UNLV hosts Washington State tonight at Sam Boyd Stadium, where we were once trapped after a Las Vegas Bowl. (AP)

Washington State and UNLV play a single game tonight that makes up the entirety of your Friday college football viewing schedule. We’re sure you have so many questions.

• What information do I, the discerning consumer, need to consume this game? This is all the football you get for tonight, so do pay attention: The Cougars and Rebels kick off in Sam Boyd Stadium at 9 p.m. ET. The game will be televised on ESPN.

• This is in Las Vegas? It is, but not Vegas Vegas. The stadium is several miles from the Strip, negating the possibility of leaping wide receivers and defensive backs being distracted from watching the ball by the roller coaster at New York-New York. And though we have been accidentally locked into it before, we are rather fond of Sam Boyd Stadium. The Las Vegas Bowl is there. It’s a pretty nice venue, especially for a program this size.

• What have we seen from these teams so far, in terms of actual football? Not a whole lot to write home about. Wazzu is undergoing the sort of fits-and-starts growth you’d expect with a wholesale regime change. The Cougars lost their season opener at BYU, 30-6, and came uncomfortably close to losing to an FCS opponent in Week 2, beating Eastern Washington 24-20. The Rebels actually did lose their FCS game, falling 17-14 to Northern Arizona, after dropping a triple-overtime loss to Minnesota in Week 1.

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Courtesy of the Texas State 2011-12 Fan Guide

• What’s all this, then? On July 1, a crop of the realignment changes we’ve been so resistant to took effect. Among the movers were the Texas State University-San Marcos Bobcats, now residents of the WAC.

• Do we finally have a new WAC member school intent on staying there? LOLZ of course not! After one year in the great WAC way-station, the Bobcats will join the Sun Belt for the 2013 season.

• Is this at least a program with a modicum of history? Absolutely, and then some. Texas State began play in 1904, and spent most of its modern existence in the D-II Lone Star Conference before beginning FCS play as a Southland school in 1987. The Bobcats won back-to-back D-II national championships in 1981 and ’82, and two conference titles during their FCS stay.

• So they have a big cat mascot. Can we make a rule against new schools entering the FBS having big cat mascots? Too many big cat mascots! I’m a dog person. Too bad. The Bobcats were here first, according to the university: “Texas State was the only college in the country until the late 1920s to possess the name for its athletic teams.”

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The South Alabama Jaguar is clearly ready for life as a transitional FBS member. (Icon SMI)

You didn’t ask, but we answered:

• What’s all this, then? On July 1, a crop of the realignment changes we’ve been so resistant to took effect. Among the movers was South Alabama, which joins the Sun Belt for its final transitional season before becoming a full FBS member in 2013.

• How does that work, exactly? Right when the Jaguars first started poking their egg teeth through, three years and three jobs ago, we congratulated them on their “clunky, slow-loading website,” a fixture in major college athletics. They’ve since put together a super-handy timeline that every program making a conference jump should immediately emulate, outlining the restrictions and privileges of the program from inception to Sun Belt acceptance. Next season, for example, USA will be an SBC member school in terms of scheduling, but won’t be eligible to compete for a conference title.

• So this is another brand-new program? About as new as they come. The Jaguars have staged games since 2009, and played their first full season in 2011.

• How’d that work out? Glory be, an FBS transitional team entering with a winning record! USA went 6-4 against a slate of mostly FCS competition last year.

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UTSA will join the WAC in 2012 as a transitional FBS member before leaving for Conference USA. (Icon SMI)

You didn’t ask, but we answered:

• What’s all this, then? On July 1, a crop of the realignment changes we’ve been so resistant to took effect. Among the movers was UT San Antonio, which joins the WAC as a transitional FBS member along with Texas State.

• Hey, repopulating the WAC! That’s a noble endeavor. Not so fast. The Roadrunners will be WAC members for precisely one year before hopping [<--- bird pun] to Conference USA in July 2013.

• That’s mean! That’s realignment. Who falls behind is left behind.

• Why have I never heard of UTSA having a football program? Up until a very short while ago, it did not. The team began putting players on scholarship in 2010 and played its first season in 2011.

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Clearly, the UMass Minuteman cannot wait to partake in some MACtion. And really, who can blame him? (AP)

You didn’t ask, but we answered:

• What’s all this, then? On July 1, a crop of the realignment changes we’ve been so resistant to took effect. Among the movers was UMass, which joins the MAC as a transitional member, replacing Temple.

• So we still have a 13-team conference? We do! The MAC prefers to think of itself as “prime.”

• What do we, as MAC fans and/or schedulers of profiterole paycheck games, need to know about UMass before we see it on the opposite sideline this fall? First and foremost, that UMass’ nickname is the Minutemen, and that they’ll be playing their home games at Patriots memorabilia-encrusted Gillette Stadium. So, let that Revolutionary War smack talk fly. “More like Jamarion Smith! He slipped through that defensive line like the Swamp Fox, Gary! Back to you in the studio.”

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Notre Dame’s Rev. John Jenkins is one of 12 university presidents on the current oversight committee. (ZUMAPRESS.com)

• What’s all this, then? The BCS presidential oversight committee convenes in Washington today to deliberate college football playoff plans proposed by the conference commissioners last week.

• The what, now? There are a lot of moving decision-making parts controlling the college football postseason; the BCS doesn’t actually begin and end with Bill Hancock (even though he gets to say all the fun stuff). From the organization’s mission statement: “The conference commissioners and the Notre Dame athletics director make decisions regarding all BCS issues, in consultation with an athletics directors advisory group and subject to the approval of a presidential oversight committee whose members represent all 120 Football Bowl Subdivision programs.”

• So who’s in charge here? Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger is the ACC’s rep and chairman of the committee.

• Anything special we need to know about him? According to Virginia Tech, Steger “has been asked by the Swiss Ambassador to the United States and The World Bank to serve on a committee to establish a foundation in the United States to conduct research on mitigating global natural disasters.”

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