DeWayne Walker set the coaching carousel spinning once more with his late departure from New Mexico State. (AP)

Tommy Tuberville’s sitting by the phone* and Jimmy Sexton’s got that particular sparkle in his eye. It can mean only one thing: The coach firin’ season is upon us once more. We’ll be tracking the carousel of progress, right here, for as long as it takes to stop spinning. Raise a glass to times past, won’t you? * Well, not anymore, but never tell us we don’t have the gift of very specific prophecy through throwaway jokes.

New Mexico State [updated 02.01.2013]

• Who’s out: DeWayne Walker, who jumps to the NFL with less than two weeks remaining between now and Signing Day. And not even for a coordinating gig: Walker will coach defensive backs for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Walker released the following statement through the athletic department: “I really appreciate the opportunity that Dr. Boston and New Mexico State gave me to be a Division I head football coach. Unfortunately, I did not get the program as far as I would have liked from a wins and losses standpoint. But, we do have a better locker room, better kids and a better foundation for the program moving forward. There are a lot of people that I want to thank for their support and will be reaching out to those individuals in the coming days. They have helped me in moving the program forward. I am excited about starting a new chapter in my coaching career, as is my family. I wish New Mexico State great success in the future and wish everyone the best. Go Aggies!” • Who’s in: Doug Martin — the one who played at Kentucky, not the one who played at Boise State. Although if Martin The Younger is really so opposed to his excellent nickname, we’re gonna refer to Martin The Elder as coach Muscle Hamster instead. It’s been a whirlwind courtship for Martin and the Aggies: He was announced as offensive coordinator on January 17, temporarily promoted to interim head coach on January 24 and will be officially announced as DeWayne Walker’s successor on Monday, February 4. Martin’s previous head coaching experience consists of a seven-year stint at Kent State, from 2004-2010. Read More…

• You a Terp? Maryland has announced walk-on football tryouts for Wednesday, January 30. You must be a full-time, currently enrolled student to be eligible for consideration.

This is also your reminder that heading into Maryland’s last regular-season football game of 2012, this is what Maryland’s injury report looked like. So if you’re an aspiring quarterback, we’re honestly not sure whether to tell you to show up or stay away.

• Meanwhile, while the internet was caving in on itself …  Lost yesterday in the avalanche of news shocks was the announcement that the Mountain West has retaken San Diego State. (We’re choosing to picture this as a giant Risk board in action. The Big 12 is clearly Australia.) We have an MWC source who’s promised to tell us the second the conference poaches UCLA, and y’all will be the first to know after that.

• Coach-hirin’ follies! Go right on ahead and apply for Chip Kelly’s old job, and be sure and let us know how that works out … here is a magnificent lead followed by Rob Mullens’ insistence that he has no clubhouse leaders in mind for Kelly’s vacant seat … John-El lands at DII Fort Lewis College … Utah passing coordinator Aaron Roderick will take the OC slot at BYU [UPDATE: No he won't!] … Louisiana Tech won’t have to re-glaze any of its “I <3 OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR TONY” mugs … Tim Rosenbach joins the UNLV staff as OC.

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• Oh, NOW you don’t like the BCS. Not before. Just now. Northern Illinois is bound for the Orange Bowl as the first team from the MAC to earn a BCS bowl bid. We, as you might imagine, are delighted. Others are not. In other words, it’s just like every other BCS selection reaction ever.

Herbstreit calls NIU’s BCS berth “A sad state of college football.”

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) December 3, 2012

Herbstreit on #BCS selection show: “To put Northern Illinois in the BCS is a joke.” — Mark Schlabach (@Mark_Schlabach) December 3, 2012

Say what you will about NIU, its bid was automatic, just like Wisconsin’s and Louisville’s. NIU ranks ahead of both in every poll. — Matt Hinton (@MattRHinton) December 3, 2012

“I can’t believe they let NIU into the sacrosanct Orange Bowl.” <—someone who has never watched the Orange Bowl — edsbs (@edsbs) December 2, 2012

Rule that got NIU in was established to help defend BCS from anti-trust lawsuit. ESPN acting like it’s a football decision — Dan Wetzel (@DanWetzel) December 3, 2012

Is there any other sport in America where people DESPISE the underdog? Any sport in the world? — Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) December 3, 2012

Again, according to every current human poll and a consensus of the BCS computers, NIU’s not even the worst BCS bowl team this year. — Matt Hinton (@MattRHinton) December 3, 2012

To steal a @billsimmons metaphor, a lot of the NIU whining seems like people who are also mad the house doesn’t win more in blackjack.

— John Infante (@John_Infante) December 3, 2012

For takes longer than 140 characters, see Samuel Chi’s “Deal with it” and Matt Hinton’s “Blame the Big Ten and Big East.” The final regular-season BCS standings can be found here; the tell-all Coaches’ Poll results are here. For our full bowl schedule, click this way.

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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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UCLA’s Johnathan Franklin rushed for 171 yards and two touchdowns in a victory over USC. (Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

Snap Judgments from the Week 12 midday slate. For more, check out our early Snaps, our coverage of Stanford-Oregon, our look at the new BCS landscape and our complete Top 25 review.

• No. 17 UCLA 38, No. 21 USC 28. You heard a lot last week about the football monopoly in Los Angeles being over. No, again. No, for real this time. Well, you’ll hear even more about it this week, but only because it’s finally, demonstrably true. (We’re taking suggestions on which board-game related jokes to start making in its place from here on out. Balderdash? Sorry? Jenga?)

On a rainy afternoon in the Rose Bowl, the Bruins dashed out to a 24-0 lead midway through the second quarter, only to see the Trojans snatch momentum back by the start of the third, by which point Matt Barkley had thrown two touchdown passes and defensive tackle George Uko had scored a genuine Fat Guy Touchdown on a slip-and-slide fumble recovery. (Storied rivalry, historic venue, high conference stakes, home-and-home jerseys AND a FGTD: This game had it all, y’all.) A pair of traded touchdowns and a successful USC two-point conversion later, and the Trojans were trailing by three points with a little more than seven minutes left in the fourth quarter.

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Monteé Ball’s last name is also a football word, which should save us all some headline writing time once he finally breaks this record. (AP)

Saturday college football games of varying degrees of interest, grouped in highly subjective categories. For more preview content, visit Andy Staples’ Walkthrough.

• Biggest game with nothing riding on it: No. 6 Ohio State at Wisconsin, 3:30 p.m. ET. The Badgers already know they’re headed to Indianapolis, as the only other teams with fewer than three conference losses in the Leaders Division (the Buckeyes and Penn State) are ineligible for postseason play. But a win here would be the biggest [screw]-you moment for Urban Meyer since the 2008 Florida-Georgia game. And if you think Urban Meyer doesn’t live for [screw]-you moments, please see the 2008 Florida-Georgia game.

What is actually at stake: The NCAA all-time career touchdowns record, currently sitting at 78 and held by former Miami RedHawk Travis Prentice. Monteé Ball is one score away from tying and two away from breaking this record, and he has a chance to do both at home. He recorded 198 rushing yards and three scores last week against Indiana; if Ball does break the record, expect to hear the hollering in Madison as far away as Kentucky, and expect little bits of glitter to spew from this page. (Please protect your eyes accordingly.)

• Biggest game we feel like we couldn’t predict if our lives depended on it: No. 21 USC at No. 17 UCLA, 3:05 p.m. We have well established at this point in the season that even when relying on math and the best available logic, picking games is tricky work. It’s much more fun, and equally ineffective, to rely on factors like spite and cussedness and probably-imaginary-but-maybe-not-surefire jinxes to decide, particularly in rivalry matchups, which is why this weekend’s clash in the Rose Bowl scares the hell out of us. Some factors to consider: Whose coach to dislike (or grudgingly admire) more? Is it cosmically dangerous to even bring up that “football monopoly” talk at this point? Can we straight-up call this game for USC because keeping an opposing team’s costumed representative from poking one’s field with a sword is the furthest possible thing from a power move imaginable?

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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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Assorted bests and worsts from college football’s weekend that was. 

• Best GameDay flag trek: Getting a Wazzu flag into a crowd shot at GameDay is a long and proud tradition in Pullman, but the Cougar faithful might have been forgiven had they not managed to get a bearer on the deck of the USS San Diego, right? Fear not:

By the way, the Wazzu flag made it on GameDay earlier today, even with it on a ship: twitpic.com/bc1vcq

— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) November 11, 2012

• Worst accuracy: For a guy who coaches the nation’s top-ranked passing offense, Tommy Tuberville sure has bad aim. (Although he is a defensive guy. Perhaps that explains this offensive miscue?)

• Most useful SEC team: Everybody has a purpose in this vast universe of ours, and though there hasn’t been much to celebrate in terms of Auburn football this season, the Tigers are serving a crucial purpose: punching conference opponents’ tickets to Atlanta!

So both SEC divisions will be clinched against Auburn. (UGA today, Bama in 2 weeks).

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) November 11, 2012

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Ty Flournoy-Smith (80), Ken Malcome (24) and the Bulldogs clinched the SEC East title by beating Auburn. (AP)

Snap Judgments from the Week 11 late slate. For more, check out early Snaps, midday Snaps, our recaps of Texas A&M-Alabama and Kansas State-TCU and our complete Top 25 review.

• No. 5 Georgia 38, Auburn 0. Aaron Murray constructed four touchdown drives on Georgia’s first four possessions in Auburn tonight, first throwing three scoring passes to three different receivers, then handing off to Todd Gurley for a rushing touchdown late in the second quarter. Murray finished 18-of-24 with 208 yards and three touchdowns. (You’re not hallucinating, watching replays of that third touchdown pass: Tavarres King played wearing No. 15 tonight to honor injured teammate Marlon Brown.) A breakaway 62-yard run by the other half of the Dawgs’ freshman tailback tandem, Keith Marshall, marked Georgia’s last score late in the third quarter. Gurley and Marshall combined for 19 carries totaling 221 yards.

On a Saturday that saw two of the six undefeated FBS teams fall (so far, that is — Oregon and Cal are tied 7-7 as we’re writing this), the one one-loss team in the AP top five sealed its regular-season conference fate. Georgia is your 2012 SEC East champion and will make a second consecutive trip to the Georgia Dome in December, presumably to face Alabama out of the West. Until then, the Dawgs are finished with SEC play, hosting Georgia Southern next week and Georgia Tech the week after that. Auburn, too, will stay in-state, getting Alabama A&M at home in Week 12 and (presumably!) providing a second division title-clinching game at Alabama in the Iron Bowl.

Said Murray in his postgame remarks: “ Like I’ve been saying all year, you just never know who’s going to win.” That may not be entirely true today, but it’s  a nice sentiment. [BOX | RECAP]

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Eyes on the prize, Colby Cameron. (AP)

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

• Broncos and Bulldogs and bustin’. If you follow our pre- and midseason Crystal Ball projections, you know how hilariously bad we are at predicting which teams will land in which bowl games. But after a second loss, even Boise State’s new-money brand-name recognition won’t keep the Broncos afloat in the polls. So what does this mean for our early-season busting favorites, the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs? Quoth our designated postseason prognosticator, Stewart Mandel: “Louisiana Tech, No. 20 in the standings this week, may be that group’s lone hope, but the Bulldogs need to beat 8-2 Utah State in two weeks, climb at least four spots and hope BCS No. 16 Nebraska loses so that Tech finishes ahead of an AQ champ.” Same as it ever was when it comes to non-AQs with aspirations of crashing the party: Win big, and hope bigger. A perfect run through November won’t be easy for LaTech. Texas State should pose no problem in Week 11, but neither Utah State nor San Jose State are any kind of pushover.

Sonny Dykes, as ever, prefers to marvel at where he’s gotten this team once he gets there, and only then: “If we go and do not play well Saturday, Texas State will beat us and that will end all of the discussion. We have to worry about playing well this week, and like I said, when it is all over with, we will kind of look up and say, ‘Wow, here we are.’”

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