By Holly Anderson

We don’t cover the draft here for the same reason we don’t cover recruiting, but dissecting this year’s No. 1 overall pick is right in our wheelhouse, because #MACTION. 

I'm a Kansas City Chief and it feels amazing! I'm speechless right now but also so blessed! Feels good to be number one!!!—
Eric Fisher (@Big_Fish79) April 26, 2013

#MACtion lives on a Thursday night! Eric Fisher drafted number one.—
Jacob Corrigan (@Jacob_Corrigan) April 26, 2013

CHIEFFEWAS—
Chris Driver (@Jerkwheatery) April 26, 2013

#DRAFTMACTION #DRAFTMACTION #DRAFTMACTION #DRAFTMACTION #DRAFTMACTION #DRAFTMACTION #DRAFTMACTION #DRAFTMACTION #DRAFTMACTION #DRAFTMACTION—
Holly Anderson (@HollyAnderson) April 26, 2013

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Can Western Kentucky’s Antonio Andrews break Barry Sanders’ all-purpose yardage record in Detroit? (AP)

The 2012 Little Caesars Pizza Bowl is just hours away. We’re sure you have so many questions. We’re here to help. (For an X’s and O’s breakdown, click through to Ben Glicksman’s game preview.)

• What’s all this, then? Since the demise of the PapaJohns.com Bowl in 2010, the Little Caesars Bowl has served as college football’s only pizza-sponsored postseason football contest. That’s ^)&*^ing stupid. We could not agree more. All bowl games should be sponsored by pizza chains. This is the logical apex of the American dream, with new pizza-related disasters lurking ’round every corner to tantalize viewers, whether it’s the time the Papa John’s game ran out of Papa John’s pizza or the times visitors to the Little Caesars Bowl had to content themselves with Hungry Howie’s. Move aside, Meineke Car Care. You add nothing to the postseason apart from a fetching belt buckle-themed logo (that you cribbed from the Texas Bowl anyway) and are standing in the way of progress. Get all that out of your system? Probably not!

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Have a touchdown pass, America. Bryn Renner has so many of them to spare at the moment. (AP)

• North Carolina 37, Virginia 13. That sure got away from us in a hurry, didn’t it? A 36-yard interception return by UNC’s Tre Boston late in the first half broke the game open at 20-10, and apart from a lone third-quarter field goal the Cavaliers would not threaten again. Bryn Renner wrapped up the evening with 29-of-36 pass attempts completed, good for 315 yards and three touchdowns. His favored target, Quinshad Davis, recorded 178 receiving yards on 16 catches, and Gio Bernard added 57 yards rushing and 47 receiving yards with one score. Erik Highsmith caught two of Renner’s three scoring passes. UVA is out of postseason contention but could still prevent Virginia Tech from going to a bowl with a win next Saturday in Blacksburg. [BOX | RECAP]

• This holiday season, give the gift of vintage sanctions. The COI has imposed a few additional penalties on Tennessee for violations dating from the Lane Kiffin era, which we’re only mentioning here because Dave Hart saying ”We will finally close the chapter on the prior actions of members of a previous football coaching staff,” very shortly before he creates a second coaching staff he’ll have to call “previous,” gives us the grim giggles.

• What a nice gesture from a nice person. Per a Kansas sports info release: “In an effort to send his 2012 senior class out with a fitting farewell, Kansas football head coach Charlie Weis is offering to foot the bill for all KU students seeking admittance to Saturday’s ‘Senior Night’ game versus Iowa State.” Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET. No word on whether journalism students are included in the invitation.

• Shiny! The 2012 Nagurski Trophy finalists were announced Thursday. Still in the running for college football’s National Defensive Player of the Year: Jadeveon Clowney, Jarvis Jones, Dee Milliner, Manti Te’o and Bjoern Werner. Winner to be announced on December 3.

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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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• Sailors would guide entire journeys by it, but the joke was on them. Are we ever so happy as when another school comes out with a football-themed rap video? We really think not:

The best part of this particular contribution to the field of college football-themed music videos is that it’s school-sanctioned, and cannot therefore be written off as the actions of a mere fringe group. We like to think the bewildered-looking girl functions as a kind of silent Greek chorus here. We’re right with you, honey.

• Western Kentucky 31, Troy 26. The Hilltoppers remain undefeated in conference play in a deep Sun Belt, along with the Warhawks and Ragin’ Cajuns. [BOX | RECAP]

• Tulsa 33, UTEP 11. Filed under “Thing UTEP Did This Week:” Achieved the elusive scoreboard elevener! [BOX | RECAP]

• Arizona State 51, Colorado 17. A 17-point second quarter for the Buffs had us feeling pretty bad about our predicted Sun Devils blowout win. That feeling did not last too long. [BOX | RECAP]

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Central Michigan scored a win for the MAC by knocking off Iowa in the final seconds. (Matthew Holst/Getty Images)

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

This will mark our fifth season tracking the record of non-AQ programs against teams from power conferences, for no other reason than liking to watch where the numbers go. We’re not sure we’ve ever seen a weekend produce a winning record for a mid-major league that involved more than one or two games. But glory be to the MAC, which played seven games against BCS-favored opponents, and won four. (Yes, we’re even including Northern Illinois’ win over Kansas, even though Kansas is Kansas. COUNT IT.)

MAC teams beat one Big Ten team, two Big East teams and one Big 12 team. Directional Michigan schools had a particularly grand weekend, with Central Michigan knocking off Iowa and Western Michigan laying out UConn. Eastern Michigan also acquitted itself admirably, putting up a dogged fight against Michigan State.

The fifth big winner of Week 4 was the gaudiest: Louisiana Tech, a team with qualities we have been relentlessly touting since last December or so, mowed down Illinois on the road, 52-24. The Bulldogs currently field the nation’s third-ranked scoring offense and have two more high-profile nonconference matchups in the next three weeks: at Virginia and home against Texas A&M. Stay tuned; they’re our favorites behind Ohio to finish the 2012 regular season undefeated.

Speaking of the Bobcats: They’re through their nonconference gauntlet after a Week 4 win over Norfolk State and received 40 votes in this week’s AP Poll. The only other non-AQ teams on that list are Boise State at No. 24 and Louisiana Tech, which received seven votes.

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Jason Wilson and Central Michigan flattened Keenan Davis and Iowa with a last-minute upset win. (Getty Images)

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

• Central Michigan 32, Iowa 31: College football’s governing trickster gods are cruel and capricious, and let us never, ever forget it. The same afternoon that saw an Iowa running back deliver a standout performance without suffering the latest in a staggering series of tailback injuries also saw the Hawkeyes defeated by a directional Michigan team –and not a particularly well-regarded directional Michigan team.

Running back Mark Weisman’s 27-carry, 217-yard, three-touchdown outing was overshadowed by the triumph of a Chippewas squad that’s seen little in the way of glory since the departure of quarterback Dan LeFevour. Weisman nearly doubled up Central Michigan’s entire team rushing-wise, but Chippewas quarterback Ryan Radcliff made up for it with an aerial attack that covered 283 yards and two touchdowns.

Radcliff wasn’t the highest-scoring Chippewa, though. That would be kicker David Harman, who made up for weeks of special-teams shame directed at kickers nationwide by hitting a career-long 47-yard field goal with three seconds remaining to clinch the win. And how did Harman find himself in position to hit the game-winner? The final 45 seconds of the game saw the Chippewas fail on a two-point conversion; fail to recover an on-side kick, then recover the on-side after a delay-of-game penalty gave them a second shot; continue to advance on a 15-yard Iowa personal foul penalty; and score nine total points to pull the upset. [RECAP | BOX]

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• Important things first. We will get to the part featuring teams expected to finish with winning records and play in the postseason momentarily, but for right now, please just bask in the radioactive glow of a Kent State player recovering a fumble and taking it 58 yards in the wrong direction. The announcers aren’t really enjoying this thing as much as they should, so maybe mute this and have the same spirited discussion with your coworkers that we had in our living room last night: Who’s the best/worst here? Andre Parker, the disoriented runner? The Towson players who tackled him even though a muffed punt can’t be returned (even in the wrong direction)? Or Parker’s Kent State teammates blocking for his wrongward journey? We love all three equally. We missed you, MACtion. (Kent State did manage a win, 41-21.)

• No. 9 South Carolina 17, Vanderbilt 13. The 2009 South Carolina-NC State 7-3 slog remains our gold standard for queasy Thursday night openers, but this game was a valiant attempt to carry on that legacy. Andy Staples was on the scene, and writes from Nashville: “Did South Carolina look like a top-10 team in its 17-13 win at Vanderbilt? Not even close. Did the Gamecocks look like a team capable of competing for an SEC — and, using a logical leap informed by the results of the past six years, the national — title? Nope. Did South Carolina leave Vanderbilt Stadium 1-0 overall and 1-0 in the SEC East? Yes. For opening night, that’s enough.”

• BYU 30, Washington State 6. We expected Mike Leach’s unseasoned band to have a rough go of it in Provo. We did not expect Washington State to not be able to score a single touchdown. Stewart Mandel was there to take it all in: “The outcome shouldn’t be entirely surprising. BYU, perhaps unduly overlooked by preseason voters (the Cougars garnered just 10 points in the same Coaches’ Poll that ranked them 25th to end last season), trotted out a senior quarterback, Riley Nelson, who went 6-1 upon taking over the starting job last season, along with seven returning starters from a top 15 defense. Wazzu, nine years removed from its last bowl trip, started a senior quarterback, Jeff Tuel, who’s experienced seven wins in his career (most while injured on the sideline), and a defense that returned three of the front seven from last year’s 82nd-ranked unit.”

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The story of opening night 2012, in tweet form: 

Gamecocks, we knew that eventually you’d have to play another game, in another city. We knew this day would come. It just hurts, is all.

— Capital One Bowl (@CapitalOneBowl) August 31, 2012

Nothing like watching two offenses work out the kinks in a driving rain.

— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) August 30, 2012

The first false start of the 2012 college football season comes from Guy Matched Up Against Jadeveon Clowney. Makes sense!

— SB Nation (@sbnation) August 30, 2012

…and then Clowney was all like, “Cthulhu!”

— Steven Godfrey (@38Godfrey) August 30, 2012

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• You would have to have absolutely zero familiarity with us to think we’re joking. Stand down, crabby Scout denizens; we’re serious: This is one of the best promo videos we have ever seen. Wonder of wonders, it is actually funny; how often do university videos find success in that department? The gently swaying hips. The “SHUT UP, DENNIS!” The punctuating vending machine punch at the end. Well done, Memphis. [Via.]

• May our children forgive us. The Pac-12 Networks went live Wednesday night, without any untoward destruction of property. There’s a new website, which is unsurprisingly slick. Here is a joke about cupcakes.

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