Just imagine Oregon’s mascot tackling one of these things. (AP)

• BEE CEE ESS. The latest BCS standings are here, and your freshly hatched BCS No. 1 is Kansas State; the post-Week 11 AP Poll is here, too, and Oregon is the new No. 1. Dan Wetzel explores an upside-down universe in which Notre Dame needs to catch a break.

• Bowling season draws nigh. A second FBS team has locked in a postseason bid, as BYU has accepted an invitation to the Poinsettia Bowl. This season hasn’t gone as smoothly for the Cougars as they might have hoped, but there are certainly worse places to while away a few winter days than San Diego. Stewart Mandel updates SI.com’s bowl projections, this week featuring Georgia Tech, Syracuse, Missouri and SMU.

• The Marquess Wilson thing. Just so we’re all caught up, here’s what we know right now: Washington State suspended star receiver Marquess Wilson, who subsequently announced he was leaving the team and dropped accusations of abuse on his way out. Here’s a StoryStream from our friends at CougCenter, tracing the winding path of these developments. Here’s a Spokesman-Review interview with Dennis Simmons, Wilson’s position coach, on Wilson’s allegations. And here’s Washington State’s president asking for both an internal investigation and one from the Pac-12.

Read More…

Jerome Smith ran for 144 yards, including a 35-yard third-quarter touchdown, in Syracuse’s win over Louisville. (AP)

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

• Syracuse 45, No. 11 Louisville 26. The number of undefeated teams in FBS play dropped from six to five following today’s first flight of games, with the Big East becoming the latest conference to lose its last unbeaten program. The Cardinals fell behind less than three minutes into the game, on a 20-yard ‘Cuse field goal, and would tie the score twice in the first quarter, but they never held a lead over the unranked Orange. Three Syracuse touchdowns in the second quarter gave the underdogs a comfortable cushion that they wouldn’t surrender.

Syracuse’s Ryan Nassib threw for 246 yards and three touchdowns on just 15 completions. He was balanced on the ground by a 144-yard, one-touchdown rushing performance from Jerome Smith and a 99-yard, two-score effort from Prince-Tyson Gulley. Alec Lemon was by far the favored target of the afternoon, as he finished with nine receptions for 176 yards and two touchdowns. For the Cardinals, Teddy Bridgewater accounted for 422 passing yards and 17 rushing yards all by his lonesome. Louisville’s total net offensive output was 472 yards.

Spinning this forward: The Cardinals now trail Rutgers in the Big East title race; the Scarlet Knights are 4-0 in league play with Cincinnati, Pitt and Louisville left on the schedule. Syracuse can clinch bowl eligibility with a win in either of its final two games, at Missouri or at Temple. [BOX | RECAP]

Read More…

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

Desmond Howard as Chip Kelly, Chris Fowler as Nick Saban, Lee Corso as Bill Snyder and Kirk Herbstreit as Will Muschamp. (Phil Ellsworth/ESPN Images)

• Scariest Halloween costumes: America’s beloved Saturday morning college football preshow hosts, particularly Kirk Herbstreit. There’s just something unaccountably sinister about a Will Muschamp face that does not move. Spoooooky.

• Brightest light in darkest night: Will Stein, doing a little Keg O’Nails standing after Louisville’s Friday night overtime win.

Read More…

This is your regular reminder that Cincinnati’s quarterback is named “Munchie Legaux.” (AP)

You have a choice when it comes to how you spend your Friday nights. Choose wisely. Choose college football. We’re here to help. 

Cincinnati at No. 16 Louisville

• What information do I, the discerning consumer, require in order to consume this game? The Bearcats and Cardinals kick off Friday at 8 p.m. ET in Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium. The game will be televised on ESPN and streamed on WatchESPN. Tonight’s contest also marks the 52nd installment of the Keg of Nails rivalry, which stretches all the way back to 1929.

• Is there anything crueler in sports than not being allowed to bring outside food into a stadium named after Papa John’s Pizza? Being at Legion Field for the PapaJohns.com Bowl (RIP) when they ran out of pizza, maybe.

• Please explain this “Keg of Nails” thing. From Cincinnati’s sports information department, some illuminating facts: “The winner of Saturday’s game gets the keg of nails, one of the more unique rivalry trophies with a somewhat vague origin. The trophy is a replica of a keg used to ship nails.” How can you argue with that? You cannot.

• What’s at stake here? Cincinnati currently holds a four-game winning streak in the series, which you may reasonably suspect might come to an end tonight. But as with most weeknight football, you never can tell. Neither squad has a conference loss; the 7-0 Cardinals have a regular-season edge over the 5-1 Bearcats. Whichever team emerges victorious this evening will stay with Rutgers as one of the last two unbeatens in Big East conference play. For more on tonight’s football happenings, please see our full preview.

Read More…

Stephon Tuitt and Notre Dame sacked Riley Nelson four times in a victory over BYU. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Snap Judgments from the Week 8 midday slate. For more, check out our early Snaps, late Snaps, our coverage of South Carolina-Florida, Kansas State-West Virginia, Oregon-Arizona State and our complete Top 25 review.

• No. 5 Notre Dame 17, BYU 14. We will now dispense the first piece of news you interested parties who missed the game will want to hear: Tommy Rees started at quarterback for the Fighting Irish, with Andrew Hendrix in to run a few plays and no action for Everett Golson, who was recovering from a concussion. We will now dispense with the second piece of news you interested parties who missed the game will want to hear: Notre Dame allowed its first offensive touchdown since its Sept. 8 matchup with Purdue.

Rees wasn’t asked to do much, and he attempted only three passes in the entire second half. He finished 7-of-16 for 117 yards, a touchdown and an interception. The Irish offense functioned mostly on the footwork of Theo Riddick, who had a career day with 143 yards on just 15 carries, and Cierre Wood, who totaled 114 yards on 18 carries. Tyler Eifert led Irish receivers with four catches for 73 yards and a score. We feel like we’ve used the phrase “supposedly vaunted defense” a lot this year, but the Cougars were allowing an average of fewer than 68 yards against the run coming into South Bend Saturday.

BYU was also operating under a sometimes backup quarterback, with Riley Nelson making his second start since Taysom Hill sustained a season-ending knee injury against Utah State. (You’ll recall Nelson, like Rees, has prior starting quarterback experience.) Nelson completed 22-of-35 attempts for 172 yards, two touchdowns and two picks, and he was sacked four times. His final interception ended BYU’s would-be comeback drive deep in Cougar territory with 22 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. [BOX | RECAP]

Read More…

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.

Read More…

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.

Read More…

We know, David Ash. We can’t wait for Texas’ Week 6 game against West Virginia, either. (AP)

Snap Judgments from the Week 5 evening slate. For more coverage, check out midday Snaps and early Snaps, Holly Anderson’s coverage of Baylor-West Virginia, Andy Staples’ coverage of Ohio State-Michigan State, Stewart Mandel’s coverage of Stanford-Washington and our complete Top 25 review.

• No. 12 Texas 41, Oklahoma State 36: It may be impossible, even for devoted students of hyperbole such as ourselves, to demonstrate how much we’re looking forward to next week’s Texas-West Virginia game. Texas quarterback David Ash is going to draw statistical comparisons, over the course of this week, to Geno Smith, comparisons in which he will fall short in a numerical sense, even having faced a Cowboys’ defense that was missing several key components.

But for those of you who study the delicate science of clutchology, witness the Longhorns’ final scoring drive in Stillwater tonight, in which Ash hit D.J. Grant with a pass that resulted in a 29-yard gain, a pass caught so quickly it looked like a flicker in the cable feed on our crummy hotel television, and then less than a minute later connected with Mike Davis over the top of a Cowboys defender for 32 yards more. OUR NOTES ARE ALL IN CAPS AT THIS POINT, PROBABLY BECAUSE GUS JOHNSON WAS CALLING THIS GAME, BUT ALSO BECAUSE BOTH OF THESE PLAYS WERE REALLY NEAT.

Two plays later, Joe Bergeron tried to punch in a touchdown from two yards out and, depending on which shade of orange you prefer, either scored heroically or fumbled the ball and was handed a score by an inept set of officials. (On our subpar viewing monitor, it didn’t look like a score, but we weren’t there. What we do know is that we agree with our colleague Andy Staples that this was one of those games that just begged for ref suspensions. Bad calls went to both sides.)

Read More…

Georgia’s defense stifled Vandy; the ‘Dores went 2-of-14 on third-down conversions. (Getty Images)

Snap Judgments from the Week 4 late slate. For more coverage, check out our early Snaps, midday Snaps and complete Top 25 review. Also check out our coverage of Florida State-Clemson, Kansas State-Oklahoma and Notre Dame-Michigan.

• No. 5 Georgia 48, Vanderbilt 3: “I don’t have any complaints at all,” said Mark Richt following his Bulldogs’ casual mauling of the Commodores. Nor should he: Georgia finished with 567 yards of offense in its second conference win, held the ‘Dores to a single field goal and made its opponent look not terribly unlike the Vandy of old. “The numbers show that we’re executing well,” said Richt. So, too, did the scoreboard.

The Dawgs’ latest plug-and-play tailback, freshman Todd Gurley, led all rushers with 130 yards on 16 carries, and he recorded Georgia’s first and final scores. Aaron Murray enjoyed a bit of moderate exercise, completing 18-of-24 pass attempts for 250 yards and two touchdowns. Jarvis Jones sacked Jordan Rodgers on fourth-and-eight for an 11-yard loss in the third quarter that brought the house down.

Vanderbilt had 15 first downs tonight to Georgia’s 29. It converted 2-of-12 third downs. It was very nearly tripled up in rushing yards, 103 to 301. (Did we mention Georgia had more than 300 rushing yards? Georgia had more than 300 rushing yards. We’re not the only ones eyeing that Oct. 6 Bulldogs-Gamecocks matchup with increasingly rabid anticipation.)

“We talked about how this is the first [conference] game of seven in a row,” said Richt, “and how important it is to win every single one of them to get where we want to go. But you have to take them one at a time. We have a lot of respect for Vanderbilt.” We almost believe him. [BOX | RECAP]

Read More…

Tracking the zeitgeist of college football’s third weekend through social media:

Will the Cougs be Leaching Las Vegas w/ a win?

— Michael Felder (@InTheBleachers) September 15, 2012

Terrible kill by Marquess Wilson. #Pac12Volleyball

— edsbs (@edsbs) September 15, 2012

Very appropriate ending to the football equivalent of raccoons rummaging through garbage cans. Sure it’s fun to watch, but what a mess.

— Ralph D. Russo (@ralphDrussoAP) September 15, 2012

@edsbs Too bad Carter had to give up the magician gig due to ESPN’s ‘no Christian magicians’ policy. Same thing happened to Olbermann.

— Flubber McGee (@FlubberMcGee) September 15, 2012

Deon Bucannon’s four-way head turn there was magnificent toddler-opera: 1. “DAWG!” 2 wait 3. Naw I was– 4. DANG [flag]

— edsbs (@edsbs) September 15, 2012

Read More…