After a lackluster slate of games in Week 3 that was highlighted by Colorado’s win over Colorado State in the Rocky Mountain Showdown, college football fans have no shortage of compelling matchups to look forward to this weekend as conference play begins all across the country.

There are six games between ranked opponents Saturday and three of them just so happen to come in the Pac-12. The conference’s final season is shaping up to be an epic one with eight teams in the AP top 25 and all of them are 3-0, something that’s happened only once in the poll era (2005 Big 12).

The Pac-12 has the marquee game of the week, but it’s not in Salt Lake City or Eugene, Ore. like some might think.

It’s in Pullman, Wash.

The two schools remaining in the conference that are united and committed to rebuilding it, Oregon State and Washington State — the two schools the sport is trying to leave behind — will meet in what should be a thrilling game regardless of what’s happened to the two schools in conference realignment.

The No. 14 Beavers and No. 21 Cougars will face off at 5 p.m. in front of a nationally televised audience on Fox, and the winner will be on a potential path toward the Pac-12 championship game with an outside shot of making the College Football Playoff. It features a really good quarterback battle between OSU’S DJ Uiagalelei and WSU’S Cameron Ward. It also features one of the nation’s top running backs in the Beavers’ Damien Martinez and an elite defensive end in the Cougars’ Ron Stone Jr.

“It’s a great storyline,” WSU coach Jake Dickert said at his weekly news conference. “Once again the spotlight will be on Pullman, Wash. What an opportunity for Cougs everywhere. That’s the way our players look at it. We’ve worked hard for this. We’ve earned this stage.”

Jonathan Smith has built Oregon State into a team that controls both lines of scrimmage and isn’t afraid to run it down your throat 30 times a game, while Dickert has quickly brought Wazzu back to the level it was for several years under the late Mike Leach.

These are not two middling programs you can find in any Power 5 conference around the country. These are two legitimate contenders in arguably the most competitive and most interesting conference in the country. These are two programs that aren’t showing any signs of slowing down, either.

“I think it shows the level of what they’ve been building their program to and the success we’ve had in the last five years,” Dickert said. “It just shows the quality of football both programs have been playing.”

The two schools are unified in their effort to not let the Pac-12 Conference go.

Administrators from both schools held a joint news conference Thursday to outline just how they plan to do it from a legal and practical standpoint. European soccer style relegation and promotion has been floated as the “Pac-2” examines potential schools from the Mountain West and even schools in the FCS ranks in the Big Sky and other conferences.

“I think there’s some merit to look at some form of hybrid model,” Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes said. “We see it working in Europe and it’s worthy of our study.”

Whatever the future holds for these two schools, they belong in the spotlight. They’ve been around since the inception of the original Pacific Coast Conference with Oregon State as a founding member back in 1915 and with Washington State joining just two years later in 1917.

College sports on the West Coast will never be the same one this current athletic calendar turns the page next summer. The efforts of these two schools might turn out to be futile. They could also turn out to be revolutionaries if they choose an outside-the-box solution.

But for now, there’s a football game set to take place in the Palouse. It’s shaping up to be a memorable one.

“I know nationally we’re together and we’re going to be rebuilding the Pac-12 and all those things, but on the field, it’s not going to be that friendly,” Dickert said.

“They want to win, we want to win. We know how important it is to get that 1-0 (record in the Pac-12) and get that conference slate of games started off (in) the right way.”