Case Keenum became the NCAA's all-time yardage leader in the first quarter against Marshall. (AP)

The week in lesser FBS luminaries:

• Case Keenum repays: From Friday: “Tune into Marshall-Houston, if you have the time, just to see how badly Case Keenum runs the score up on a pack of defenders who think bragging about knocking starting quarterbacks out of games makes up for losing four games in seven weeks.” How badly Case Keenum ran up the score: 376 yards on 24 completions, six touchdown passes (that’s two more touchdowns than incompletions), no picks and, perhaps most crucially given the pregame storyline, no sacks. Keenum’s backup, Cotton Turner, was in the game long enough to throw for over 100 yards himself. Big week for the Cougars all around, with perhaps some more to come. [BOX | RECAP]

• Florida International 23, Troy 20 (OT): Kicking off the college component of the season’s first seven-day football week, the Panthers edged the Trojans last night for their first conference win and evened their Sun Belt record to 2-2. With T.Y. Hilton contained to 62 yards on four receptions, FIU depended on the feet of Kendrick Rhodes, who dashed for 172 yards on 30 carries.  [BOX | RECAP]

• No. 5 Boise State 37, Air Force 26: Back to Saturday action, where a rare challenger emerged for the Broncos. Kellen Moore tied Colt McCoy for career wins and the Broncos never trailed, despite being pressed throughout the game.  [BOX | RECAP]

• Bowling Green 13, Temple 10:  Bernard Pierce recorded more than 100 ground yards and scored the Owls’ only touchdown, but it wasn’t enough to overcome a rare overmatching for Temple. This week marked the first angry emails I’ve ever seen regarding Steve Addazio’s playcalling as a head coach. I’m forwarding them all to Gainesville, where I think y’all might find some like minds. [BOX | RECAP]

• Comings and goings in the All-Name Team: As mentioned this morning, Trent Steelman’s school record starting streak will be snapped thanks to a leg injury sustained against Vanderbilt.

Read More…

A 9 p.m. kickoff, 914 yards, 41 first downs and 12 turnovers? Welcome to the WAC. (Damon Tarver/CSM)

The week in lesser FBS luminaries:

• San Jose State 28, Hawaii 27: From Monday: “Most WAC game in recorded human history. A 9:00 p.m. ET start time. And 914 yards of total offense. And 41 first downs. And six sacks. And six punts. And 12 turnovers.” To that, let’s add a literal last-minute winning touchdown pass and the fact that San Jose State, a team that hadn’t recorded back-to-back wins in three years, has now won three of its last four outings. This is why we watch the WAC ball.

• Boise State 63, Colorado State 13: Boise State’s first conference win as a Mountain West team was a resounding one, albeit a foregone conclusion. This week we’ll drop the Broncos to second billing, so expected was this demolition of the Rams. But Boise’s doing everything correctly to maintain course for a BCS bowl. Four of its five highest-quality opponents were dispatched within the first four weeks of play, and the remaining foe, TCU, isn’t looking like it’ll present the marquee challenge non-AQ proponents were looking for. Survive and advance is never good enough for a non-AQ team; all wins must be statement wins. And with a margin of victory of 266-87 after six games, so far the gambit is paying off: BSU ranks No. 5 in the first released set of BCS standings.

• Arkansas State 34, FIU 16: A brief blurb on last night’s thoroughly disappointing debut of Sun Belt Tuesday is available here.

• Comings and goings in the annals of fantastic fake hotel check-in names: While FIU and Arkansas State were introducing a national television audience to such glowing monikers as Wayne Times, Jose Cheeseborough and Sirgregory Thornton, fellow undercover spy Bob Toledo was likely packing up his desk in the Tulane football offices. The Green Wave head coach’s resignation was announced Tuesday, just days before homecoming. His only crime was the apparently unpardonable sin of not being able to win at Tulane, which nobody has done since 2002. Toledo will presumptively take some time off to hunt down rings of international jewel thieves before settling into his next obvious football gig somewhere in the MAC.

Read More…

Boise State's Geraldo Boldewijn found the end zone twice in his return from an NCAA suspension. (AP)

The week in lesser FBS luminaries:

• No. 5 Boise State 57, Fresno State 7: From Friday: “This is not one of the good games on Boise’s schedule. Not this Fresno team, not this year.” Indeed, the Bulldogs are playing more like San Jose State, while the Spartans are off recording back-to-back wins against conference competition and putting together close losses to superior opponents. Kellen Moore had a nice easy night of it, with 254 yards on 23 completions, three touchdown passes and no picks. Four Boise State running backs recorded touchdowns, while large Dutchman Geraldo Boldewijn, back from an NCAA-mandated benchwarming, proved handy in red-zone yardage with two touchdown catches inside the 20. Fresno State committed four turnovers, lost 85 yards to penalties, and had just nine first downs to Boise State’s 22.

• Houston 56, East Carolina 3: The Cougars are the first bowl-eligible team to emerge from the swamps of non-AQ no-man’s-land (and the second may surprise you, but more on that in a little bit). As such, they are afforded a measly 25th-place slot in the AP poll, and are ranked 22nd by a platoon of disinterested SIDs voting for coaches.

The score itself was something of a surprise; though not the swashbuckling raiders of offenses past, this year’s Pirates hung 37 on South Carolina in Week 1 and were held under 20 points only once, by Virginia Tech in Week 2. Houston’s defense this year could be charitably characterized as disinterested, but here it was, stifling ECU’s offensive output at every turn, intercepting Dominique Davis and Rio Johnson a combined total of four times and recording nine sacks. The Cougars’ attention to their ground game continues to pay dividends, with five rushing touchdowns recorded Saturday, four of them by running backs and one by backup quarterback Cotton Turner.

Read More…

Jeremy Johnson and SMU officially dashed TCU's hopes of returning to a BCS bowl. (Patrick Green/Icon SMI)

The week in lesser FBS luminaries:

Slip-sliding out of contention: Lose once and you’re out; lose twice and you’ll never get back; stay winning and that still not might be enough. Fair or not, it’s the law of non-AQ teams trying to scramble into BCS bowl games. With weaker schedules, there can be no missteps. Undefeated Houston is not ranked in the Associated Press poll, receiving less than half the votes of last-team-out Michigan State (4-1). The Cougars would need more than 60 votes to pass 2-2 Texas A&M for the No. 25 spot in the Coaches’ Poll. From Week 4 to Week 5, Boise State slid from No. 4 and No. 5 in the AP and Coaches’ Polls, respectively, to No. 5 and No. 6, leapfrogged by Wisconsin in both cases. TCU has rightly disappeared from both major polls after being ranked No. 20 in both heading into Saturday’s disastrous outing with SMU.

How the three would-be busters found themselves here:

• No. 4 Boise State 30, Nevada 10:  From Saturday: “It’s not quite a resounding rout to make up for the Pack snapping the Broncos’ national title run in 2010, but No. 4 Boise State remains undefeated and will likely retain its top five ranking. All of Nevada’s points were scored in the fourth quarter, with the game very much in hand.” That assessment did not take into account the stomping Wisconsin would put on Nebraska at Camp Randall late Saturday night. Given the margins of victory and quality of opponent, it’s hard to argue with Boise being passed over by another undefeated team playing at the top of its game.

• SMU 40, No. 20 TCU 33 (OT): From Saturday: ”If they were not torpedoed by Baylor already, TCU’s BCS-bustin’ chances are now well and truly skewered. Even if the Horned Frogs had managed to pull out the win, having to rally back from a 33-17 deficit against a Conference USA opponent might have been enough to lead snooty pollsters to ding TCU’s ranking in and of itself. That TCU managed to rally, then fell short in overtime, is going to be unforgivable.” Ding! TCU’s time is up. Apart from that early November date with Boise State, the Horned Frogs might not even get back on national television this regular season, let alone sneak back into the rankings. Even an upset of the Broncos (and the way they’re both playing, it would be an upset) wouldn’t count for much with the Frogs’ next best-regarded opponents being BYU and San Diego State.

Read More…