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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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]

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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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Matt McGloin threw for two touchdowns and rushed for the go-ahead score in PSU’s 39-28 win. (Getty Images)

Snap Judgments from the Week 6 early slate. For more, check out our midday Snaps, late Snaps coverage of LSU-Florida, Georgia-South Carolina, West Virginia-Texas and complete Top 25 review.

• Penn State 39, No. 24 Northwestern 28. Pat Fitzgerald’s herd of cats was 5-0 and well on its way to a 6-0 start, a feat unequaled by any Northwestern squad since 1962. The Wildcats had one conference win and three victories over AQ nonconference opponents to their credit. So, naturally, Week 6 was when they ran into a fourth-quarter buzzsaw in the form of … Penn State?

Pointed momentum swings characterized Saturday’s contest. The Nittany Lions jumped out to a 10-0 lead, only to see the Wildcats retake the scoreboard and then some, carrying a 28-17 lead after three quarters. Then, for lack of a better description for what happened next, the fourth quarter commenced and Penn State proceeded to outgain Northwestern 186-23. Matt McGloin displayed some serious poise in this period, passing for a touchdown, running for a two-point conversion and scoring again on a five-yard run with less than three minutes to play. Penn State scored three unanswered touchdowns in the fourth quarter, the last coming on a Michael Zordich three-yard run precisely one minute after McGloin’s dash for the end zone.

Wildcat fans might be wondering about now why Venric Mark took a knee on a kick return with 2:37 remaining after he’d already returned a punt 75 yards for a score at the end of the third quarter. They might also be flexing their claws (because they’re cats!) at the sight of Mark and Kain Colter, averaging a combined 180-plus rushing yards heading into today’s contest, finishing with a mere 96 combined. But Penn State has now won four straight, including two in league play. A fitting beginning, maybe, to a curious day of football. [BOX | RECAP]

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Uga IX makes a friend: twitter.com/si_vault/statu…

— Andy Gray (@si_vault) October 2, 2012

We could use a dog photo today. You could, too. Here is Uga IX, né Russ, holding down the fort between the hedges.

• NEWS UPDATE OF VITAL IMPORTANCE, I. “Alabama fan makes emergency landing, leaves plane in field to make Alabama-Ole Miss game.” As one does!

• NEWS UPDATE OF VITAL IMPORTANCE, II. “Couple marries at LSU tailgate” isn’t that surprising of a headline, but let’s turn the floor over to the Louisiana reader who sent this in for commentary and context:

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“Psst. Hey, Colby Cameron, lookit me! I’m an AP Poll voter! I’m gonna slot Texas Tech in over you, no matter what!” (AP)

• Sonny Dykes will remember your insolence. It’s fruitless to worry over college football polls when one has no power to change them, but what else are we going to do at this hour on a Monday morning? We have followed the progress of the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs with interest since seeing them come perilously close to knocking off TCU in last season’s Poinsettia Bowl. They are currently 4-0 and have beaten Illinois and Virginia in nonconference play over the past two weeks (earning $1.6 million for those two road trips). They are not even close to cracking the AP Top 25, or the exercise in mass self-delusion we continue to refer to as the Coaches’ Poll. This is stupid and gross. Would you like to know more? Peruse our favorite Monday read, Bryan Fischer’s Poll Attacks.

• Or an Urbz-Dantonio glower-off, at 20 paces, at dawn. Ohio State doctored game footage it sent to Michigan State, says Michigan State’s defensive coordinator. “MSU associate athletic director John Lewandowski said MSU athletic director Mark Hollis and Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith settled the issue between them, with no Big Ten involvement,” says the Detroit Free Press. We imagine this matter was resolved with one extremely tense game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. (Did you know they make a travel version of this game now? We have one in our guest room. It’s like a little terrarium of potential sibling warfare. This post is in no way sponsored by Hasbro, which would not approve of some of the words we said to our little brother over the last marble.)

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Tracking the zeitgeist of college football’s fourth weekend through social media (for entertainment purposes only):

On Twitter, every high-scoring game is bad defense, every low-scoring game bad offense. No one is good at anything in college football.

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) September 29, 2012

My kingdom for an MSU fan to answer a marriage proposal with “Next question…” on GameDay

— Brian Floyd (@BrianMFloyd) September 29, 2012

I really want to ask John L. Smith for medical advice. I bet he uses the word “crystals” at least six times.

— sir broosk (@celebrityhottub) September 29, 2012

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Central Michigan scored a win for the MAC by knocking off Iowa in the final seconds. (Matthew Holst/Getty Images)

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

This will mark our fifth season tracking the record of non-AQ programs against teams from power conferences, for no other reason than liking to watch where the numbers go. We’re not sure we’ve ever seen a weekend produce a winning record for a mid-major league that involved more than one or two games. But glory be to the MAC, which played seven games against BCS-favored opponents, and won four. (Yes, we’re even including Northern Illinois’ win over Kansas, even though Kansas is Kansas. COUNT IT.)

MAC teams beat one Big Ten team, two Big East teams and one Big 12 team. Directional Michigan schools had a particularly grand weekend, with Central Michigan knocking off Iowa and Western Michigan laying out UConn. Eastern Michigan also acquitted itself admirably, putting up a dogged fight against Michigan State.

The fifth big winner of Week 4 was the gaudiest: Louisiana Tech, a team with qualities we have been relentlessly touting since last December or so, mowed down Illinois on the road, 52-24. The Bulldogs currently field the nation’s third-ranked scoring offense and have two more high-profile nonconference matchups in the next three weeks: at Virginia and home against Texas A&M. Stay tuned; they’re our favorites behind Ohio to finish the 2012 regular season undefeated.

Speaking of the Bobcats: They’re through their nonconference gauntlet after a Week 4 win over Norfolk State and received 40 votes in this week’s AP Poll. The only other non-AQ teams on that list are Boise State at No. 24 and Louisiana Tech, which received seven votes.

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Markus Wheaton caught nine passes for 150 yards and a touchdown in Oregon State’s upset win. (Getty Images)

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

• Oregon State 27, UCLA 20: Through three weeks, UCLA’s Johnathan Franklin led the nation in rushing thanks to the generosity of Rice, Nebraska and Houston, rolling up 541 yards and three touchdowns. Today against Oregon State, he recorded 45 yards on 12 carries. UCLA would finish with just 71 net yards rushing, though quarterback Brett Hundley seemed perfectly happy to just produce all of the Bruins’ offense by himself. Hundley completed 27-of-42 pass attempts for 386 yards and a touchdown. A gaudy total, but nobody’s handing out points for high passing numbers. (Somewhere tonight, Les Miles is startled to hear this.)

On the opposite sideline, how many lay people outside the Pac-12 could even name Oregon State’s starting quarterback heading into this season? Sean Mannion had a memorable star turn on a career night, with 379 yards through the air and two touchdown passes. You want gaudy? Behold the stat lines of his most favored targets: Brandin Cooks, with six catches for 173 yards, and Markus Wheaton, with nine catches for 150 yards.

Spinning this forward: What on earth are we to make of the Beavers, who’ve now beaten their second ranked opponent in as many tries after going 3-9 overall a year ago? Oregon State could make it three in a row if next week’s foe, current No. 22 Arizona, is still ranked after tonight’s meeting with No. 3 Oregon. Either way, that game certainly looks more interesting than it did a month ago. [RECAP | BOX]

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Joe Southwick has completed 39-of-62 pass attempts for 473 yards and two touchdowns in two games as Boise State’s new starting quarterback. (AP)

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

• What information do I, the discerning consumer, need to consume this game? The Cougars and Broncos kick off tonight on the blue turf of Boise at 9 p.m. ET. The game will be televised on ESPN and streamed on WatchESPN.

• Do my eyes deceive me? Is this an Actual Football Game? Maybe! Boise State’s back in the rankings at No. 24, following a valiant loss to Michigan State, an early bye and a thumping win over Miami (Ohio). BYU started strong with wins over a still-gestating Washington State squad and FCS pushover Weber State, then promptly lost (and lost, and lost again) to a Utah team playing without its starting quarterback. Not a whole lot of data points to go by just yet.

• Who has more to lose here? Probably Boise. BYU could still grab national attention and votes behind strong showings at Notre Dame and Georgia Tech later on, but the Cougars are the highest-profile opponent on the Broncos’ remaining schedule. From here on out, it’s all Mountain West teams and an October trip to Southern Miss for Boise. The Broncos will have to rely, as they have done for years now, on notching a signature win or two and blowing out conference-mates to hang on in the rankings. So far in 2012, that signature win has yet to be recorded.

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