Everybody who wants to see the national championship trophy filled with marzipan, thumbs up! (AP)

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

• Biggest game we feel like we couldn’t predict if our lives depended on it: No. 3 Kansas State at TCU, 7:00 p.m. ET. We’re still harboring a dream that seemed far-fetched just a few short weeks ago, a dream inspired by Tom Fornelli suggesting that if Bill Snyder takes home the crystal football this year, he’ll break it in half and make two hard candy dishes. The ‘Cats, at 9-0, are one of six undefeated teams remaining in FBS play. No gimme games remain, but then again, they haven’t played a gimme game since Oct. 6 against Kansas. In their past three outings, they’ve beaten three ranked opponents by a combined score of 154-68.

The Horned Frogs, no slouches on defense, will pose a greater threat to K-State’s undefeated season if the Wildcats take the field without starting quarterback Collin Klein. The Heisman frontrunner’s status for Saturday has been carefully guarded almost since the moment of his injury during last week’s game against Oklahoma State. It’s entirely possible we could see this contest played out without either team fielding the quarterbacks that topped the depth charts at the year’s outset. Only one thing is for certain: This will be the purplest football contest of the regular season.

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Florida State cheerleaders present the Noles’ and Hokies’ 2012 turnover margins in interpretive dance. (The girl at the top who is flying away represents the ball.) (AP)

• No. 8 Florida State 28, Virginia Tech 22. Things you need to know about Thursday night’s contest: EJ Manuel saved the game for the ‘Noles on a last-minute 39-yard touchdown connection to Rashad Greene. Virginia Tech linebacker Michael Cole has been diagnosed with a neck sprain after being taken off the field in an ambulance in the third quarter and was to be released from the hospital last night (and is already back on Twitter, if you’d like to send well wishes.) Also, this happened. For more on last night’s ACC clash, click these links:  [BOX | RECAP]

• Arkansas State 45, Louisiana-Monroe 23. Warhawks backup quarterback Cody Wells, starting in place of the injured Kolton Browning, managed to throw for 357 yards, but the Red Wolves are pretty adept at staying ahead on the scoreboard and the stat sheet. Ryan Aplin went 26-of-34 for 334 yards, and David Oku rushed 22 times for 131. Todd Berry spoke afterwards on how injuries to several key players, Browning among them, have affected the Warhawks late in the season:

“It’s been unfortunate, but that’s part of the game. I know one thing, about four weeks ago we were a lot better football team than we are right now. [...] Not to take away anything from [Arkansas State], but right now everybody looks pretty good against us.”

The Red Wolves remain atop the Sun Belt standings along with Middle Tennessee State, each carrying one conference loss. [BOX | RECAP ]

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• Collin Klein and Kenjon Barner would like a word. We can think of a few folks who might take issue with USC’s assertion that Marqise Lee is the best player in college football, but he certainly has a compelling case (and his own hashtag). And will fruitless Heisman arguments stop us from posting kickass highlight reels? They most certainly will not.

• We see what you’re saying, but all we hear is “start looking for parking in New Orleans, like, tomorrow.” Brett “Sources” McMurphy was first to report yesterday that the Sugar Bowl has won the Champions Bowl bidding war and will host an annual SEC-Big 12 champions clash, when it’s not serving as a playoff semifinal site. The first game will take place on Jan. 1, 2015, and the agreement runs through January 2026. So, Arlington for the title game, then?

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Keith Price and Washington topped Cal last year and will look to emerge victorious again Friday night. (Getty Images)

• What information do I, the discerning consumer, require in order to consume this game? The Huskies and Golden Bears are scheduled to kick off at 9 p.m. ET at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley. The game will be televised on ESPN2 and streamed on WatchESPN.

• What’s at stake here? Bowl eligibility for the Bears, who, at 3-6 overall, must win out to earn any kind of postseason invitation. The pressure is much lower for the Huskies, who sit at 4-4 but are headed into the easiest stretch on their 2012 schedule: Their remaining opponents (Cal, Utah, Colorado and Wazzu) are a combined 9-24.

• How fired is Cal coach Jeff Tedford at this point — fired, or SUPER-fired? Tedford, the Golden Bears’ all-time winningest coach, actually still has a job as of this morning, but for how much longer is anyone’s guess. It’s been an unfortunate decline for Tedford, who was hailed as a savior for taking a Cal program that had cratered under Tom Holmoe and returning it to respectability with three straight Top 25 finishes. That was six years ago, though, and today Tedford is on track for a second losing season in three years. When you’re the highest-paid state employee in California, people expect better.

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Stephen Morris and Miami crushed Virginia Tech Thursday night to stay ahead in the ACC Coastal Division race. (Joel Auerbach/Getty Images)

• Miami 30, Virginia Tech 12. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: An ibis and a turkey walk into the bar, and the bartender says: “Wait, so Virginia Tech can’t even hang on special teams anymore?” Logan Thomas threw for 199 yards and rushed for 124 more, including a 73-yard touchdown run early in the second quarter. No other Hokie entered the end zone last night, or managed a score of any kind in the entire second half. The specter of an all-Florida ACC championship game looms, unless Duke gets its way. And isn’t the possibility of Duke getting its way one of the more purely delightful things about this season? [RECAP | BOX]

• Ohio 45, Eastern Michigan 14. Congratulations to the Bobcats for their best win over a one-win team all season. Derrius Vick is as surprised as we are. [RECAP | BOX]

• Middle Tennessee State 34, Western Kentucky 29. The Blue Raiders and Hilltoppers hit the locker rooms at halftime tied 17-17, and traded scores throughout the final two quarters. MTSU scored the final touchdown, but WKU went down swinging with a safety-producing stop of Logan Kilgore in the final five seconds. [RECAP | BOX]

• Sandusky case update. Former Penn State president Graham Spanier was formally charged Thursday with perjury, obstruction, endangering the welfare of children, failure to properly report suspected abuse and conspiracy relating to his handling of the Jerry Sandusky case. Additional charges were also filed against Tim Curley and Gary Schultz. SI’s Michael Rosenberg has more.

• BIG OL’ BREAKING NEWS. BCS bowls would consider inviting a two-loss Notre Dame team? WELL, I NEVER.

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Stephon Tuitt and Notre Dame sacked Riley Nelson four times in a victory over BYU. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Snap Judgments from the Week 8 midday slate. For more, check out our early Snaps, late Snaps, our coverage of South Carolina-Florida, Kansas State-West Virginia, Oregon-Arizona State and our complete Top 25 review.

• No. 5 Notre Dame 17, BYU 14. We will now dispense the first piece of news you interested parties who missed the game will want to hear: Tommy Rees started at quarterback for the Fighting Irish, with Andrew Hendrix in to run a few plays and no action for Everett Golson, who was recovering from a concussion. We will now dispense with the second piece of news you interested parties who missed the game will want to hear: Notre Dame allowed its first offensive touchdown since its Sept. 8 matchup with Purdue.

Rees wasn’t asked to do much, and he attempted only three passes in the entire second half. He finished 7-of-16 for 117 yards, a touchdown and an interception. The Irish offense functioned mostly on the footwork of Theo Riddick, who had a career day with 143 yards on just 15 carries, and Cierre Wood, who totaled 114 yards on 18 carries. Tyler Eifert led Irish receivers with four catches for 73 yards and a score. We feel like we’ve used the phrase “supposedly vaunted defense” a lot this year, but the Cougars were allowing an average of fewer than 68 yards against the run coming into South Bend Saturday.

BYU was also operating under a sometimes backup quarterback, with Riley Nelson making his second start since Taysom Hill sustained a season-ending knee injury against Utah State. (You’ll recall Nelson, like Rees, has prior starting quarterback experience.) Nelson completed 22-of-35 attempts for 172 yards, two touchdowns and two picks, and he was sacked four times. His final interception ended BYU’s would-be comeback drive deep in Cougar territory with 22 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. [BOX | RECAP]

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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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Bryan Underwood caught the game-tying touchdown in the closing seconds of NC State’s win over FSU. (ZUMAPRESS)

Snap Judgments from the Week 6 evening slate.

For more, check out our early Snaps, midday Snaps coverage of LSU-Florida, Georgia-South Carolina, West Virginia-Texas and complete Top 25 review.

• North Carolina State 17, No. 3 Florida State 16. Find your bliss, they say. Follow it, and don’t give one fig what anybody else thinks of you. Some folks quit their hedge fund jobs to teach middle school. Some hike the Appalachian Trail. The Florida State Seminoles have a secret passion, too, and you can probably guess what that is:

Who could have possibly predicted Florida State would drop a random ACC game on the road for no discernible reason?

— Matt Hinton (@MattRHinton) October 7, 2012

Two weeks removed from The Big One, a 49-37 win over Clemson, Florida State did the most Florida State-y of things: The Seminoles surrendered first a 16-0 third-quarter lead to North Carolina State, and then the game. Heisman hopeful E.J. Manuel and the ‘Noles were shut out in the second half, while quarterback counterpart Mike Glennon led his team to a short field goal followed by two touchdown drives — the second culminating with just 16 seconds left on the clock. It didn’t even look that hard, once the ‘Pack got to the touchdown part; getting that drive going in the first place required a blocked Florida State punt with less than three minutes remaining in the fourth quarter and a drive-sustaining defensive penalty against FSU with NC State nearing the end zone. Glennon finished the evening with 31 completed passes on 56 attempts, good for 266 yards and the aforementioned two touchdowns.

We are loath to use the flat-footed “a tale of two halves” here, but it couldn’t be more fitting for both squads. Observe: An impressive 141-yard rushing total for FSU’s Chris Thompson grows simultaneously more impressive upon learning that he put up 115 of those yards in the first half and more bitter as ‘Noles partisans wonder what might have been had Thompson scampered about for two additional quarters.

Florida State presumably surrendered something else along with those 17 second-half points: its national championship hopes. The ‘Noles could get back into the hunt if every remaining unbeaten squad loses a game, and with three top-five teams (FSU, LSU and Georgia) going down today alone, it’s becoming the kind of season where we can’t rule out such a turn. But the fact remains: The only ACC teams with unblemished conference records are now Maryland, Miami and Duke. We could be in for a Terps-Blue Devils ACC Championship Game. Or, the ‘Canes could still win the conference with this record against ranked teams. It’s a ludicrous thought, but it’s one that Florida State’s inability to take care of business in the seemingly easy games has left us with as we head off to dreamland. [BOX | RECAP]

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Georgia’s defense stifled Vandy; the ‘Dores went 2-of-14 on third-down conversions. (Getty Images)

Snap Judgments from the Week 4 late slate. For more coverage, check out our early Snaps, midday Snaps and complete Top 25 review. Also check out our coverage of Florida State-Clemson, Kansas State-Oklahoma and Notre Dame-Michigan.

• No. 5 Georgia 48, Vanderbilt 3: “I don’t have any complaints at all,” said Mark Richt following his Bulldogs’ casual mauling of the Commodores. Nor should he: Georgia finished with 567 yards of offense in its second conference win, held the ‘Dores to a single field goal and made its opponent look not terribly unlike the Vandy of old. “The numbers show that we’re executing well,” said Richt. So, too, did the scoreboard.

The Dawgs’ latest plug-and-play tailback, freshman Todd Gurley, led all rushers with 130 yards on 16 carries, and he recorded Georgia’s first and final scores. Aaron Murray enjoyed a bit of moderate exercise, completing 18-of-24 pass attempts for 250 yards and two touchdowns. Jarvis Jones sacked Jordan Rodgers on fourth-and-eight for an 11-yard loss in the third quarter that brought the house down.

Vanderbilt had 15 first downs tonight to Georgia’s 29. It converted 2-of-12 third downs. It was very nearly tripled up in rushing yards, 103 to 301. (Did we mention Georgia had more than 300 rushing yards? Georgia had more than 300 rushing yards. We’re not the only ones eyeing that Oct. 6 Bulldogs-Gamecocks matchup with increasingly rabid anticipation.)

“We talked about how this is the first [conference] game of seven in a row,” said Richt, “and how important it is to win every single one of them to get where we want to go. But you have to take them one at a time. We have a lot of respect for Vanderbilt.” We almost believe him. [BOX | RECAP]

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Freshman running back Rushel Shell racked up 157 rushing yards in Pitt’s upset win over Virginia Tech. (AP)

Snap Judgments from the early Week 3 slate. For more coverage, check out our midday Snaps, Alabama-Arkansas recap, Cal-Ohio State recap, Stanford-USC recap, evening Snaps and complete Top 25 review.

• Pitt 35, No. 13 Virginia Tech 17. We will not lie: We had not harbored high hopes for what appeared to be a dismaying Week 3 slate of games. With only three matchups between ranked teams and many other programs wrapping up their cupcake games before league play, we entirely expected to sit around in various states of boredom or sadness until USC and Stanford kicked off at 7:30 p.m.

So, of course, along comes Pitt, one week removed from getting waxed in its conference opener and two weeks removed from losing its season opener to an FCS team. The Panthers proceeded to stun us all, scoring more than twice as many points on No. 13 Virginia Tech than they managed against the Youngstown State Penguins in Week 1. College football’s gods are a capricious bunch, but let it never be said that they will let us remain without entertainment for long.

Tino Sunseri, so often maligned for reasons both fair and unfair, completed 19-of-28 passes for 283 yards and three touchdowns. One of those scoring throws landed in the hands of Ray Graham, less than a year removed from an ACL tear. Graham bears responsibility for the Panthers’ two remaining touchdowns as well, both of which came on short-yardage runs. Freshman Rushel Shell, who split carries with Graham, recorded 157 yards on 23 touches. The Panthers finished with 537 yards of total offense against Bud Foster’s defense. That is neither a trick nor a typo.

Let’s not let the defense go without credit: Pitt forced four turnovers, including three interceptions thrown by Logan Thomas, and two sacks. Thomas was also the Hokies’ leading rusher, winding up with a grand total of … 28 yards.

As first wins go, this is a doozy. As first wins between future division rivals go, it’s a shot across the bow. (It would be like the Sunseri of old to attempt a shot across the bow that strikes a direct hit on an opponent, wouldn’t it?) [BOX | RECAP]

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