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This weekend, the Utah Utes will stage a football competition that should qualify someone to play in the Rose Bowl, if not the national championship game.

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There's some irony in Utah's upward mobility. The Utes' final season of Mountain West Conference membership is serving up Saturday's meeting with Texas Christian, featuring unbeaten teams, ranked in the top five of the Bowl Championship Series standings.

This matchup will be tough to top in the coming years. The odds against having teams with these credentials appearing at Rice-Eccles Stadium again anytime soon are staggering, just because it is so unlikely that two schools in the deep, competitive Pac-12 would be unbeaten in November — and that Utah would be one of them.

So for all of the possibilities that the new league will offer Ute sophomore quarterback Jordan Wynn and his returning teammates, this is good stuff right here, right now. Seriously, a pairing of top-five teams in the MWC? Such a thought "never really had crossed my mind," Wynn said Monday.

Not even a Pac-12 championship game at Rice-Eccles with a Rose Bowl bid at stake, whether that occurs next season or far into the future, would be guaranteed to draw more interest or have more national impact.

"This is what real, diehard college football teams just dream to have," said Ute center Zane Taylor. "We're not taking that for granted."

Assuming that Oregon plays Auburn in the national championship game, the Utah-TCU winner probably would fill the Ducks' Rose Bowl vacancy. If Auburn loses at some point, the Utes or Horned Frogs could play Oregon for the title.

Asked if the system is finally treating TCU, Boise State and Utah favorably, Ute coach Kyle Whittingham said cautiously, "We'll see. We'll see how it all plays out at the end. Right now, it's looking like we've made a lot of headway."

The obvious benefit of playing in the Pac-12, compared with the Mountain West, is that an unbeaten team would have fewer worries about access to the title game.

Saturday's winner will start wondering about its future, needing Oregon or Auburn to lose and hoping to hold off Boise State and Alabama. What's worse, the loser will be positioned to finish the most anticlimactic 12-1 season in college football history, likely meeting a 6-6 team in the Las Vegas Bowl. The Pac-12 definitely will offer nicer consolation prizes.

"All I care about is beating this team," Taylor said of the stakes. "All that other stuff is … a bit of a distraction."

While it would be unfortunate if a one-loss Utah or TCU team is overlooked for a BCS bid, it is difficult to imagine schools from outside the power conferences filling three of the 10 berths. What would be ridiculous is if a one-loss Alabama team jumps over all three of them and into the title game.

These teams are very good, and Saturday's winner will be deserving of big-time opportunities. If it takes an elimination game in November to distinguish Utah or TCU from the other, that works for me.

In college football's regular season, "I don't think there'll be a better game," Wynn said.

The rankings certainly create that possibility. Auburn and Alabama may be similarly situated when they meet later this month, but as of early November, this is the game of the year: Utah vs. TCU, on a field with Mountain West Conference logos woven into it, for now.

kkragthorpe@sltrib.com Twitter: @tribkurt