Chris Dufresne’s Play It Forward

Five things to watch this week in college football:

1: Texas Christian at Utah on Nov. 6 was a date everyone circled in August as a game that could have huge implications in the national title race. The winner of this matchup of undefeated top-10 teams remains very much alive in the BCS title chase.

2: Alabama is the one-loss team with the best chance to reach the national title game but needs to get past Louisiana State in Baton Rouge before it can start thinking about the Nov. 26 Iron Bowl showdown against Auburn.

3: Arizona at Stanford is the Pac-10 game of the week, a matchup of ranked teams. Stanford used a wipeout win at Washington to move to No. 10 in the AP poll, and No. 13 Arizona survived a scare at UCLA.

4: No one expected Hawaii (7-2) to be this good this late, but the Warriors take a 5-0 Western Athletic Conference record into Saturday’s showdown at Boise State. Hawaii is ranked No. 26 in all three major polls this week.

5: Nebraska at Iowa State might not seem like a game of much interest, but this is the Cornhuskers’ payback chance for last year’s horrific 9-7 defeat in Lincoln. Iowa State followed up this year by shocking Texas in Austin on Oct. 23.

—Chris Dufresne