Play it forward: The week ahead in college football

Five things to watch this week in college football:

1) Oregon at Stanford is a lot more interesting than it looked a few weeks ago as the return of quarterback Vernon Adams Jr. has rescued the Ducks from a potentially disastrous season. Oregon (6-3) kept Stanford from clinching the Pac-12 North with a home win over California in which the Ducks amassed 777 yards of offense.

2) Memphis at Houston is no longer a showdown of unbeaten teams from the American Athletic Conference. Navy prevented that scenario by soundly defeating Memphis on Saturday. That left Houston as the lone remaining unbeaten team from the Group of Five Conferences.

3) Alabama has recovered from its home loss to Mississippi to emerge as the top one-loss team in the nation. The Crimson Tide moved to No. 3 in the Associated Press media poll after Saturday’s win against Louisiana State but faces a difficult test this week at No. 20 Mississippi State.

4) One-loss Oklahoma can get back in playoff contention if it can defeat undefeated Baylor next Saturday in Waco, Texas. The Sooners lead the all-time series, 20-3, but all three losses have come since 2010, including last year’s 48-14 beat down in Norman.

5) Appalachian State at Idaho isn’t just one of the strangest geographical matchups of the season — it’s a league game. The two schools became business partners as part of the wildly reconfigured Sun Belt Conference, which also boasts schools from New Mexico and Georgia.