Can No. 14 BYU remain undefeated and rise in the rankings? Will Cam Rising take the field again and charge No. 16 Utah after a home loss to Arizona? Will Utah State be able to slow down UNLV in Logan?

The challenges are dramatic and the outcomes are critical, especially for BYU and Utah as they focus on the substance of their Big 12 conference schedules.

Both BYU and Utah are favored to win, while Utah State will have a hard time slowing down upstart UNLV, a school headed for a showdown with Boise State for the Mountain West Conference title.

The Cam Rising drama has been going on for two years now. The injury-plagued Ute leader was on the likely questionable list week after week a year ago. This year, after injuring a finger in an off-court hit against a water cooler table on the sideline, he was working on that theater puzzle again. News came Thursday that Rising will start against the Sun Devils, but time will tell.

Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham wasn’t intending to make a pun in this quote from last week:

“I can tell you that, and it’s still early in the week, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for the best, just like Cam,” the veteran coach said.

You have to have a feeling for Whittingham. He is forced to put true freshman Isaac Wilson in the fire, accelerating his development without leaving him shell-shocked with dented confidence. But he will have no choice if Rising fails to rise and return as the undisputed go-to guy everyone was counting on before the injury in the Baylor game.

Utah’s defense will have a challenge in stopping ASU bowling running back Cam Skattebo, who has averaged 5.5 yards per carry and gained 615 yards with six touchdowns on the season. Skattebo’s 182 yards in Week 5 were the second-highest rushing effort in Division I.

Equally tough is QB Sam Leavitt, a talented passer who can make plays with his legs.

Utah will be able to contain Skattebo and Leavitt, but like the loss to Arizona, they’ll need some scoreboard support from the offense – whether it’s Wilson or Rising – to avoid an upset in the desert.

Arizona beat Utah as the Utes’ offense struggled, allowing Noah Fifita to hit some home runs, and it only took a few to clinch Utah. Leavitt is capable of doing the same as a 59% passer who has 1,012 yards and seven touchdown passes on the season. He is most dangerous when he plays with his legs.

ASU isn’t as talented or as deep as Utah, but neither was Arizona.

BYU gets a boost to its run game with the returns of LJ Martin and Sione Moa. This will allow the Cougars to give QB Jake Retzlaff more flexibility, not only with RPO but also with play-action passing.

BYU needs to force Arizona’s defense and offense to absorb some physicality in this game. Putting pressure on Fifita is a must. He is not tall, but he is a master at clearing the ball extremely quickly, neutralizing pressure.

Retzlaff’s pass efficiency is 150, a very good increase over Fifita’s 131, who entered the season as the Big 12 darling after leading the Wildcats to an outstanding 10-win season that ended with a win streak of seven games and a third place. end up in the Pac-12.

This game features the nation’s No. 5 receiver in Tetairoa McMillan for Arizona. It will be interesting to see how BYU’s defensive coordinator approaches his defense to account for the 6-foot-4 speedster.

This is a game where Kalani Sitake has to break some kind of curse that ends with bad results for weeks. His Cougar teams have historically been 3-4 after a week off. The losses were to TCU last year, USF in 2019, a 7-6 loss at Northern Illinois in 2018 and a loss at Utah State in 2017.

Arizona is better than all of those seven opponents the Cougars faced when they returned from time off, but you could say this BYU team is a much better football team than all of the ones that lost those four times.

In Logan? A hot UNLV rolls.

This week’s choices

• UNLV 33, Utah State 14 (Friday)
• Utah 24, Arizona State 17 (Friday)
• Alabama 38, South Carolina 10
• Iowa 21, Washington 18
• Rutgers 27, Wisconsin 24
• Texas 37, Oklahoma 27
• Notre Dame 33 Stanford 14
• Pittsburgh 21, California 17
• Illinois 31, Purdue 21
• Tennessee 37, Florida 28
• Washington State 34, Fresno State 21
• Ohio State 34, Oregon 31
• Iowa State 27, West Virginia 24
• Kansas State 24, Colorado 21
• UCF 27, Cincinnati 21
• BYU 31, Arizona 24

Last week: 14-4; total 78-23 (.772)