Reigning Canada West rookie of the year Marcus Davis (Victoria, B.C.) ran a punt back 85 yards for a touchdown, while the UBC defence recorded four interceptions and kept the Rouge et Or under 100 yards rushing.

The win over Laval was historic but the Thunderbirds will need to refocus to tackle another highly-regarded opponent on the road.

"When you have a big win, you can enjoy it for a few hours and then it's history," Nill said about the need for his team to refocus. "You take the experience of that success and you try to apply it to next week's preparation. That's what we've tried to do here. Take the little pieces that we think will help us become a better program in the long run and work towards gaining the kind of foundation that we need here."

The Dinos return 19 of 24 starters from the 2014 team that went 6-2, including 10 All-Canadians. Quarterback Andrew Buckley won the Hec Crighton Trophy as the best player in Canada, and is back for a fifth-and-final season.

Calgary won its exhibition game in Medicine Hat, Alta., last Wednesday by a score of 25-9 over Regina.

UBC has not won in Calgary since a 17-9 victory in 2000.

- with files from Calgary Sports Information