Kansas State’s Collin Klein is no stranger to reaching the end zone against Oklahoma State. (AP)

Assorted Week 10 football contests that you get to watch and we, for the most part, do not. Enjoy?

• Games we will miss the most while participating in a wedding ceremony taking place in a state that is very far away from any of these games: In descending order: Oregon-USC (7:00 p.m. ET), Alabama-LSU (8:00) and Oklahoma State-Kansas State (8:00). Let our plight serve as a dire warning: Friends don’t let friends go to art school and go out into the world thinking it’s socially acceptable to plan November weddings.

• Team of the week that Maryland will either beat or embarrass or both with its 19th-string quarterback: Is it terribly foolish of us to like the Terps’ chances against Georgia Tech? We’ll find out at 12:30 in College Park. Maryland’s defense has been its strength this season, and Tech’s doesn’t seem particularly inclined to stop teams that do have quarterbacks, so …

• Most Americanest football contest of Week 10: Air Force and Army run the next leg of the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy race at noon.

• Saddest event we still technically have to call a football contest: Auburn and New Mexico State, with a combined record of 2-14, meet on the Plains at 12:30.

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Fresno State’s offense gets plenty of attention, but Phillip Thomas would have you know the Bulldogs are also ranked seventh nationally in pass efficiency defense. (Courtesy of Fresno State Athletics/Cary Edmondson)

Our weekly highlight show of lesser FBS luminaries. Non-AQs and independents, be welcome.

Profile in Ownage: Phillip Thomas, SS, Fresno State

It’s nine weeks into the first season of the Tim DeRuyter era at Fresno State, and if your thoughts turn to the Bulldogs, they probably turn to quarterback Derek Carr, the younger brother of David currently putting up more than 300 yards of offense a game, or Robbie “Mighty Mouse” Rouse, the diminutive back who scored four touchdowns in a quarter against Colorado. But as the season winds down, we’d suggest familiarizing yourselves with the body of work being assembled by senior strong safety Phillip Thomas. The Bakersfield, Calif., native has recorded an FBS-leading seven interceptions through two months of play, three of which he returned for touchdowns, and one fumble recovery. He’s also forced three fumbles, made seven tackles for loss and collected three sacks.

“This 3-4 defense that we run, we learned it from Dick LeBeau and the Steelers, and Phillip’s our Troy Polamalu,” DeRuyter told SI.com. “Where you’ve gotta have a guy who’s gonna be a difference-maker, you can blitz him, you can have him in pass coverage, you can have him as a run-force player, he can play man coverage and he can disguise everything? That guy, for us, is Phillip.”

Thomas is keying a major defensive turnaround. A team that ranked 116th nationally in turnover margin last season is up to 11th in 2012, thanks in large part to a player who spent most of his junior year watching from the sidelines on one good leg.

“I know we’ve had a reputation here offensively,” said DeRuyter. “When you’ve got players like Derek and Robbie, it’s deservedly so.

“What I think people don’t know is Phillip didn’t play a year ago.”

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Michigan State’s Mark Dantonio can get WAY grouchier than this. You’ll see. (AP)

Your oddly specific Saturday viewing guide. For more football-centric preview content, check out Andy Staples’ Walkthrough.

• Most locally sourced farm-to-fan football. In-state rivalries abound in Week 8, for those of you keeping vigilant watches on your carbon footprints. Saturday’s sustainably-grown grudge matches include No. 22 Stanford at Cal (3 p.m. ET), Michigan State at No. 23 Michigan (3:30 p.m.) and No. 12 Florida State at Miami (8 p.m.).

• Worst idea for a noon kickoff in recorded human history. Or maybe “best idea in terms of public safety,” but we’re still calling an 11 a.m. CT kickoff for LSU at Texas A&M the worst kind of cowardice. Who wants to live forever?

• Saddest ball of football sadness. Army (1-5) at Eastern Michigan (0-6), the latter of which we really did call “the country’s best winless team” on the Mandel Initiative podcast earlier this week. We meant every word of that. (HONORABLE MENTIONS: Boston College, already with a loss to this Army team, has to play a Georgia Tech team that’s already lost to Middle Tennessee State; and FAU-South Alabama, which will play in the One Of You is Getting Off The Floor Of The Sun Belt Whether You Want To Or Not Classic.)

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Colby Cameron and Johnny Manziel lead two of the nation’s top offenses. Who wins? Or will they decide to film a buddy cop comedy instead? JOHNNY FOOTBALL AND THE COLB-CAM: LOOSE CANNONS. (AP-Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

Our weekly highlight show of lesser FBS luminaries. Non-AQs and independents, be welcome.

It is time. The Ohio Bobcats are 6-0, bowl eligible and unranked and likely to stay that way for a little bit while AQ teams above them take losses and are dropped in the polls accordingly. They’re also not making a great case for Big Important Bowl Inclusion, having allowed three non-AQ teams (Marshall, UMass and Buffalo) to play them closer than their Week 1 opponents at Penn State. Six MAC teams remain on the schedule, not one of which finished 2011 with a winning record and only one of which (Kent State) is currently above .500 in 2012. If the Bobcats plan on ascending into the national Top 25 before the year is out, they’ll have to stage some blowouts.

This week, national spotlights will be trained on Louisiana Tech, a team less likely to go undefeated but more likely to impress the BCS if it does. A matchup viewed as a high-stakes Week 1 upset possibility has only seen its stakes increase since Hurricane Isaac forced a six-week delay, as both LaTech and Texas A&M went and got themselves ranked. Tech’s No. 23 AP ranking is just the second AP nod in program history and its first since 1999. A&M has rattled off four straight wins since dropping its first SEC game to Florida in Week 2, with the final scores ranging from the predictable (70-14 versus South Carolina State) to the uncomfortable (30-27 at Ole Miss).

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We know. We KNOW, OK? We were over Gangnam Style and convinced no one would ever top what the Duck got up to on his day off. But Army’s offering comes awfully, awfully close. Cute kids! A real horse! Serious-faced cadets dancing with imaginary lassoes! A big-ass American flag! Party in the USA, y’all. We’re not sorry.

• WHAT IS THE LAMESTREAM MEDIA HIDING IN ITS HASH BROWNS?? A tweet we’re not going to bother to verify (because we’re having too much fun) blows the doors off yesterday’s blockbuster Wall Street Journal Waffle House report:

@nastinchka WSJ is wrong, BDS is .3 miles from WH. By road. It’s even closer as the drunk student stumbles #hasbrownnashnalchampeenshipPAWL

— Shane Givens (@2MuchUrAssuming) October 4, 2012

A cursory examination of a map of Tuscaloosa shows that if one is measuring from, say, the Saban statue, Alert Reader Shane may be onto something. More on this story as it develops.

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Central Michigan scored a win for the MAC by knocking off Iowa in the final seconds. (Matthew Holst/Getty Images)

Our weekly highlight show of lesser FBS luminaries. Non-AQs and independents, be welcome:

This will mark our fifth season tracking the record of non-AQ programs against teams from power conferences, for no other reason than liking to watch where the numbers go. We’re not sure we’ve ever seen a weekend produce a winning record for a mid-major league that involved more than one or two games. But glory be to the MAC, which played seven games against BCS-favored opponents, and won four. (Yes, we’re even including Northern Illinois’ win over Kansas, even though Kansas is Kansas. COUNT IT.)

MAC teams beat one Big Ten team, two Big East teams and one Big 12 team. Directional Michigan schools had a particularly grand weekend, with Central Michigan knocking off Iowa and Western Michigan laying out UConn. Eastern Michigan also acquitted itself admirably, putting up a dogged fight against Michigan State.

The fifth big winner of Week 4 was the gaudiest: Louisiana Tech, a team with qualities we have been relentlessly touting since last December or so, mowed down Illinois on the road, 52-24. The Bulldogs currently field the nation’s third-ranked scoring offense and have two more high-profile nonconference matchups in the next three weeks: at Virginia and home against Texas A&M. Stay tuned; they’re our favorites behind Ohio to finish the 2012 regular season undefeated.

Speaking of the Bobcats: They’re through their nonconference gauntlet after a Week 4 win over Norfolk State and received 40 votes in this week’s AP Poll. The only other non-AQ teams on that list are Boise State at No. 24 and Louisiana Tech, which received seven votes.

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Robbie ‘Mighty Mouse’ Rouse, out for a leisurely stroll against one of the worst football teams in human memory. (AP)

Our weekly highlight show of lesser FBS luminaries. Non-AQs and independents, be welcome.

Soooo remember last week, when we were all “Robbie Rouse is 79 yards away from becoming Fresno State’s all-time leading rusher, isn’t that swell?” We all know by now what happened next. So while we’ve got Mighty Mouse up on a pedestal, let’s put some of his teammates up there with him.

Video game football doesn’t begin to cover what Fresno State did to Colorado in Week 3; this was more akin to watching a cartoon. Were you aware … 

•  Rouse’s 94-yard touchdown run, the one that made him Fresno State’s all-time leading rusher, wasn’t even the Bulldogs’ longest scoring play of the game? On Fresno State’s prior possession, Derek Carr and Isaiah Burse combined for a 97-yard pitch-and-catch touchdown run.

•  Carr recorded his 300 passing yards and five touchdowns all in the first half?

•  Fresno State’s defense recorded four interceptions and four sacks?

•  Safety Phillip Thomas was responsible for three of those interceptions, two of which he returned for touchdowns?

•  Even the Bulldogs’ punter, Andrew Shapiro, got in on the rout with a career-long 69-yard punt? 

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Isaiah Crowell's 2011 Signing Day announcement has yet to be topped, but should be an inspiration for all future recruits. (AP)

The fact that we’re still discussing Isaiah Crowell’s puppy-bearing 2011 Signing Day announcement a year later proves that, no matter what turns the running back’s career in Athens might take, the moment was a smashing branding success for the University of Georgia. This year’s haul of signing ceremonies has been light on pageantry, although one Mississippi State commit did involve an actual human baby in his announcement. So wags the world away. In a fit of wishful thinking, we got to fantasizing about blue-chip athletes swanning about campus with jars full of stinging insects and elite high school prospects piloting heavy machinery through school property, and before too long we had this list of schools whose commits we would very most like to see follow in Crowell’s footsteps and introduce a wee young mascot at their Signing Day ceremonies. Those  Top 25 teams are as follows:

25. Big Cat Schools. Your Wazzus, your FIUs, your LSUs. Perhaps unfairly dinged because there are just so many Big Cat schools, and if this becomes a trend we’ll soon have a Signing Day entertainment market saturated by baby lions and bobcats. Any LSU prospect bringing along a white tiger with purple eyes to match the Bayou Bengals’ latest Pro Combat unis, however, will receive an instant and much-deserved rankings boost. (This being LSU, we estimate this is at most three years from happening.)

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Army and Navy are not good this season, but watch for the history and pageantry. (ZUMAPRESS.com)

• Army vs. Navy, 2:30 p.m. ET, CBS. The Army-Navy game is always a draw, it being the Army-Navy game, but this year’s matchup looks like a bit of a letdown from a pure football perspective. This time last year, both teams had a winning record; now, the Black Knights are 3-8, the Midshipmen 4-7. It’s the first time Navy’s finished outside of bowl eligibility since 2003. Air Force has already claimed the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy. So why tune in at all?

Because it’s the Army-Navy game, a rivalry infused with meaning that extends beyond the sidelines in a way no other series can match. Hell, if you don’t even like football, give it a glance for pure pageantry alone. (Also, why are you reading this site?) Pro Combat uniforms are hit-or-miss for any given team, but Nike’s turned each side out in fine getups, particularly Navy.

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