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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Boise got shut out of the BCS despite finishing No. 7; the Broncos play ASU in Las Vegas. (US PRESSWIRE)

The week in lesser FBS luminaries:

• Bowltyme! We’ve kept score of non-AQ teams’ record against programs from Big Six conferences all season (final score: 18-92). But even in the postseason, where part of the attraction is seeing non-traditional opponents face off (I’ve gotten emails from Georgia fans who’re mad because they played Michigan State in the CapOne three years ago), have vs. have-not matchups are hard to come by. The New Mexico, GoDaddy, Potato, New Orleans, Beef ‘O’ Brady’s, Poinsettia, Hawaii, Military and Armed Forces Bowls will all feature two non-AQ conference teams or independents, although the GoDaddy.com pairing of Northern Illinois and Arkansas State might end up being the sleeper hit of the postseason. Four teams that will get to strut their stuff versus AQ squads: Western Michigan versus Purdue in the Little Caesars Bowl, Boise State versus Arizona State in the Las Vegas Bowl, Houston versus Penn State in the TicketCity Bowl and SMU versus Pitt in the BBVA Compass Bowl. Click here for our full bowl lineup and TV schedule.

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Take that bag off your head, FAU fan. Your team won a game! (ZUMAPRESS.com)

• State of the states tenuous confederations: With one sort-of week of the regular season remaining, three of the conferences covered in this space already have champions all but coronated. Four Mountain West games are slated for Week 14, including contests featuring TCU and Boise State, but none will impact the top of the conference standings — the Horned Frogs lead the pack with a 6-0 league record and can’t lose the lead at this point. The Sun Belt still has three games to play, with Arkansas State also holding a perfect conference record and insurmountable advantage. (Trailing the Red Wolves, improbably, is … Western Kentucky?) Over to the WAC: Four games to go, with none featuring conference leader Louisiana Tech, untouchable at 6-1. Among the independents, Air Force has already secured the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy with wins over Army and Navy, who’ll meet in Washington on December 10 to slug it out for second place.

To the still-competitive larger leagues: Ohio and Northern Illinois will compete Friday night for MAC supremacy at Ford Field, while Houston and Southern Miss will play Saturday in Houston for the Conference USA title.

• Bowltyme! As mentioned yesterday, five non-AQ programs have already accepted postseason bids. In chronological order:

• Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: Utah State
• New Orleans Bowl: Louisiana
• Poinsettia Bowl: Louisiana Tech
• Armed Forces Bowl: BYU
• GoDaddy.com Bowl: Arkansas State

Case Keenum Pinballin’ Hi-Score of the week

Houston’s generation engine dispatched the most formidable regular-season opponent with relative ease, completing 33-of-46 pass attempts for 457 yards and five touchdowns. Just Case Keenum, doin’ Case Keenum things. The latest record he helped set this week was one for the program: It’s the school’s first-ever 12-0 season and ties its longest-ever win streak.

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Ed Wesley and TCU have powered their way to a share of the Mountain West title. (Ray Carlin/Icon SMI)

The week in lesser FBS luminaries:

• Bowltyme! As reviewed Saturday, natural non-AQ predators Houston, Boise State and TCU are all hovering at proper cruising altitude to finish the season ranked in the BCS standings. Where will this land them in the postseason? According to SI.com’s latest bowl projections, the Cougars will grab the brass ring of an at-large bid to the Sugar Bowl, and with Oklahoma State’s loss bumping Alabama up to BCS No. 2, their newest extrapolated opponent in New Orleans would be … Michigan! Denard Robinson and Case Keenum would make an interesting pair. By land or by air, scoreboards will quail.

These projections have the Broncos and Horned Frogs relegated to the first week of December bowls, with Boise in the Las Vegas versus Arizona State (intriguing, actually) and TCU versus Nevada in the Poinsettia (not at all intriguing; not this year).

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Josh Boyce and TCU are back in the BCS Top 25 after knocking off Boise State. (Icon SMI)

The week in lesser FBS luminaries:

• One stage of your journey is over; another begins: Friday night, I lamented the loss of both Boise State and TCU from BCS contention. But rather than regretting the Horned Frogs dragging the Broncos down into the morass of one-loss teams, let’s celebrate what happened next: TCU’s return to the BCS Top 25. With one “good” loss and one of questionable quality, it’s where the Frogs deserve to be, and where they certainly would be were they already in an AQ conference. And they’ll both get to go out on garish high notes if they end up in the postseason where Stewart Mandel is projecting them: TCU against Nevada in the Poinsettia Bowl and Boise against UCLA in the Las Vegas both bode well for bitter blowouts.

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Courtney Upshaw and Alabama's D would be the ultimate test for Case Keenum and Houston. (PRESSWIRE)

Stewart Mandel’s latest bowl projections presuppose LSU and Oklahoma State winning out and producing a BCS national championship game with great potential for intrigue. Set the Bayou Bengals’ elite defense against the Cowboys’ score-anywhere offense to see which cracks first and worst, and discover whether the LSU offense or Oklahoma State defense winds up being a game-breaking liability. Altogether, an entirely pleasing prospect.

But he projected another matchup that I can’t get out of my head: A bizarro Sugar Bowl collision between current No. 3 Alabama and No. 11 Houston. It’s haves and have-nots. The SEC powerhouse and the upstart from Conference USA. But more crucially: It’s the statistical No. 1 defense and No. 1 offense. And I really, really want to see this game.

It’s very important that you not interpret this as a personal slight to the team you want to see in the Sugar Bowl instead, even though this is the internet. I’m not shilling for either side as an SEC homer or tireless trumpeter of non-AQ teams. It’s just that the crudest science experiments can produce the most entertaining results. The baking soda-and-vinegar volcano, overfilled. The Diet Coke-and-Mentos bottle spray. The shaken ant farm. No. 1 and No. 1. It’s elementally enticing.

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Case Keenum and No. 11 Houston continued to roll against Tulane, posting 73 points to remain undefeated. (US PRESSWIRE)

• No. 11 Houston 73, Tulane 17: Another day, another garish display by the Houston offense. The Cougars matched their season scoring high against the two-win Green Wave, and did it without much sweat from Case Keenum. After three quarters, 325 yards and three touchdown passes to Patrick Edwards, Keenum ceded control to able backup Cotton Turner. It was running back Charles Sims’ turn for a career day; the sophomore recorded 207 yards on just 10 carries. Tulane also gave up two punt returns for touchdowns to Edwards and Damian Payne. [RECAP | BOX]

• Ohio 43, Central Michigan 28: Enjoy elocuting Tyler Tettleton’s name? He’s making it easy, running up 268 all-purpose yards and three touchdowns. Eloquently monikered sophomore Beau Blankenship more than doubled his previous season high with a 121-yard performance on the ground, and his first two-touchdown game. [RECAP | BOX]

• Back in the valley: Since we last discussed the Jerry Sandusky case in this space: Mark Emmert told the Associated Press, “The NCAA will defer in the immediate term to law enforcement officials since this situation involved alleged crimes.” The NCAA compliance blog examines the intersection of crime and compliance. Penn State students plan a candlelight vigil for Friday in place of a pep rally.  Mike McQueary will not coach in Saturday’s game against Nebraska. Jerry Sandusky could face new charges in Texas.The Patriot-News traces their coverage of the Sandusky story, and examines all the dropped threads in the case.

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Case Keenum made NCAA history at Legion Field on Nov. 5. (Holly Anderson/SI)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The University of Houston’s athletic department has professed a reluctance to stage any cagey PR stunts in service of senior quarterback Case Keenum’s Heisman candidacy. There will be no billboards nor bobbleheads for the cause. The likely New York invitee and unlikely hardware winner would be hard-pressed to find humbler surroundings in which to stage his third major NCAA record-breaking performance of the season.

While a couple hundred thousand screaming faithful thronged Tuscaloosa to watch the SEC West division race come to a bitter head, an announced crowd of 13,909 (an estimation we’re going to charitably call “ambitious”) bore witness in decaying Legion Field to the fall of the all-time NCAA record for career passing yards by a player operating in just his third full season as a starter. (Keenum, devotees will recall, redshirted his first year with the Cougars and wasn’t named the full-time replacement for Kevin Kolb until more than halfway through his second season. After standout years in 2008 and ’09, he tore his ACL in the second quarter of the Cougars’ third game, a road date with UCLA, and was granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA.) Entering Saturday’s contest, Keenum already held the career total offense and touchdown passing records, and speculation that he might amass the 267 yards needed to pass Timmy Chang as the all-time passing yardage leader by the end of the first quarter wasn’t all that farfetched.

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Patrick Edwards caught five of Case Keenum's nine TDs in Houston's 73-34 win over Rice. (US PRESSWIRE)

The week in lesser FBS luminaries:

• Is it that time of year already? Entering the November home stretch, let’s pause to examine Houston’s and Boise’s chances of hoisting a certain crystal football in two months and one week. In the latest AP Poll, the Broncos still hover at No. 5, while the Cougars skip from No. 18 to No. 14. This still makes them the lowest-ranked undefeated teams, in Houston’s case by nine slots. The Cougars trail the next closest team, Michigan, by over a hundred votes in the AP Poll. (Would you not pay dearly to see Case Keenum and Denard Robinson scoring at will on the Michigan and Houston defenses in a bowl game?) We will not discuss the den of iniquity that is the Coaches’ Poll, but let’s hit the BCS. Boise falls from No. 4 to No. 5 following its most recent bye; Clemson plummeted out of the top five as well, while previous No. 6 Stanford assumed Boise’s former place. Houston’s all the way down at No. 13, up from 17, and separated from the Broncos by seven one-loss teams. We’re still projecting Boise into the Sugar Bowl, but Houston’s prospects for a big-time January game look desolate.

Is there a chance for hardware glory in other races, however? Check out Cory McCartney’s latest Heisman Watch for more trophy-grubbing intel on Keenum and Moore.

• Houston a billionty, Rice 34: From Friday: “Before rain even began to fall in earnest, Houston’s Tyron Carrier returned the Owls’ opening kickoff for a touchdown, his seventh such feat, tying a previous record set by C.J. Spiller at Clemson. Rice fired back with a strong running game, returned a soggy Keenum fumble for a touchdown and seemed quite determined to hang with the Cougars until three consecutive touchdown passes from Houston put the game out of reach by halftime, 38-20.” There really was enough action and pratfalling contained within that half alone for an entire game’s worth of entertainment, but that was before Keenum decided tonight was the night for a statement game. Behold his stats, O mortals, and weep.

• Last night’s MACtion from an alien perspective: Pleas enjoy this account of Northern Illinois-Toledo from a baseball die-hard who tuned in to ESPN to watch something called the Golden Gloves and instead found himself transfixed by Tuesday night football.

• Quote of the day, non-AQ edition: “We have sacrificed tradition, live crowds, and defensive backs for your entertainment.  We hope you enjoyed our exhibition of Rust Belt Calvin-ball last night.” — alert reader and MAC sympathizer DevilGrad

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If you thought the pouring rain would prevent Case Keenum from throwing nine touchdown passes Thursday night against Rice, you were wrong. (US PRESSWIRE)

• No. 18 Houston 73, Rice 34: It’d be nice if more television types knew about the Bayou Bucket trophy awarded annually to the winner of the Cougars-Owls game. With torrential downpours soaking the field at Robertson Stadium Thursday night, bucket bailout jokes were low-hanging fruit, and criminally underused. The rivalry game will move to Reliant Stadium beginning in 2012, where perhaps the participants will enjoy better drainage.

Sopping conditions contributed to a first quarter that looked like it might lead to a ballgame. Before rain even began to fall in earnest, Houston’s Tyron Carrier returned the Owls’ opening kickoff for a touchdown, his seventh such feat, tying a previous record set by C.J. Spiller at Clemson. Rice fired back with a strong running game, returned a soggy Keenum fumble for a touchdown and seemed quite determined to hang with the Cougars until three consecutive touchdown passes from Houston put the game out of reach by halftime, 38-20.

And Keenum, you might have heard, broke Graham Harrell’s career touchdown passes record  with his fifth strike of the night — and just for kicks, fired off four more before relinquishing his helmet in the fourth quarter. Quoth the quarterback, postgame: “That was probably the most fun I’ve ever had playing football.” Yeah, probably. [RECAP | BOX]

• Virginia 28, Miami 21: Available data gave the ‘Canes the edge in a Thursday night Coastal Division home stand. Never tell Mike London the odds. His Cavaliers employed a handful of trick plays and abandoned their previously favored quarterback rotation to ride Michael Rocco, Perry Jones and Kevin Parks to victory. [RECAP | BOX]

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