Aren’t we glad we didn’t redo this graphic today?

Here’s a list of conference realignment moves that have been made known since we last wrote about conference realignment moves, which, for the record, was like two hours ago:

• Tulsa is joining the Big East. Not the Big East with all the basketball schools in it that’s going to be called the Big East down the line. Tulsa is joining the first Big East. This is happening in 2014.

• East Carolina is joining the Big East, also not the basketball Big East — though wouldn’t it be droll if one of these teams accidentally ended up in the Catholic 7 — and also in 2014.

• Conference USA is joining the Sun Belt. All of it. This part we made up, probably.

All this reported by college football realignment oracle Brett “Sources” McMurphy. We’ll see you back here in a couple hours for the next shuffle.

Is this the real Kliff Kingsbury, or an incredible simulation? (AP)

• Kliff Kingsbury is on Twitter. His hair does not look artfully tousled. He is wearing a suit and tie, and that tie is not a skinny tie. No v-necks are immediately visible. This may in fact be a wax dummy of Kliff Kingsbury pictured here, which would go a long way toward explaining why it hasn’t tweeted yet.

• We are now contractually obligated to call him Bear O’Brien for one calendar year. Penn State’s head coach has been bestowed with the Bear Bryant College Coach of the Year Award, marking him as the most alliterative winner in the award’s history. Congratulations, Bill O’Bryant!

• Coach-hirin’ follies! Florida defensive coordinator Dan Quinn is leaving to rejoin the Seattle Seahawks; Gators assistant D.J. Durkin has been elevated in his place … per our express wishes, Clancy Pendergast will replace Monte Kiffin as USC’s DC … Rutgers will reportedly lose offensive coordinator Dave Brock to Delaware … Rick Smith, who’s coached defensive backs at South Florida since 2010, will join Ruffin McNeil’s staff at East Carolina as defensive coordinator … now-former Boston College OC Doug Martin (not, so far as we know, nicknamed “Muscle Hamster”) is headed back to New Mexico State in the same capacity.

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The story of a bowl, as told through social media.

Mark Hudspeth bets you won’t hit a hit a hit a hit a [radio edit]

— Jason Kirk (@JasonKirkSBN) December 22, 2012

ecu: the late night wrestling on cable access you watch when you can’t sleep of football

— Martin Rickman (@martinrickman) December 22, 2012

More like New Score-leans Bowl.

— SBN College Football (@SBNationCFB) December 22, 2012

Key West. Eating juevos rancheros & watching New Orleans Bowl. Just like Hemingway used to roll. twitpic.com/boagxb

— Ryan McGee (@ESPNMcGee) December 22, 2012

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Follow this trailer to the New Orleans Bowl. (Holly Anderson/SI.com)

The 2012 New Orleans 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 Zac Ellis’ game preview.)

• What’s all this, then? The R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl is one of the stabler games in the current postseason field, running on just its second title sponsor since its first year in 2002, and one of the most attractive travel options of 2012, combining hordes of nearby Cajuns with postseason football and New Orleans nightlife.

• Where will this game be played? The Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, home to the New Orleans Saints, Tulane football team and the Sugar Bowl.

• When is it on television? Coverage begins at Noon E.T. on ESPN with Beth Mowins, Joey Galloway and Quint Kessenich bringing you the action. The game will also be streamed on WatchESPN.

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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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• 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.

Rex Burkhead goes out with a bang. (AP)

Snap Judgments from Friday afternoon’s action. For more, check out Saturday’s early Snaps and our complete Top 25 review.

• No. 17 Nebraska 13, Iowa 7. Bo Pelini was asked in his postgame on-field interview whose decision it was to insert the oft-injured Rex Burkhead into the Huskers’ final regular-season game. He laughed. “His!” The senior standout, absent for much of this season while nursing a knee injury, made the most of his time on the turf, leading Nebraska’s ground attack (69 yards on 16 carries) and scoring the Huskers’ only touchdown of the contest on a three-yard run in the third quarter.

Those of you who find our occasional gleeful odes to MACtion tacky are in for a real treat with today’s box score, where you will find just one player with an individual stat line totaling more than 100 yards. (The lucky lad: Taylor Martinez, who completed 9 of 14 passes for 63 yards and rushed for an additional 41.) Burkhead was trailed  by Ameer Abdullah (50 rushing yards on 14 carries) and Braylon Heard (46 yards on four carries). For the Hawkeyes, James Vandenberg completed 11 of 24 pass attempts for 92 yards and threw two interceptions. Mark Weisman led Iowa in rushing with 91 yards on 29 attempts.

Vandenberg also gave the Hawkeyes their only lead of the game, with a one-yard rushing touchdown late in the first quarter, a lead Iowa hung onto until Burkhead’s run. And for a moment there, late in the fourth quarter, it looked as though we might have a ballgame on our hands again. Given the ball on a Nebraska punt at their own 27 with about three and a half minutes to play, the Hawkeyes executed two consecutive six-yard plays before Vandenberg threw his second interception with just 2:11 remaining on the clock. And practically before time had expired in the stadium, we had that all-important BIG TEN CHAMPIONSHIP GAME TICKETS: ON SALE NOW email land in our inbox. The Huskers have earned at least a share of the division title and will play Wisconsin in Indianapolis on Saturday, December 1. Nebraska won their first meeting in September, 30-27. [BOX | RECAP]

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What glories yet await Cory Dorris and the Golden Hurricane as Conference USA play continues? (AP)

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

Tis the season for car commercials with big-ass bows and conference math. We attempted to explain, in bewildering detail, how the MAC races could shake out from here in our Wednesday night MACtion preview. We are here to inform you (with some glee, as we adore late-season chaos) that the MAC has far from the most convoluted conference race situation at the moment. Very quickly, the current states of the remaining non-AQ conference races, as teams not named Navy or BYU begin to prettify themselves for postseason suitors:

• Conference USA: Two teams with perfect 6-0 league play records top the two divisions: Central Florida in the East and Tulsa in the West. After Saturday, one squad’s record will bear some blemish when the two clash in Tulsa, but don’t expect that to affect the race. The Knights have only UAB to clear after that in the regular season, and hold a head-to-head advantage over East Carolina, the only other team in the division with fewer than three conference losses. Tulsa’s championship game aspirations could still be spoiled with a loss tonight and another at SMU November 24, assuming the Mustangs (4-2 in league play) beat Rice in the meantime.

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We interrupt this preview for another appearance from the Utah student section. (AP)

Sing to us, O Muse, of a Thursday night with three college football games, all conference matchups and one even featuring a ranked team:

Arkansas State @ Florida International

• What information do I, the discerning consumer, require in order to consume this game? The Red Wolves and Golden Panthers kick off in Miami at 7:30 p.m. ET. The game will be televised on ESPNU and streamed on WatchESPN.

• What’s at stake here? The chance to scrabble for glory in the presumptive top half of the surprisingly deep Sun Belt lobster pot, with the likes of Louisiana, Western Kentucky, Louisiana-Monroe and Middle Tennessee. On the flip side, the loser could be cast down with the likes of Florida Atlantic. Each squad already has one conference loss and a losing record overall.

• Who should we be watching? For the Red Wolves, Tennessee transplant David Oku at running back and latest Gus Malzahn project, Ryan Aplin, at quarterback. For the Panthers, keep an eye on tackling enthusiasts Tourek Williams at defensive end and Jonathan Cyprien at safety.

• These are very colorful mascots, not unlike the fall foliage showing its petticoats around our great nation. They are indeed, although we will still never forgive Arkansas State for not taking our kind suggestion of “The Arkansas State Vine-Ripe Pink Tomatoes” more seriously when selecting its new mascot a few years back.

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Logan Kilgore and the Middle Tennessee State offense racked up 510 yards of offense in a win at Georgia Tech. (AP)

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

You see, they are called the “Sun Belt” teams because they are just out there belting people. See. That the Sun Belt would field four teams to be reckoned with in 2012 was a reasonable preseason estimate of ours, we think. What we didn’t expect was that two of those teams would be Louisiana-Monroe and Middle Tennessee State rather than Florida International and Arkansas State. Mario Cristobal’s Golden Panthers fell to 1-4 after a 48-20 loss to Louisiana Saturday; perhaps this is his way of telegraphing just how much he wants people to start bothering him with potential job openings in power conferences. We saw the Panthers, on paper, as the likely top contender for conference championship honors; right now, as deep as the Sun Belt is rolling, FIU will be lucky to finish in its top half.

But let’s focus on the good stuff, which you already know if you’re bothering to read this, but which we can’t stand not to repeat: Middle Tennessee, which opened the season with a six-point loss to an FCS team, just racked up 510 yards and 49 points against Georgia Tech, at Georgia Tech. Tee-hee! The Blue Raiders’ weapon of choice: junior running back Benny Cunningham, who carried the ball 27 times for a grand total of 217 yards and five touchdowns. MTSU’s defense sacked Tevin Washington four times. Paul Johnson must’ve eaten a quarry’s worth of gravel just to make it through a single film session.

“Our guys know what they’re getting into at Middle. These guys have played against them the last couple of years. This is a good conference,” said Louisiana-Monroe coach Todd Berry after Saturday’s win over Tulane. A popular sentiment heading into 2012, re: the Sun Belt, to be sure. But did you ever think these two outfits would be this thickly in the mix? Week 6′s Warhawks-Blue Raiders tilt is looking like appointment television about now.

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