ITB's Slate of Eight: Week 3

Folks we're back for another edition of your new favorite weekly segment, the ITB Slate of Eight. This week's edition we've got Kyle Kensing, football writer extraordinaire for NCAA.com and the new Saturday Blitz.Kensing is a West Coast guy and with this week's heavy West Side influence it just felt right to have the friend of the program in to discuss a lot of football.

As some of my twitter followers have stated this week hasn't been quite the picnic when it comes to figuring out which games to put on the docket and which to leave off. We've got three legitimate "marquee match-ups" on the slate and then we decided to take advantage of being the boss of this and go hunting for storylines to enlighten your football knowledge. We've got a west coast feel so please enjoy the song that has been stuck in my head since I left for Atlanta two Friday's ago and I hope it seeps into your mind just like it has mine.

Now that you've been infected with the Katy Perry virus the way your fearless leader has been for weeks; take a look at this week's slate:

Wake Forest - Stanford
Texas - Texas Tech
Nebraska - Washington
Alabama - Duke
Air Force - Oklahoma
Arkansas - Georgia
Clemson - Auburn
Iowa - Arizona

The first five games on the slate are all interesting for a myriad of reasons. Stanford handling Wake's scoring attack and we get our first look at Andrew Luck against an out of conference foe without Toby Gerhart, Texas' first real "test" as Tuberville gets the Longhorns in Lubbock and Jake Locker against a legitimate defense as Bo Pelini takes the Big Red Machine to Seattle.

We spend a decent amount of time talking Bama-Duke and while upset is far from the either of our minds the look at this game has a lot of implications for the Bama-Arkansas game that sits a week away. Cutcliffe's attack on Bama's secondary could be the difference between a limited Penn State team being blown out and the Blue Devils cracking some big plays. As for Air Force and Oklahoma we'll see how "on track" the Sooners are against Troy Calhouns option attack. Have they rebounded after Utah State embarrassed them running the veer in week one?

Clemson vs Auburn or as we like to refer to it; Auburn vs Auburn with a lake. A cultural mirror match of squads and mascots that will see Clemson's underachieving defense square off against Cam Newton and what looks to be a Jekyll and Hyde offense from Auburn. Defensively the Tigers of the War Eagle persuasion will be tested by a potent Clemson rushing attack and we'll finally get to see how their bodies handle being pounded on.

Iowa at Arizona wasn't circled as a marquee match up on most folks calendar to begin the season but with Iowa as one of ITB's BCS Championship Game participants the Hawkeyes are all over our radar. Kensing is an Arizona guy so the game gets a bit of a debate as we split over who will take home the crown.

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