Monteé Ball’s last name is also a football word, which should save us all some headline writing time once he finally breaks this record. (AP)

Saturday college football games of varying degrees of interest, grouped in highly subjective categories. For more preview content, visit Andy Staples’ Walkthrough.

• Biggest game with nothing riding on it: No. 6 Ohio State at Wisconsin, 3:30 p.m. ET. The Badgers already know they’re headed to Indianapolis, as the only other teams with fewer than three conference losses in the Leaders Division (the Buckeyes and Penn State) are ineligible for postseason play. But a win here would be the biggest [screw]-you moment for Urban Meyer since the 2008 Florida-Georgia game. And if you think Urban Meyer doesn’t live for [screw]-you moments, please see the 2008 Florida-Georgia game.

What is actually at stake: The NCAA all-time career touchdowns record, currently sitting at 78 and held by former Miami RedHawk Travis Prentice. Monteé Ball is one score away from tying and two away from breaking this record, and he has a chance to do both at home. He recorded 198 rushing yards and three scores last week against Indiana; if Ball does break the record, expect to hear the hollering in Madison as far away as Kentucky, and expect little bits of glitter to spew from this page. (Please protect your eyes accordingly.)

• Biggest game we feel like we couldn’t predict if our lives depended on it: No. 21 USC at No. 17 UCLA, 3:05 p.m. We have well established at this point in the season that even when relying on math and the best available logic, picking games is tricky work. It’s much more fun, and equally ineffective, to rely on factors like spite and cussedness and probably-imaginary-but-maybe-not-surefire jinxes to decide, particularly in rivalry matchups, which is why this weekend’s clash in the Rose Bowl scares the hell out of us. Some factors to consider: Whose coach to dislike (or grudgingly admire) more? Is it cosmically dangerous to even bring up that “football monopoly” talk at this point? Can we straight-up call this game for USC because keeping an opposing team’s costumed representative from poking one’s field with a sword is the furthest possible thing from a power move imaginable?

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Johnny Manziel (2) and Texas A&M dealt Alabama its first loss since last November. (Mike Zarrilli/Getty Images)

Snap Judgments from the Week 11 midday slate. For more, check out early Snaps, late Snaps, our recaps of Texas A&M-Alabama and Kansas State-TCU and our complete Top 25 review.

• No. 15 Texas A&M 29, No. 1 Alabama 24. We are reminded tonight of how Kevin Sumlin’s first round of interviews went at last summer’s SEC Media Days. No reporter actually stood up, shoved a mic in his face and asked, “HEY COACH, YOU SKEERED?” but something like that wasn’t all that far from happening by the time the Q&A ended. Sumlin dispensed with those questions back in July with gracious humor, some quips and a few dagger stares. Tonight, his Aggies dispensed with the No. 1 team in the country.

Heading into Week 11, Alabama had a perfect record in 2012, one loss in nearly two full seasons of football and a unanimous lock on the No. 1 spot in the AP Poll. And tonight, in Tuscaloosa, the Tide were rudely introduced to a Kliff Kingsbury offense that put them in a 20-0 hole, at home, by the end of the first quarter. ‘Bama answered with two touchdowns and a field goal over the next two quarters, but it surrendered nine more points to the Aggies in the fourth. The Tide pulled to within a five-point, 29-24 deficit on a 54-yard AJ McCarron-to-Amari Cooper score halfway through the final period and held A&M to a three-and-out on the subsequent possession. But a costly McCarron interception inside the five-yard line on what could have been the game-winning drive, plus a ‘Bama offsides penalty with A&M set to punt in the final minute, sealed the stunning upset.

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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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Geno Smith has thrown for 1,728 yards, 20 TDs and no interceptions in four games. (Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)

“The old adage is true: Offense sells tickets. And these days there is more pressure than ever on athletic directors to sell football game tickets to fund their programs.” – Ralph D. Russo, Associated Press.

Earlier this week, Nick Saban made headlines by refuting the above sentiment during the SEC’s weekly conference call: “[At] some point in time, we should look at how fast we allow the game to go in terms of player safety [...] I just think there’s got to be some sense of fairness in terms of asking is this what we want football to be?”

This spurred two immediate thoughts: Someone (namely, this blog) needs to stage a revival of Footloose that features Saban banning dancing in a small backwater town, but lacking a surplus of felt from which to make poodle skirts, someone needs to get a response from West Virginia’s Dana Holgorsen, the season’s most dastardly perpetrator of crimes against placid-paced football. Does he think his players suffer unduly from effects of the up-tempo pace?

“Nick’s a great defensive coordinator and obviously wants to slow things down because he’s got great players and coaches defense,” said Holgorsen. “Every defensive coordinator across the country wants it to be like it used to where it’s just slow and you can figure it out. … Texas high school football has been doing the same thing for the last 10 years and they’re starting to get really good at it, which means they’re starting to score a lot points. Ironically enough, the NFL is starting to do it a little bit. … It’s what people want to see.”

So this is, in fact, “what we want college football to be?”

“I’ve been doing the same thing for quite a while.” said Holgorsen. “I think based on popularity and TV, this is what people want it to be. As long as it’s good, sound, smart football, I think that’s the key.”

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Nick Florence threw for a Baylor-record 581 yards against West Virginia … and lost. (ZUMAPRESS.com)

Assorted bests and worsts from college football’s weekend that was:

• Most traumatizing treasured memory to be passed down to future generations:

Talk about a memorable tailgate, I just attended a wedding in the parking lot of FedEx Field. Hokies instagr.am/p/QKwOFNqIUU/

— Homer McFanboy (@HomerMcFanboy) September 29, 2012

“Grandmama, what was your wedding day like?” “Well, Kayleee, Bud Foster’s defense allowed 495 yards to Cincinnati, including a 39-yard touchdown pass with less than 30 seconds to play, which is how we got the idea to name your uncle Munchie, in the hopes that he’d grow up to achieve greatness.”

• The We Are Giving Nick Florence A Medal, Consarnit Medal of Gallantry in the Face of Complete Defensive Lunacy: Florence, y’all. See, 581 yards and five touchdowns shouldn’t rightly send anybody home with a loss. Baylor converted 11-of-16 third-down tries Saturday; just one more successful attempt and, again, we’re maybe writing a different story today.

• Loudest scream into the abyss: We are automatically behind any quarterback who shows up in a shirtless mugshot setting before even earning the starting job, so Johnny Manziel turning out to be really good at football is just icing at this point. But what icing: While we were watching Baylor and West Virginia blow holes in one another Saturday, Johnny Football (CAN YOU BE ANY MORE AMERICAN? WE THINK NOT!) was throwing for 453 yards, rushing for 104 more and accounting for four scores against Arkansas. Speaking of which:

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A bewildered nation tries to make sense of seeing 133 points scored in a single noon game, with varying degrees of success: 

It is a gorgeous fall day in Morgantown, but not gonna lie: If I don’t see at least 100 points scored today I will consider this trip wasted

— Holly (@Nastinchka) September 29, 2012

Interception, followed by a missed FG? Knock it off, Baylor-WVU. #PointsShortage

— Ryan Hudson (@ry_hudson) September 29, 2012

…and that was the last time Dana Holgorsen called for the kicker.

— Brian Floyd (@BrianMFloyd) September 29, 2012

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Geno Smith completed 45-of-51 passes for 656 yards and eight touchdowns against Baylor. (Brad Davis/Icon SMI)

Week 5: Early Snap Judgments | Midday Snaps | Late Snaps | Stanford-Washington | Ohio State-Michigan State | Top 25 review

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — “I might need more gun powder for this game.” Jon Kimble, West Virginia’s Mountaineer mascot, 1:48 p.m.

There’s a strong temptation right about now, with the Milan Puskar Stadium scoreboard still sparking and heaving from West Virginia’s 70-63 win over Baylor, to just start listing broken records. But we promise to curate carefully. So many high marks were hit that to behold them all at once is to risk desensitization.

West Virginia’s and Baylor’s 180 combined plays were a new stadium high. Both teams also set stadium production records with WVU’s 807 yards and Baylor’s tidy 700 (bit of a cowlick on the round number, there). Geno Smith broke the Mountaineers’ single-game scoring record with eight touchdown passes, the school’s consecutive completions record with 14 in a row and a national passing efficiency record previously held by Colt Brennan — Smith completed 88 percent of his passes (45-of-51), the most of any quarterback with at least 50 attempts — which is how you know he’s in rarefied air. His aerial yards (656) and total completions (45) are also new school records, both breaking the mark Smith set last year against LSU.

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Kind of like preseason awards for the upcoming weekend of football, and just as binding. For additional preview content heading into Week 5, check out Andy Staples’ Walkthrough.

• POINTIEST POINTSPLOSION: No. 25 Baylor @ No. 9 West Virginia. We need this. “We,” in this case, stands for “America.” We were blessed with one of the finer shootouts in recent memory last Friday night, when Louisiana-Monroe and Baylor damned the very notion of defense and just lobbed bombs at each other for 60 minutes. It is the Bears’ sovereign duty to motor into Morgantown tomorrow morning with the same agenda in mind, and the Mountaineers’ to be gracious and accommodating hosts in this respect. The over/under for this game currently hovers in the low 80s, and we think that’s insufficient. We hope it’s insufficient. By the time this thing is over all fans should be too wrung out from touchdown celebrations to even consider burning the nearest piece of upholstered furniture.

We will be spiritually satisfied with nothing less than those 30 seconds at the end of a fireworks show sustained for three to four hours. We regret only that this is a noon game, which will make the smoke emanating from the scoreboard by the end of the first half more difficult to Instagram. College football trickster gods, hear our prayer.

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Washington’s Kasen Williams provided one of Thursday’s only moments of offensive flash. (AP)

• Washington 17, No. 8 Stanford 13. Will this be one of those delightful years that sees every highly regarded team picked off, one by one? What, like you don’t want to see a Minnesota-Oregon State Rose Bowl? Cartoon beavers and gophers, clutching flower stems in their teeth! Don’t hate this beautiful inevitability.

We do not quite credit Stanford’s Trent Murphy with the elusive FAT GUY TOUCHDOWN, but he certainly is burly, and his interception return provided some of the only entertainment to be found in Thursday night’s matchup. Stewart Mandel, bless him, actually watched the whole thing and wrote some words about it. Honor him. [BOX | RECAP]

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Assorted bests and worsts from college football’s weekend that was:

• Play of the week. Bryan Bennett, Colt Lyerla, we don’t even particularly want to know what happened here; we just want to bask in its radiance. Friendship!

Just a few yards further back from the goal line and this might have turned into the clown-shoed fumble of the week, which makes it all the more poignant and glorious.

Serious (ish) question. Who gets the touchdown on that Oregon score? Can you split them like sacks?

— Joe Galbraith (@joestate) September 23, 2012

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