Jordan Lynch and the BCS-busting NIU Huskies did not slide into glass slippers filled with oranges after all. (AP)

For more on Florida State’s Orange Bowl victory over Northern Illinois, check out Pete Thamel’s take and our Laff Riot Twitter wrap.

MIAMI – ”We made some plays, too,” Rod Carey said. “We didn’t make enough of ‘em.” Northern Illinois’ new coach neatly summed up the Orange Bowl, for those who missed it. Florida State defeated his upstart team tonight, 31-10. The Huskies kept it close in the first half and briefly made things interesting in the third quarter. But as the final score indicates, the Seminoles were just too much for this year’s unlikely BCS buster. [BOX | RECAP]

Still, consider the tens of thousands of fans and press and staff who attended tonight’s Orange Bowl game, and wonder just how many set foot in Sun Life Stadium expecting a Huskies win. It can’t have been many. We were not among those who came in believing in an upset. But we don’t show up at these things because we know what’s about to happen. We show up because of what might happen.

And Northern Illinois was about the unlikeliest BCS-buster imaginable from Week 2 of the 2012 season on, seeing as the Huskies lost to Iowa at home in Week 1. Our big-game interloper hopes were pinned in September on the likes of Ohio, with its creamy-dreamy schedule and an upset of Penn State to its credit, and Louisiana Tech, with its score-anywhere offense. We didn’t even think NIU would win the MAC. (Of course, we also predicted South Florida would make an appearance in this very game. Isn’t August fun?)

The Huskies did their best to remain under the buster-radar early on, scraping by the likes of Army (one-point victory) and Kansas (seven-point victory), while the Bobcats staged a largely listless season after that first win in Happy Valley. By mid-October, we had (temporarily) written off the idea of seeing any non-AQ squad in a big-money game. So many teams would have to lose, at the same time, to give NIU the required ratings boost. It was so, so unlikely — until it happened, and off we all went to Miami.

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• Oh, NOW you don’t like the BCS. Not before. Just now. Northern Illinois is bound for the Orange Bowl as the first team from the MAC to earn a BCS bowl bid. We, as you might imagine, are delighted. Others are not. In other words, it’s just like every other BCS selection reaction ever.

Herbstreit calls NIU’s BCS berth “A sad state of college football.”

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) December 3, 2012

Herbstreit on #BCS selection show: “To put Northern Illinois in the BCS is a joke.” — Mark Schlabach (@Mark_Schlabach) December 3, 2012

Say what you will about NIU, its bid was automatic, just like Wisconsin’s and Louisville’s. NIU ranks ahead of both in every poll. — Matt Hinton (@MattRHinton) December 3, 2012

“I can’t believe they let NIU into the sacrosanct Orange Bowl.” <—someone who has never watched the Orange Bowl — edsbs (@edsbs) December 2, 2012

Rule that got NIU in was established to help defend BCS from anti-trust lawsuit. ESPN acting like it’s a football decision — Dan Wetzel (@DanWetzel) December 3, 2012

Is there any other sport in America where people DESPISE the underdog? Any sport in the world? — Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) December 3, 2012

Again, according to every current human poll and a consensus of the BCS computers, NIU’s not even the worst BCS bowl team this year. — Matt Hinton (@MattRHinton) December 3, 2012

To steal a @billsimmons metaphor, a lot of the NIU whining seems like people who are also mad the house doesn’t win more in blackjack.

— John Infante (@John_Infante) December 3, 2012

For takes longer than 140 characters, see Samuel Chi’s “Deal with it” and Matt Hinton’s “Blame the Big Ten and Big East.” The final regular-season BCS standings can be found here; the tell-all Coaches’ Poll results are here. For our full bowl schedule, click this way.

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Jordan Lynch, pinballer of the year. (AP)

Our weekly highlight show of lesser FBS luminaries. Non-AQs and independents, be welcome. WE HAVE MUCH TO DISCUSS.

• On teams about to move themselves outside our purview. Like we said this morning, we had no sooner finished updating our magnificent work of college football realignment art than word came down we might need to add Middle Tennessee State to it. And right as we were wrapping up this here column, Florida Atlantic joins the fray, chasing FIU to Conference USA. Consider this another plea for a dead period in conference realignment, for the sake of everyone’s collective multitasking abilities, at least until the bowls are over. What on earth else are we going to talk about in February if we get all this conference-hopping sorted out before Christmas?

And what to do with some of these teams going forward? We have a while to figure it out, obviously, but how to cover this ballooning middle class created by the sinking of the Big East? Will the Blue Raiders graduate from Profiterole-dom as Temple did last year? We’ll probably dedicate way more thought to this than we should; but, again, best to save that for the offseason when we have nothing better to do.

• Conference races drawing to a close. Where we’re at heading into that weird hybrid weekend of regular and postseason games: Kent State and Northern Illinois meet Friday night in Detroit for the MAC title game. Tulsa hosts Central Florida this Saturday for the C-USA championship. The Mountain West remains deadlocked in that wacky three-way tie between San Diego State, Fresno State and Boise State, with only the Broncos’ Saturday date with Nevada standing any chance of breaking it. The top two teams in the Sun Belt, Arkansas State and Middle Tennessee, play a final regular-season game Saturday that may as well be the conference title game. Utah State has clinched the WAC title outright with last week’s victory over Idaho. And Army and Navy will meet a week from Saturday for the right to hoist the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy, with Air Force out of the race entirely for the first time since 2005.

• Bowltyme! Stewart Mandel’s latest postseason projections can be found here, along with a freshly-updated chart listing every accepted bowl invitation. Profiteroles playing this holiday season include Nevada in the New Mexico Bowl, Utah State in the Potato, San Diego State and BYU in the Poinsettia, Louisiana in the New Orleans, SMU in the Hawaii, Air Force in the Armed Forces and Navy in the Fight Hunger.

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Will Kent State’s Dri Archer earn a return to his home state of Florida this postseason? (AP)

• Peasants at the gates! Utah State and San Jose State make their first appearances in the BCS rankings, while Northern Illinois enters the BCS Top 25 for the first time in 2012. Are we in for some surprise gate-crashers in the big-money bowls after all? Maybe. Allow SMQ to explain it all for you: “So even for the winner, the potential stakes in the MAC title game range from the Orange Bowl to the GoDaddy.com Bowl, with nothing in between.” And remember not to overlook this Friday’s NIU-Kent State showdown while penciling the Golden Flashes in for a trip to Florida.

• Cajuns to New Orleans to repeat legendary tailgating feats. Bowl invitations issued over the weekend: Utah State to a second consecutive Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, Nevada to the New Mexico Bowl and the Ragin’ Cajuns to their second New Orleans Bowl. Now, we didn’t see the Cajuns in their postseason appearance in person last year, but we have been to New Orleans for college football games, and been to tailgates in Lafayette, and this game just became our first mandatory trip of the postseason. Stewart Mandel’s latest bowl projections can be found here, freshly updated with all invited teams.

• Coach firin’ season, continued. Jon Embree tells the Denver Post he’d been told just last week that his job was safe … one Post columnist calls Embree’s ouster shameful and unjust … Marshall’s defensive coordinator has resigned … and Ellis Johnson’s press conference has been canceled, with a team meeting scheduled for 4:00. Nothing to see here!

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Eyes on the prize, Colby Cameron. (AP)

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

• Broncos and Bulldogs and bustin’. If you follow our pre- and midseason Crystal Ball projections, you know how hilariously bad we are at predicting which teams will land in which bowl games. But after a second loss, even Boise State’s new-money brand-name recognition won’t keep the Broncos afloat in the polls. So what does this mean for our early-season busting favorites, the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs? Quoth our designated postseason prognosticator, Stewart Mandel: “Louisiana Tech, No. 20 in the standings this week, may be that group’s lone hope, but the Bulldogs need to beat 8-2 Utah State in two weeks, climb at least four spots and hope BCS No. 16 Nebraska loses so that Tech finishes ahead of an AQ champ.” Same as it ever was when it comes to non-AQs with aspirations of crashing the party: Win big, and hope bigger. A perfect run through November won’t be easy for LaTech. Texas State should pose no problem in Week 11, but neither Utah State nor San Jose State are any kind of pushover.

Sonny Dykes, as ever, prefers to marvel at where he’s gotten this team once he gets there, and only then: “If we go and do not play well Saturday, Texas State will beat us and that will end all of the discussion. We have to worry about playing well this week, and like I said, when it is all over with, we will kind of look up and say, ‘Wow, here we are.’”

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Oregon in the top five means we get to post pictures of the Ducks’ mascot all the time. We like it when Oregon is in the top five. (AP)

• Brace yourselves for a largish shock. Alabama tops the AP Poll for the 10th consecutive week, with Oregon holding steady at No. 2. Your BCS top five, in descending order: ‘Bama, Kansas State, Oregon, Notre Dame and Georgia. The Toledo Rockets make what we call an overdue appearance in the BCS standings this week, along with UCLA and Northwestern. Dropping out: Boise State (breaking a 40-week streak), West Virginia, Arizona and Oklahoma State. Stewart Mandel updates SI’s bowl predictions and … is that hope for Louisiana Tech we’re seeing on the horizon?

• Coach firin’ season! No updates to the carousel as of noon Monday, but ominous rumblings are sounding out of Colorado, and we are really enjoying imagining Rex Ryan at Kentucky.

• Injury report story hour. What to make of Collin Klein’s Oklahoma State game injury? … leading Georgia receiver Marlon Brown is finished as a Bulldog after tearing his ACL against Ole Miss, although the program’s director of sports medicine indicated Sunday that “a full recovery is anticipated that will enable him to continue his career in the future” … perpetual South Florida quarterback B.J. Daniels is through with the Bulls after sustaining a broken ankle against UConn … Arizona’s Hank Hobson is out of the hospital …  and Maryland announced Monday the loss of starting MLB and leading tackler Demetrius Hartsfield to a torn ACL, which Patrick Stevens calculates makes five torn ACLs for the Terps this season and the fourth lost team captain in two years.

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CAUTION: DO NOT KICK TO THIS PLAYER. HE WILL RUIN YOU. (Scott W. Grau/Icon SMI)

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

We lamented, last week, the loss of the best hope for a BCS-busting scenario in 2012, but please don’t think we’re writing off five conferences and the independents. This entire series is a labor of love, constructed to avoid precisely that notion. Louisiana Tech probably won’t make an appearance in the Orange Bowl, but the Bulldogs will be bowling somewhere. And after a week out of the national rankings, they’re right back in following their 70-28 obliteration of Idaho. All any team can ever do is beat every opponent placed in front of it, and should it stumble along the path to postseason glory, the absolute best thing a team can do is what LaTech is doing right now.

Tech clocks back in at No. 24 in the AP Poll, trailing Boise State at No. 21 and Ohio at No. 23 and ahead of Toledo, Tulsa and NIU stuck under the “also receiving votes” category. Ranked this week in the actual BCS standings: the Broncos at No. 21 and Bobcats at No. 24. This week marks the Bobcats’ first-ever appearance in the BCS standings.

First in votes also received, the Rockets really should’ve cracked the Top 25 this week, in our humble, unimportant opinion, after knocking off No. 21 Cincinnati. (If you missed it, this was one of the weirder games of the season, with Toledo recording a 29-23 victory without an offensive touchdown. Its scoring: A 75-yard interception return, a 91-yard kickoff return and five field goals.) Look for Toledo to make a for-real appearance in the polls next week if the Rockets can really pile it on at Buffalo this Saturday.

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Can Quinton Patton and Louisiana Tech shake off Johnny Football and bully through the WAC? (AP)

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

We made the trek to Shreveport last week in the hopes of being on the scene when 2012′s best chance for a BCS bust really took shape. We came perilously close to getting our wish; but for a blocked extra point attempt here and a successful two-point conversion there, America would be staring down the real possibility of another WAC team in a BCS bowl game.

Right now, it’s hard to imagine that being the case. We said in our midseason Crystal Ball segment, and several of our colleagues agreed, that the odds for an upstart squad in a big-money game this season look grim, with Louisiana Tech and Boise State each carrying a loss from their highest-profile nonconference games and Ohio undefeated but eking out wins against the likes of UMass, Buffalo and Akron. Is there a spark of hope for any of our precious Profiteroles?

Maybe. The Broncos enjoy the benefit of name recognition after their last several seasons, and popped up at No. 22 in the first set of BCS standings released Sunday. It’s their 38th straight such appearance, and the longest active BCS rankings streak in the FBS. Could they climb into that all-important No. 16 spot ahead of an AQ conference champion? Could Louisiana Tech, with a stronger nonconference schedule and blowouts the rest of the way, jump the Broncos?

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Assorted bests from college football’s weekend that was.

• Play of the week, offense and defense at the same time. Johnny Manziel, handing off to Christine Michael AND making a tackle. Johnny Manziel is a 7-on-7 team of his own design. We saw this happen in person and still didn’t quite believe it:

• Play of the week, miscellaneous. There’s something almost whimsical about the way this Minnesota helmet logo flutters away from the scene of a collision.

• Trick play of the week. Steve Spurrier’s fake visor toss. Diabolical.

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