By Holly Anderson

It’s a hard, cold time to be a UConn football fan. Mired in the Big East That Was, they’re staring down a 2013 schedule that includes the likes of Towson, Maryland, Buffalo, South Florida, Temple and Memphis, and they’re going to have to watch their Huskies take the field in these get-ups, which look for all the world as though they are being devoured feet-first by their own mascot:

Two new helmets from the front. http://t.co/is2YsXNWOt—
Paul Pasqualoni (@PaulPasqualoni) April 18, 2013

(This optical illusion will last right up until Week 4, when players are actually physically devoured by Michigan at home.)

Huskies partisans at the inscrutably-named The UConn Blog, which called the new look “A COMPLETE AND TOTAL DISASTER,” are currently voting on whether the new helmets are “the worst thing ever created by human hands.” (There are two poll choices: “Yes” and “Yes.”)

There is one bit of good news out of Storrs today: If you stuck around long enough to see the Huskies’ third alternate helmet, for use in night games this fall, we’re sure you’ll agree it, at least, carries the proper degree of menace:

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Broncos fans, you know you want some of this.

Many, many scheduling moves announced today, including our favorite type of football, Road Trip To Louisiana Football:

• UConn vs. Boise State. Continuing their efforts to shake off the terrifying ghosts of western trips past, the Huskies have scheduled a home-and-home with the Broncos to be played in Connecticut in 2014 and on the blue turf in 2018.

• Cincinnati at Michigan. In addition to a just-announced basketball series, the football Bearcats will travel to Ann Arbor for a Sept. 9, 2017 game, marking the first meeting between the two programs.

• Louisiana vs. Boise State. The Ragin’ Cajuns will host the Broncos in 2014 and make a return trip to Boise for the 2016 season opener. (Attention, people of Boise: Go to this game.)

Hopefully this UConn road trip works out better than their last western jaunt. (AP)

There’s little we like more in the offseason than to hear of larger football programs plotting to meet one another, especially when we don’t have to wait that long to see it happen: Connecticut and BYU have announced a two-game home-and-home series that begins the season after next. The Huskies and Cougars have never met in football, and will remedy this oversight with a game in East Hartford on August 28, 2014, followed by a date in Provo on October 31, 2015.

UConn running back Martin Hyppolite was a passenger in a head-on car collision that left him hospitalized. (AP)

Keep Connecticut’s Martin Hyppolite and his family in your thoughts today: The Hartford Courant reports that the senior UConn running back is in intensive care at a New Hampshire hospital following a weekend car crash that left one person dead:

The accident occurred on Route 4 in Durham, near the University of New Hampshire campus. A vehicle driven by Bruce Larson, 74, was hit head-on by vehicle driven by Ryan Marchant, 22, of Wakefield, Mass., according to Durham Deputy Police Chief Rene Kelley. Larson, of Durham, was pronounced dead at the scene. Hyppolite, who is from Wakefield and lives in Malden, Mass., was a passenger in Marchant’s vehicle. Marchant was transported to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and his condition is unknown.

Hyppolite saw playing time in 11 games for the Huskies last season, recording 69 net rushing yards on 19 carries and one touchdown. Our thoughts are with him, his family and the Connecticut football community.

In the dystopian future of the Big East, BBVA Compass Bowl trophies will be a highly valued currency. (AP)

• “Group of five” still just sounds so ominous. Jeremy Fowler reports on the coalescing system the Big East, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt are working on to distribute playoff revenue from the new postseason system:

In this proposed system, more than half the group’s roughly $86-million playoff pot would be distributed among the Big East, Mountain West, Mid-American Conference, Conference USA and Sun Belt as guaranteed base shares, according to a source with direct knowledge of the discussions. The source expects those shares to be evenly split, but added discussions are ongoing. The second tier pays out based on a conference’s body of work — the top conference gets the highest amount, then “X” amount for the next-rated conference, and on down. The third tier pays a kicker to the conference with the highest-ranked team, which is guaranteed an access bowl bid or, if among the top-four teams in the country, a semifinal berth in the playoff.

• Harbros’ early broing days. Check out Dan Wetzel’s tale of relatively wee Harbaughs recruiting youngsters to their dad’s team at Western Kentucky, including an appearance by one Willie Taggart.

• Exactly how you would’ve guessed. Former Miami Hurricanes make up the biggest slice of Super Bowl roster pie charts, but two of the next five teams on that list are … Marshall and Utah? Marshall and Utah! Go ThunderUtes!

• From the no-jokes department. Compelling story via OTL on UCLA researchers and evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in living football players.

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James White was part of a Badgers ground game that tallied 539 yards and eight scores. (Getty Images)

Quick hits from the Championship Saturday action. For more on Week 14, check out our Friday Snaps, coverage of Louisville-Rutgers, Oklahoma-TCU and the epic clash between Alabama and Georgia, plus our complete Top 25 review.

• Wisconsin 70, No. 14 Nebraska 31. This game wasn’t even as close as the final score indicates, which is really saying something. The Huskers were down 42-10 at the half — Wisconsin scored its final touchdown of the second quarter on a trick play with 20 seconds left on the clock, because Bret Bielema enjoys reminding folks he’s Bret Bielema — and scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter after the Badgers had already crossed the 60-point mark.

“We kind of set our minds before the game that this is our game,” Monteé Ball said afterward. “The running backs were going to set the tempo.” Offhand, with 539 yards gained on the ground alone, we would venture to suggest they succeeded in their efforts.

Fun tidbit: Ball rushed for 201 yards on 21 attempts and three touchdowns, and was neither the leading scorer nor the leading rusher for the Badgers. Melvin Gordon rang up 217 yards on nine carries with one score, while James White added four touchdowns and 109 yards on 15 carries. Lost in all that: Taylor Martinez doing this Family Circus touchdown run. Don’t forget that Taylor Martinez did this, because it was awesome.

Wisconsin trailed Nebraska 3-4 in the series before tonight’s cannon show. Has a series ever been leveled with such gusto? And what will a defense of Stanford’s caliber make of these five-loss Badgers, who wouldn’t have even been in position to claim the Big Ten title and earn a Rose Bowl berth if not for other programs’ sanctions? “It’s OK to get there,” said Bielema of the Rose Bowl, “but you need to win it.” They’ll get their shot on New Year’s Day. [BOX | RECAP]

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There are 11 conference races in FBS football, and heading into what will be their final Saturday of the regular season, only one — the WAC — has already crowned its champion. In every other league, and even among the independents where Army and Navy don’t play until next week, there’s at least a little room for movement at the top, if not an outright battle for the conference title. (For more in-depth preview content of this weekend’s SEC title game and other contests, visit Andy Staples’ Walkthrough.)

Georgia has a big game coming up. Of course there’s a song.

Actual Conference Championship Games, Actually

• Central Florida at Tulsa, 12:00 p.m. ET. In keeping with our tiebreaking theme, this game will serve as a best-of-three supremacy determiner: The Knights and Golden Hurricane are 1-1 all-time against each other when playing for the C-USA championship.

• Alabama vs. Georgia, 4:00 p.m. How many bowl scouts from games that can’t possibly hope to take Alabama or Georgia d’you reckon were awarded press credentials for this?

• Nebraska vs. Wisconsin, 8:00 p.m. If you like conference championship games featuring fewer than two division champs, this is the contest for you. Ohio State will celebrate its 12-0 regular season next Friday.

• Florida State vs. Georgia Tech, 8:00 p.m. It is technically still possible for a 6-6 team to receive a BCS bowl bid, at which point it would be a 7-6 team, which makes it all better, right? The majesty of the BCS!

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• Everybody got all that? In the past 24 hours of college football realignment news, we have seen East Carolina and Tulane jump from Conference USA to the Big East, the ACC file a lawsuit against Maryland over money owed given the Terps’ move to the Big Ten, Louisville abandon the Big East for the ACC and UConn’s president say “I think we really just have to focus on students and then everything will be OK.” And in the time it took us to painstakingly piece together the elaborate artist’s rendition of the remaining future conference jumps, the Virginian-Pilot is reporting that Conference USA will add Middle Tennessee State. YEEHAW.

• Things that are not realignment news. Our one preseason prediction that held fast all year was that every team would look sort of terrible at least once … Virginia cans its running backs coach … Gene Chizik will be a Mr. December to remember … and here is the only hypothetical realignment move we’d be in favor of at this exasperating point.

Bacarri Rambo had a fumble recovery and a pick in Georgia’s rout of Georgia Tech. (Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)

Snap Judgments from the Week 13 early slate. For more, check out Friday Snaps, Saturday’s midday Snaps, Saturday’s late Snaps, our recaps of Michigan-Ohio State, Florida-Florida State and Notre Dame-USC and our complete Top 25 review.

• No. 3 Georgia 42, Georgia Tech 10. Looky here, it’s two teams headed to major conference championship games next week! Don’t be too hard on Tech; the Jackets and their coach have battled the flu all week, were operating without the services of leading rusher Orwin Smith and still managed to pile up 458 yards in Sanford Stadium. It was scoring that posed the problem; Tech didn’t even attempt a punt in the first half but had three drives snuffed out by a fumble, a failed fourth-down attempt and an interception, respectively. Its second-half drives fared little better, ending in two punts, one touchdown and three more unsuccessful fourth-down conversions. Georgia’s first seven drives, by contrast: touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, punt, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown. Mark Richt, in his postgame press conference: “Our goal was to win every phase of the game, for every unit to win. I think we may have done that.” Seems like a solid take, coach.

The result is the biggest margin of victory for the Dawgs in their year-end rivalry game since 2002. And speaking of records: With Saturday’s scoreboard assault, the 2012 Bulldogs are officially the highest-scoring squad in program history. That same 2002 team scored 450 points in 14 games; with 12 games down and two to go, this year’s squad is already at 456. Safety Bacarri Rambo tied Jake Scott’s school record for career interceptions at 16. And Aaron Murray is now the first SEC quarterback to put up three consecutive 3,000-yard seasons.

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Your FBS football options this Friday night consist entirely of 4-5 Pitt versus 3-6 UConn. We have some feelings to work out.

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The Panthers and Huskies kick off at 8 p.m. ET. The game will be televised on ESPN2 and streamed on WatchESPN.