Play it forward: Five things to watch in college football

Five things to watch this week in college football.

1: Central Florida at No. 8 Louisville provides the Cardinals another Thursday night window to prove they are deserving of title consideration. Louisville did not exactly light up the room last week against Rutgers, but UCF is a good 4-1 team with a win this year at Penn State.

2: Everyone was looking forward to UCLA’s game at Stanford because it figured to feature a top-10 team with national title aspirations. Lo and behold, that team is UCLA after the Bruins cracked the top 10 and Stanford dropped out after a tough road loss at Utah.

3: Third-ranked Clemson almost was caught looking ahead Saturday against Boston College but rallied in time to set up next week’s mega-ACC showdown against No. 5 Florida State. The Seminoles won the conference’s only BCS title in 1999, but the winner of Saturday’s game will put itself in prime contention position.

4: Auburn at Texas A&M offers another chance to marvel at Johnny Manziel, who rallied the Aggies to a last-second win Saturday at Mississippi. With 346 yards passing and 124 rushing, there may have never been a better game played by a quarterback who failed to throw a touchdown pass.

5: Poor Washington State. The Cougars just surrendered 52 points and 493 yards to Oregon State quarterback Sean Mannion, the NCAA passing leader. Washington State now must travel to Oregon next week to face a better team and all-around quarterback in Marcus Mariota.

chris.dufresne@latimes.com