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This was not supposed to be Saturday's blockbuster. Not for the Pac-12, and certainly not for the nation.

Cal was supposed to lose in Seattle. Utah was supposed to be plucky for a half or so in Eugene before the game ended with Royce Freeman front-flipping over the goal line for 50-plus pushups with the Duck on his back.

But then, the Pac-12 South was supposed to be impossibly tough. George Seifert was supposed to go to Cal Poly. Pluto was supposed to have hidden moons.

Things don't always work out as they're supposed to.

No. 5 Utah has its highest ranking ever at this point in the season, and Cal is 5-0 for the first time since 2007.

Whether or not Saturday night's affair is a great game or an important game — it is supposed to be both — it will absolutely be a hyped game.

At least you can count on that much.

Time, Place and [Radio Waves in] Space • Kickoff is 8:15 p.m. MT on brand-new turf at Rice-Eccles Stadium, which has sold out for a 34th consecutive time. The game will air on ESPN, called by Dave Pasch, Brian Griese and Tom Luginbill, and you can listen to Bill Riley, Frank Dolce and Bo Nagahi on ESPN 700. Satellite listeners can tune in at Sirius 137 or XM 197. ESPN's "College GameDay" is also in town, in case you hadn't heard, and will broadcast live from Presidents Circle from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m.

Line • Utah -7.5, over/under 61.5 points

Opposing Coach • The son of longtime Texas Tech head coach Spike Dykes, Sonny Dykes began his own career in Lubbock when the Red Raiders replaced his father with his former boss, current Washington State head coach Mike Leach. First as wide receivers coach and later as coordinator, Dykes helped Leach popularize the so-called "Air Raid" offense before spending leaving to spend three years as OC under Mike Stoops at Arizona. Dykes was made head coach by Louisiana Tech in 2010, improving the offensive output to a nation-high 51.5 points per game in 2012, when the Bulldogs were ranked as high as No. 18. His progress in three years at Cal has been staggering: from 1-11 in 2013 to 5-7 last year, to 5-0 in 2015.

Utah Ties • Utah senior safety Tevin Carter was a redshirting freshman wideout at Cal in 2010, befriending future Ute and fellow freshman Kaelin Clay before both left the Golden Bears later that school year. While Utah's roster is heavily populated by players from the state of California, the Golden Bears have no players from the Beehive State.

Pregame Quotable • As gathered by Daily Utah Chronicle reporter Kylee Ehmann, junior sociology and theatre major Kimberlee Briggs: "Maybe I'm ignorant to its purpose, but I don't feel and never have felt like Homecoming applies to me. If I cared enough to really feel something about it, it would be disdain."

Media Guide Nuggets • Cal quarterback Jared Goff once attended a Cal game on his birthday, watching the man he's often now compared to, Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers. … Junior center Dominic Granado is the son of Pac-12 official, Al, who is on hiatus until his son finishes his college career. … Junior linebacker Hardy Nickerson, son of the longtime NFL linebacker by the same name, writes with his left hand but does everything else with his right. … The mother of freshman defensive end Cameron Saffle, Shauna, was one of Microsoft's first 50 employees.

Telling Stat • We've been telling you about it all week, but Thursday night's shocker in the Coliseum makes it that much more relevant: Visiting Pac-12 teams are 9-2 in conference play this season and 42-23 since the start of 2014. Nobody has much of an explanation, but there's enough data at play that you wonder if maybe, somehow, this indicates an added difficulty of holding serve in this conference.

Golden Bears Offensive Outlook • Assesses Utah defensive coordinator John Pease: "All you have to do is watch them sling the ball around and you go, 'Whoa. We'd better do something, fast.'"

Potential No. 1 overall draft pick in Jared Goff has a bevy of reliable receivers — completing passes to 11 players in last Satuday's win against Washington State — and five backs that offensive coordinator Tony Franklin feels confident in. Add it all up, and you have a team that averages 528 yards of total offense per game.

They didn't run the ball as well against the Cougars as they would have liked — 30 times for 79 yards — but Dykes said in his postgame comments that he expects his offensive line's performance to improve against Utah.

For more on the Golden Bears' explosive offense, read our Friday story.

Golden Bears Defensive Outlook • Last year, game-planning for Cal's defense was like going from chess to checkers, crossword puzzles to word searches, fine art to coloring books.

The answer was simple: When you played Cal, you threw.

Teams averaged 45 pass attempts per game against the depleted Golden Bear secondary, gaining an average of 367 yards.

It has become less simple, though.

Even after Logan product Luke Falk finished with 389 yards for the pass-happy Cougars, Cal's average stood at a respectable 250 passing yards conceded per game, and they were able to sack Falk seven times for a Pac-12-high total of 18 in 2015.

Senior defensive end Kyle Kragen followed a Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week performance against Washington with 2.5 sacks against Washington State, while senior safety Stefan McClure — who was out more than a month last season due to injury — returned a fumble for a touchdown and sacked Falk to force a field goal attempt, earning the latest DPOTW honor.

The Golden Bears combine the nation's second-highest interception total, at 10, with a tied-first eight fumble recoveries for an FBS-high 18 turnovers.

Dykes said he's not sure why they've so frequently gotten the ball before it was their turn, except that "teams that have a lot of experience always seem to be teams that get a lot of turnovers."

Golden Bears Special Teams Outlook • They have yet to do anything that special this season, averaging just 37 net yards per punt, 5.4 yards per punt return, and an even 20 yards per kickoff return. But senior wideout Trevor Davis was a second-team preseason All-American kick returner, per The Sporting News, after taking back-to-back kickoffs to the house in last year's meeting with Washington State. Sophomore kicker Matt Anderson is 5-for-7 this season, with a long of 41.

Required Reading

Injury Report • Junior defensive end Hunter Dimick is expected to play after injuring his lower leg against Utah State and traveling but not suiting up against Oregon. Senior quarterback Travis Wilson said his sprained left shoulder benefited from rest during the bye week, and senior cornerback Ahmad Christian — a transfer from South Carolina who has yet to play for the Utes — estimated that he is at 85 to 90 percent in his recovery from a torn Achilles. Kyle Whittingham was unsure earlier this week about the status of senior wideout Tim Patrick. There has been no update on the status of freshman running back Marcel Brooks-Brown (gunshot wounds) or sophomore guard Lo Falemaka (gunshot wounds). Senior tight end Evan Moeai (lower leg), sophomore running back Troy McCormick (knee) and sophomore nickelback Jordan Fogal (knee) are lost for the season. For Cal, senior running back Daniel Lasco returned to action against Washington State after missing two games with a hip injury. Defensive tackle Mustafa Jalil, defensive end DeVante Wilson and left tackle Brian Farley, all starters, were reportedly practicing this week after sitting out last Saturday.

Three Big Questions

1. Can Travis Wilson avoid costly mistakes? • Whittingham said on the Pac-12 media teleconference Tuesday that the battle for quarterback was "completely different" this year from last, when Travis Wilson and Kendal Thompson seesawed back and forth until Thompson was lost for the season with an ACL tear. Wilson verged on flawless against Oregon, and his only interception this season was a half-ending Hail Mary in the opener against Michigan. But Wilson acknowledged Tuesday that the nation's most turnover-generating defense has "guys that are quick and can react to the ball. It's definitely my job to make smart decisions and not throw reckless throws." For Texas (two turnovers), Washington (five) and Washington State (four), mistake-free football might've done the trick against the Golden Bears. Alas.

2. Will Utah have the answers for Cal's potent offense? • Pease said he wasn't supposed to talk about Utah's 62-20 beatdown of Oregon, but there are some games, he said, where "you can do nothing wrong. … You get the giggles, and you turn your call sheet over and you say 'Hey, we haven't called that one since '74, and you call it and 'Hey! Interception for a touchdown!'" The next week, Pease said, it can all turn around. Goff (as detailed in the story above) thrives on pressure, so it's critical for Utah to be able to mix up coverages and stay glued to Cal's handful of reliable wideouts. The Golden Bears have had the same do-no-wrong feeling with their own offensive play calls, outscoring Washington State 28-7 down the stretch and rattling off 24 or more unanswered points in all four preceding games.

3. Can Utah keep its eyes on the prize? • Pease said there's no special need to tell players that this is a big game, because they'll hear about it on campus all week. "I've always thought big games kind of take care of themselves," he said. But might Utah be too amped? Or feel too early as though it's arrived, what with "GameDay" in town and seven AP voters feeling it's the best team in the nation? Carter doesn't think there's any danger of overconfidence or complacency. "We're No. 5, but that's not where we want to be," he said. "We preach playoffs every week, so we're going to play like the playoffs are every day." The playoffs, in fact, are a long ways away. If Utah wins Saturday, and then again against Arizona State, and then again against USC, etc., it's going to become harder and harder to blot out the distractions.

— Matthew Piper

mpiper@sltrib.com

Twitter: @matthew_piper