Oregon in the top five means we get to post pictures of the Ducks’ mascot all the time. We like it when Oregon is in the top five. (AP)

• Brace yourselves for a largish shock. Alabama tops the AP Poll for the 10th consecutive week, with Oregon holding steady at No. 2. Your BCS top five, in descending order: ‘Bama, Kansas State, Oregon, Notre Dame and Georgia. The Toledo Rockets make what we call an overdue appearance in the BCS standings this week, along with UCLA and Northwestern. Dropping out: Boise State (breaking a 40-week streak), West Virginia, Arizona and Oklahoma State. Stewart Mandel updates SI’s bowl predictions and … is that hope for Louisiana Tech we’re seeing on the horizon?

• Coach firin’ season! No updates to the carousel as of noon Monday, but ominous rumblings are sounding out of Colorado, and we are really enjoying imagining Rex Ryan at Kentucky.

• Injury report story hour. What to make of Collin Klein’s Oklahoma State game injury? … leading Georgia receiver Marlon Brown is finished as a Bulldog after tearing his ACL against Ole Miss, although the program’s director of sports medicine indicated Sunday that “a full recovery is anticipated that will enable him to continue his career in the future” … perpetual South Florida quarterback B.J. Daniels is through with the Bulls after sustaining a broken ankle against UConn … Arizona’s Hank Hobson is out of the hospital …  and Maryland announced Monday the loss of starting MLB and leading tackler Demetrius Hartsfield to a torn ACL, which Patrick Stevens calculates makes five torn ACLs for the Terps this season and the fourth lost team captain in two years.

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CAUTION: DO NOT KICK TO THIS PLAYER. HE WILL RUIN YOU. (Scott W. Grau/Icon SMI)

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

We lamented, last week, the loss of the best hope for a BCS-busting scenario in 2012, but please don’t think we’re writing off five conferences and the independents. This entire series is a labor of love, constructed to avoid precisely that notion. Louisiana Tech probably won’t make an appearance in the Orange Bowl, but the Bulldogs will be bowling somewhere. And after a week out of the national rankings, they’re right back in following their 70-28 obliteration of Idaho. All any team can ever do is beat every opponent placed in front of it, and should it stumble along the path to postseason glory, the absolute best thing a team can do is what LaTech is doing right now.

Tech clocks back in at No. 24 in the AP Poll, trailing Boise State at No. 21 and Ohio at No. 23 and ahead of Toledo, Tulsa and NIU stuck under the “also receiving votes” category. Ranked this week in the actual BCS standings: the Broncos at No. 21 and Bobcats at No. 24. This week marks the Bobcats’ first-ever appearance in the BCS standings.

First in votes also received, the Rockets really should’ve cracked the Top 25 this week, in our humble, unimportant opinion, after knocking off No. 21 Cincinnati. (If you missed it, this was one of the weirder games of the season, with Toledo recording a 29-23 victory without an offensive touchdown. Its scoring: A 75-yard interception return, a 91-yard kickoff return and five field goals.) Look for Toledo to make a for-real appearance in the polls next week if the Rockets can really pile it on at Buffalo this Saturday.

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The Boise State Broncos: 21st in the BCS standings, first in blackout showmanship. (AP)

Miscellaneous awards dispensed in honor of college football’s weekend that was:

• ALTERNATE HELMET POWER RANKINGS. After careful deliberation with some of college football’s top minds, we have selected our top three alt football hats from Week 8.

1. Boise State, whose matte black be-Broncoed helmets topped what’s maybe the best blackout uniform we’ve seen this year. (That’s a short list, but still.) It’s the malevolent orange eye on the side that elevates these from mere headwear into the realm of art.
2. Michigan State, in green “Hydrochrome,” which is shiny and beautiful, has a hint of bass-boat finish about it and also has the benefit of sounding like it was made by a G.I. Joe villain. (Not, apparently, a villain equipped with the power to beat Michigan, but we can’t all be superbosses.)
3. Northwestern, whose black and silver contraptions popped beautifully in HD but really needed some neon purple whiskers or something to be truly on-trend.

HONORABLE MENTION: Duke, whose blue-on-black helmets didn’t carry well on television but were obviously effective.

Please, those of you whose teams’ helmets were not selected, take this as a deeply personal insult.

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Jamison Crowder (right) tumbled into the end zone with :13 left to lift Duke. (Chuck Liddy/ZUMAPRESS.com)

On a night characterized largely by lopsided blowouts, most of our joy at watching competitive football was drawn from the ACC. Here, we give thanks. For more, check out our early Snaps, midday Snaps, our coverage of Kansas State-West Virginia, South Carolina-Florida, Oregon-Arizona State and our complete Top 25 review.

• Duke 33, North Carolina 30. Let us sing of the Blue Devils and postseason football! Your eyes do not deceive you. That was David Cutcliffe waving a can of spray paint in the postgame celebration crush. Those are the Blue Devils you see atop the ACC Coastal standings. The Victory Bell is awarded to Duke in the earliest game between Duke and North Carolina since 1943. It’s a new blue world.

For a little while there it looked as though the Blue Devils were set to repeat last week’s unfortunate pattern of events, when they jumped out ahead of Virginia Tech early only to see hopes of victory dashed. Duke held a 20-6 lead at halftime and a 23-9 lead at the end of the third quarter before surrendering three touchdowns to the Tar Heels while managing only a field goal on offense. That last UNC score was the real killer: A Bryn Renner pass to Erik Highsmith was fumbled after Highsmith took a hit from a Duke defender, only to see Duke whiff on the fumble recovery and Giovani Bernard scoop it up and run it in for the score. Sean Renfree saved the day late with a five-yard touchdown pass to Jamison Crowder on fourth down that was caught so quickly it was hard to make out even on replay.

Renfree finished with 23 completions on 36 attempts for 275 yards, one touchdown and one interception. Gio recorded his third consecutive triple-digit rushing effort for the Tar Heels with 143 yards on 24 carries. Blue Devils triumvirate Josh Snead, Jela Duncan and Juwan Thompson combined for 237 rushing yards. Tonight marked Duke’s first win over UNC since 2003, its first home win versus the Tar Heels since 1998 and first bowl eligibility status achieved since 1994. [BOX | RECAP]

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Michigan State’s Mark Dantonio can get WAY grouchier than this. You’ll see. (AP)

Your oddly specific Saturday viewing guide. For more football-centric preview content, check out Andy Staples’ Walkthrough.

• Most locally sourced farm-to-fan football. In-state rivalries abound in Week 8, for those of you keeping vigilant watches on your carbon footprints. Saturday’s sustainably-grown grudge matches include No. 22 Stanford at Cal (3 p.m. ET), Michigan State at No. 23 Michigan (3:30 p.m.) and No. 12 Florida State at Miami (8 p.m.).

• Worst idea for a noon kickoff in recorded human history. Or maybe “best idea in terms of public safety,” but we’re still calling an 11 a.m. CT kickoff for LSU at Texas A&M the worst kind of cowardice. Who wants to live forever?

• Saddest ball of football sadness. Army (1-5) at Eastern Michigan (0-6), the latter of which we really did call “the country’s best winless team” on the Mandel Initiative podcast earlier this week. We meant every word of that. (HONORABLE MENTIONS: Boston College, already with a loss to this Army team, has to play a Georgia Tech team that’s already lost to Middle Tennessee State; and FAU-South Alabama, which will play in the One Of You is Getting Off The Floor Of The Sun Belt Whether You Want To Or Not Classic.)

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Can Quinton Patton and Louisiana Tech shake off Johnny Football and bully through the WAC? (AP)

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

We made the trek to Shreveport last week in the hopes of being on the scene when 2012′s best chance for a BCS bust really took shape. We came perilously close to getting our wish; but for a blocked extra point attempt here and a successful two-point conversion there, America would be staring down the real possibility of another WAC team in a BCS bowl game.

Right now, it’s hard to imagine that being the case. We said in our midseason Crystal Ball segment, and several of our colleagues agreed, that the odds for an upstart squad in a big-money game this season look grim, with Louisiana Tech and Boise State each carrying a loss from their highest-profile nonconference games and Ohio undefeated but eking out wins against the likes of UMass, Buffalo and Akron. Is there a spark of hope for any of our precious Profiteroles?

Maybe. The Broncos enjoy the benefit of name recognition after their last several seasons, and popped up at No. 22 in the first set of BCS standings released Sunday. It’s their 38th straight such appearance, and the longest active BCS rankings streak in the FBS. Could they climb into that all-important No. 16 spot ahead of an AQ conference champion? Could Louisiana Tech, with a stronger nonconference schedule and blowouts the rest of the way, jump the Broncos?

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Here is Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M quarterback and noted mutant, doing a football thing. He’s pretty good at these. (AP)

SHREVEPORT, La. — The nation’s best hope to bust the BCS is no more. One-loss non-AQ teams don’t get invited to the big-money games. It just isn’t done, dahling. Heading into Week 7, three undefeated mid-major teams clung to aspirations of posh January destinations. Right now, it’s hard to imagine any of them  making the trip. The Ohio Bobcats move to 7-0 but continue to play close games against lowly competition. The UTSA Roadrunners (they were, technically, undefeated! No, YOU shut up) got pummeled by Rice. And the Bulldogs, winners on the road in the ACC and Big Ten, fell short in a virtual home game, 59-57, against SEC newcomer Texas A&M.

It’s how short, and how the Bulldogs got there, that’s the story. “Those who left early,” said Sonny Dykes in his postgame press conference, “ought to be ashamed of themselves.” We quite agree.

We’ll talk a lot about Colby Cameron tonight, maybe because we’re still feeling the echoes of seeing Nick Florence have a career day and still go home with a loss. Cameron has a lot to be proud of tonight. So does Quinton Patton, his primary receiver, who caught four of his touchdown passes. “A whole lot of things happened in that football game,” said Kevin Sumlin afterward, “and it could have gone either way.”

But we must first spend some words burnishing the hatchling legend of Texas A&M quarterback and utter mutant Johnny Manziel, who as a redshirt freshman set program and SEC records for total offense with tonight’s 576-yard performance. Before the arrival of Manziel, the Aggies had recorded 13 400-yard performances in school history. Manziel has now recorded three such games in six tries as a college football player. His rushing output (181 yards) and the aforementioned 72-yard dash were both career efforts. It can be goofy to laud career days from freshmen, who have almost no body of work with which to compare new games, and to goggle at offensive stats against defenses like Louisiana Tech’s, but we think you’ll agree this calls for just a bit of decorous celebration.

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Landry Jones and David Ash will square off in Saturday’s Red River Rivalry game. (Icon SMI :: Getty Images)

Viewing recommendations for this weekend, for those of you over-saturated with South Carolina-LSU and Stanford-Notre Dame coverage. *See what we did there?

• Best THIS IS STILL A RIVALRY, CONSARNIT. The Red River Shootout, we would argue, has not lost any of its luster with Texas and Oklahoma both slipping out of the AP top 10. (We would also argue that it’ll always be the “Shootout” and never the “Rivalry.”) First of all, to complain that a Nos. 13 vs. 15 matchup is any sort of letdown is to forget how brief this season is in general, and how weird this week’s slate of games is in particular. Ranked-on-ranked action isn’t easy to come by this Saturday. Savor what is there. Second of all, don’t tell grownups that the Longhorns and Sooners might want to beat the snot out of each other that much less just because both teams have been dinged with a loss. Is it nastier when the stakes are higher? We’re not actually sure. Texas is still Texas, Oklahoma is still Oklahoma, fried bubblegum on a stick is still fried bubblegum on a stick and the RRS remains a destination game and appointment television.

• Best reason to eat French fries on a sandwich for brunch. Louisville at Pittsburgh, in one of those curious 11 a.m. ET kickoffs we can never quite perk up for.

• Best rivalry game you’ve never heard of, Week 7 edition. Nevada at UNLV, renewing the Battle for the Fremont Cannon. In general, this blog wants to always come down on the side of teams trading weapons as traveling trophies, be they cannons or axes or boots full of live bees. It’s one of our few guiding principles, and we stand by it.

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Colby Cameron and Johnny Manziel lead two of the nation’s top offenses. Who wins? Or will they decide to film a buddy cop comedy instead? JOHNNY FOOTBALL AND THE COLB-CAM: LOOSE CANNONS. (AP-Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

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

It is time. The Ohio Bobcats are 6-0, bowl eligible and unranked and likely to stay that way for a little bit while AQ teams above them take losses and are dropped in the polls accordingly. They’re also not making a great case for Big Important Bowl Inclusion, having allowed three non-AQ teams (Marshall, UMass and Buffalo) to play them closer than their Week 1 opponents at Penn State. Six MAC teams remain on the schedule, not one of which finished 2011 with a winning record and only one of which (Kent State) is currently above .500 in 2012. If the Bobcats plan on ascending into the national Top 25 before the year is out, they’ll have to stage some blowouts.

This week, national spotlights will be trained on Louisiana Tech, a team less likely to go undefeated but more likely to impress the BCS if it does. A matchup viewed as a high-stakes Week 1 upset possibility has only seen its stakes increase since Hurricane Isaac forced a six-week delay, as both LaTech and Texas A&M went and got themselves ranked. Tech’s No. 23 AP ranking is just the second AP nod in program history and its first since 1999. A&M has rattled off four straight wins since dropping its first SEC game to Florida in Week 2, with the final scores ranging from the predictable (70-14 versus South Carolina State) to the uncomfortable (30-27 at Ole Miss).

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We know. We KNOW, OK? We were over Gangnam Style and convinced no one would ever top what the Duck got up to on his day off. But Army’s offering comes awfully, awfully close. Cute kids! A real horse! Serious-faced cadets dancing with imaginary lassoes! A big-ass American flag! Party in the USA, y’all. We’re not sorry.

• WHAT IS THE LAMESTREAM MEDIA HIDING IN ITS HASH BROWNS?? A tweet we’re not going to bother to verify (because we’re having too much fun) blows the doors off yesterday’s blockbuster Wall Street Journal Waffle House report:

@nastinchka WSJ is wrong, BDS is .3 miles from WH. By road. It’s even closer as the drunk student stumbles #hasbrownnashnalchampeenshipPAWL

— Shane Givens (@2MuchUrAssuming) October 4, 2012

A cursory examination of a map of Tuscaloosa shows that if one is measuring from, say, the Saban statue, Alert Reader Shane may be onto something. More on this story as it develops.

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