Unlike baseball, college football is actually supposed to have an opening weekend. (REUTERS)

All this chirping about based ball’s Opening “Day” just makes us pine for five months from now, when college football will accomplish in five days what baseball crams into nine or so. Is it too early to start making out our Week 1 mayhem wish list? Probably!

Thursday, August 30

• South Carolina @ Vanderbilt. James Franklin taunts Jadeveon Clowney after the Commodores pull off a late go-ahead touchdown, and the ensuing fracas manages to convince SEC officials to suspend the South Carolina stalwart. Seeking revenge, Steve Spurrier departs Nashville with five or six of Franklin’s scholarship quarterbacks, to feather his depth-chart-fiddlin’ nest back in Columbia. No one is truly satisfied, but no lessons are learned.

• Minnesota @ UNLV. TCF Bank revokes Golden Gophers’ stadium sponsorship after team refuses to pay $5,000 in ATM fees following return from Vegas.

• UCF @ Akron. Zips win, and Terry Bowden gets free jousting privileges at all Medieval Times locations for life.

• UMass @ UConn. In their FBS debut, the Minutemen rout the Huskies, relegating Connecticut to the MAC by a previously unnoticed realignment provision. All involved parties agree this is probably in everyone’s best interest.

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Temple mascot Hooter and the Fighting Hedwigs are in talks to join the Big East in all sports. (Main image: US PRESSWIRE; inset: Warner Bros.)

Temple’s return to the Big East, if it goes through, will elevate an owl mascot to the AQ level for the first time since the school’s 2004 ejection from the conference. It’s a natural fit for the league of Squibs, but as the move is rather last-minute from a conditioning standpoint, you may find yourselves falling behind, winded in an effort to make Harry Potter jokes during league play in 2012. Below, a few basic maneuvers you might find useful, during an imaginary conference schedule that assumes the Fighting Hedwigs join up with the Ever-Increasingly Accurately Named Big East by fall:

October 6, 2012. Temple @ UConn. “Accio passing game, you guys! Amirite??”

October 13, 2012. Syracuse @ Temple. “Addazio’s offense without Bernard Pierce is deader than Dumbledore.”

October 20, 2012. Temple @ Pitt. “I tell you what, this Owls front seven has put Tino Sunseri in Azkaban.”

October 27, 2012. Rutgers @ Temple. “And what a coming-out party for Matt Brown! He blasted through the Scarlet Knights’ line like a Dementor! A Dementor on a Firebolt!”

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If this shot of a Belk interior doesn't get you excited for Tuesday's Louisville-NC State Belk Bowl clash, nothing will. (ZUMAPRESS.com)

The 2011 Belk Bowl is just a day away. We’re sure you have so many questions. We’re here to help. (For an Xs and Os breakdown, check out Bill Trocchi’s game preview.)

• What’s all this, then? The awkwardly monikered Meineke Car Care Bowl is no more. Meineke now sponsors the Texas Bowl, which is styled the Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas, as though there may someday be as many Meineke Bowls as there are states. This is the department store’s first year of title sponsorship.

• Where will this game be played? Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium, home to the Carolina Panthers and the ACC Championship Game.

• When is it on television? Kickoff is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, December 27. The game will be televised on ESPN.

• Whom does it feature? The ACC and Big East provide squads from somewhere in the middle of their conference standings.

• What about this year? Got a real barn-burner in the offing here, with the 7-5 stylings of NC State and Louisville.

• What sorts of football things do I have to look forward to from these teams? The Cardinals and Wolfpack boast, respectively, the 104th and 93rd-ranked offenses in the nation, with defenses that are statistically above average.

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Marcus Coker scored the first and last Hawkeyes touchdowns as Iowa never trailed Michigan. (AP)

Snap judgments from the Week 1o early shift, in which a whole bunch of teams need to go sit in their corners and think about what they’ve done. For swing shift Snaps, click here. For late shift Snaps, click here. For a review of the Top 25 action, click here. For game highlights from SI.com, click here.

• Iowa 24, No. 13 Michigan 16: It’s got to be the helmets, right? The Hawkeyes came into Week 10 hesitantly wielding the 76th-ranked defense in the FBS, allowing more than 400 yards per game with teams like Michigan State and Nebraska remaining on the schedule. But — perhaps infused with Ricky Stanzi’s USA-Number-One spirit — they banded together this afternoon to hold Denard Robinson to 194 yards passing and 55 on the ground. The superbly named Fitzgerald Toussaint managed only 58 yards on 16 carries. James Vandenberg had a serviceable afternoon for the Hawkeyes, with 171 yards on 14 completions, but young Marcus Coker was the key here, recording his sixth triple-digit rushing performance in nine games this season (132 yards, 29 carries, two touchdowns).

Play ended after a nail-biter of a final drive, with Robinson throwing four incompletions from inside Iowa’s five-yard line to conclude in futility a two-minute drive that began at the Wolverines’ 18. Expect gnashing of teeth from the Ann Arbor camp following several curious decisions on the part of the officiating crew. [RECAP | BOX | HIGHLIGHTS]

• Ohio State 34, Indiana 20: The shuffling Buckeyes were very nearly in worse trouble than the Wolverines. Ohio State hit the locker room at halftime tied with the one-win, no-luck Hoosiers at 13-all. After exchanging another pair of touchdowns to open the third quarter, the Buckeyes pulled away with two unanswered scoring runs from Braxton Miller and Carlos Hyde, but it can’t be fun to have to actually work to beat this Indiana squad. OSU’s ground attack carried the day, with Boom Herron leading the pack at 141 yards on 14 carries. Carlos Hyde and Miller added another 105 yards each and three rushing scores between them. And if the running carried the day, Travis Howard saved it entirely with a late interception on what would have been a game-tying drive for the Hoosiers in the fourth quarter. [RECAP | BOX]

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Tyler Wilson and No. 7 Arkansas have scored at least 29 points in all but one game. (US PRESSWIRE)

It came as something of a shock to learn there are games being played this weekend other than LSU-Alabama. Just about every other able-bodied analyst at SI.com has already weighed in on Tigers vs. Tide, so I’m going to leave you in Andy Staples’ capable hands for talk of Tuscaloosa and focus on the rest of Week 10 below. To start, there’s another top 10 SEC showdown in the offing. Did you know?

Necessary events

• No. 10 South Carolina @ No. 8 Arkansas: This feels like an overrated spot for the Gamecocks at this point in the slog to Atlanta, even given their ferocious defense. End Melvin Ingram is good television, and the unit ranks sixth nationally in yards allowed, but the Gamecocks are not going to beat Arkansas quarterback Tyler Wilson on every possession. Alabama was the only team capable of holding the 7-1 Razorbacks in check on offense this entire season, and Arkansas has scored more than 29 points every other week. Scoring enough to keep up with Wilson, Jarius Wright and Joe Adams is going to be a real concern.

This is all assuming the Arkansas team we think we know is the one that shows up, of course. The Hogs experienced nail-biting scrapes against Vanderbilt last week and Ole Miss the week before, and because the games came on back-to-back weeks it’s hard to tell whether both were cases of playing down to competition (understandable, if not excusable) or some actual systemic meltdown. Needing a fumble return to beat Vanderbilt, even shiny new swaggery Vanderbilt, would bode ill for most teams in this season’s SEC, but it bodes particularly ill for a team carrying a top 10 ranking and harboring visions of a prestigious January bowl game.

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Rex Burkhead rushed for two touchdowns and caught another against MSU’s normally stout D. (Cal Sport Media)

Snap Judgments from the Week 9 early shift. For swing shift Snaps, click here. For Stewart Mandel’s take on Joe Paterno’s historic 409th win, click here. For a recap of the Top 25 action, click here. And for highlights from SI.com, click here.

• No. 13 Nebraska 24, No. 9 Michigan State 3:  From Friday: “The Huskers are only better than average at defending the pass, but will have to be better than better to contain Kirk Cousins. In opposing possessions, the real story will be whether State’s second-ranked defense will be able to contain a Nebraska ground attack that’s just as potent as the Badgers’. How much luck did the Spartans need to win in Week 8, and has it run out?”

A bit, and yes, as it happens:

Cousins missed on 12 of his first 16 passes. He was intercepted on the Spartans’ first possession, was nearly picked off three other times and often threw into double coverage.

And the containment of Cousins was only the beginning of the Spartans’ tribulations this afternoon. State managed just 86 yards through the air on 11 completed passes (with 22 Cousins attempts) but found no refuge in the ground attack, gaining just 101 yards. The Huskers eschewed the pass almost entirely in the game’s early stages, with zero net passing yards recorded at halftime, relying instead on Rex Burkhead’s 130 yards on 35 carries. Burkhead recorded all three of Nebraska’s scores, running for two touchdowns and catching another from Taylor Martinez.

Discounted entirely as a legitimate outfit after that unfortunate Week 5 depantsing against Wisconsin, the Huskers now sit atop the Legends Division standings, with no competition ahead of them (Penn State and Michigan are the only ranked teams remaining in their November schedule) scarier than what they’ve already faced. [RECAP | BOX]

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From the annals of odd: Geno Smith and West Virginia actually lost to Syracuse in 2010. (US PRESSWIRE)

Suppose it’s too much to hope for a streaker dressed as a ref to invade a game two nights in a row, right?

• No. 11 West Virginia @ Syracuse, 8:00 p.m. ET, ESPN:  I asked my Syracuse-educated producer, the divine Mallory Rubin, whether she, too, thought Geno Smith might throw for 500 yards against her alma mater this Saturday. Her response: “I’m worried he might throw for 600.” Last year on Homecoming Saturday in Morgantown, Geno Smith was intercepted three times and sacked five by the Orange. This year’s Mountaineer offensive line is allowing little more than one sack per game, and while Syracuse DB Phillip Thomas ranks in the national top 15 for picks, his interceptions have all come against Rutgers and Rhode Island. The Mountaineers have proven in recent weeks they can run (they just don’t feel like it) thanks to freshman Dustin Garrison, but up against the nation’s 86th-ranked pass efficiency defense, why would they even want to?

• Rutgers @ Louisville, 8:00 p.m. ET, ESPN2: Do not adjust your television set. That is Rutgers you see atop the Big East standings with a 5-1 record. The Scarlet Knights came by that record thanks at least in part to an extremely favorable schedule that included an FCS opener, a middling MAC team, Syracuse and a floundering Navy squad. They split their two highest-profile opponents, beating Pitt by 24 and losing to UNC by two, and should look comfortable against the Cardinals tonight. Past Week 8, the schedule takes a sharp uptick in degree of difficulty with West Virginia and South Florida paying calls, but beyond that, only Army, Cincinnati and UConn stand in the way of an extremely favorable bowl bid. The Scarlet Knights’ top 20 defense should hold up solidly against a Louisville outfit averaging 16 points per game and starting a true freshman at quarterback.

T.Y. Hilton and FIU will look to upset shaky Louisville on Friday night. (Icon SMI)

One last round of weeknight appetizers before the binges of Saturday:

• FIU @ Louisville, 7:00 p.m. ET (ESPN): Florida International could beat an AQ team. Could you have gotten that sentence out without choking on bile a year ago? It was just about this time in September 2010 that the Golden Panthers were on their way to an 0-4 start — a mark they achieved by falling to Rutgers by five points, Texas A&M by seven and putting up valiant first-half fights against Maryland and Pitt before going on to more significant losses. At the end of the season they walked away with the Sun Belt trophy. Who’ll sleep on them in 2011? And even if Louisville doesn’t, can they pull out a win?

The Cardinals experienced significant misfires against Murray State. Quarterback Sunny Will Stein is a sentimental favorite, but backup phenom Teddy Bridgewater couldn’t put it together in his first collegiate appearance, and turnover problems plagued the team. With so many new moving parts, it’s as difficult to draw a real bead on what’s going on with Charlie Strong’s boys after one game against an FCS team as it is to assess FIU after last week’s shellacking of North Texas. But this wouldn’t be the dumbest Week 2 upset pick you could make.

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