Stefphon Jefferson has clearly just caught a look at the New Mexico Bowl scoreboard here. (AP)

• My god, it’s full of stats. Just for funsies, and maybe also because we’re football-free until Thursday, here is a list of NCAA bowl records broken by Nevada and Arizona in the 2012 New Mexico Bowl, via Wolf Pack sports info:

-Most plays (combined, both teams): Nevada-Arizona, 188 (Previous, 187, by Auburn-Northwestern in 2010 Outback Bowl).

-Most first downs: Nevada, 39 (Previous, 36—Oklahoma (48) vs. Virginia (14) (Gator, Dec. 29, 1991) (16 rush, 18 pass, 2 penalty); Marshall (64) vs. East Carolina (61) (2 ot) (GMAC, 2001) (9 rush, 25 pass, 2 penalty).

-Most first downs, both teams: Nevada-Arizona, 70 (Previous: 62—North Carolina St. (56) [34] vs. Kansas (26) [28] (Tangerine, 2003).

-Most first downs rushing: Nevada, 28 (Previous: 26—Oklahoma (40) vs. Auburn (22) (Sugar, Jan. 1, 1972); Navy (51) vs. Colorado St. (30) (Poinsettia, 2005).

-Most first downs rushing, both teams: Nevada-Arizona, 38 (Previous: 36—Colorado (47) [24] & Alabama (33) [12] (Liberty, 1969); Miami (FL) (46) [16] & Texas (3) [20] (Cotton, 1991).

An auspicious beginning to the postseason, no?

• Further bowltyme antics. In case you missed it last week, follow along with Stewart Mandel’s Bowl Pickoff right over here.

• Actual playoff happenings. Mount Union continues to do Mount Union things, gaining another D-III championship on Friday night … Valdosta State wrecked Winston-Salem State in the Division II title game … Sam Houston State and North Dakota State will face off for the FCS championship.

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One day in the postseason, as told through social media. Recap Arizona’s win over Nevada and Utah State’s rout of Toledo with Campus Union’s Snap Judgments.

DON WE NOW OUR BASIC APPAREL #NewMexicoBowl

— Holly Anderson (@SIHolly) December 15, 2012

@siholly Since I’m eating potatoes during the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, do I eat my sweatshirts during the Gildan New Mexico Bowl?

— Jacob Bounds (@QuivPonySwag) December 15, 2012

If you stare at the end zones of the New Mexico Bowl long enough, you will literally go blind: twitter.com/lukezim/status…

— Luke Zimmermann (@lukezim) December 15, 2012

I actually rushed home to see the New Mexico Bowl end zones. They did not disappoint. I’m using it to calibrate my TV. #ff0000

— Tom McGrath (@TCMcG) December 15, 2012

the gildan new mexico crystal bowl presented by mountain dew code red

— Martin Rickman (@martinrickman) December 15, 2012

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Do not adjust your monitors: That’s a defensive player (Marquis Flowers, No. 2 above) saving the day for Arizona. (AP)

Quick hits on the first Saturday of the 2012 college football bowl season. Recap the best Twitter action from today’s bowl games with the Campus Union Laff Riot.

• New Mexico Bowl: Arizona 49, Nevada 48: Just because this is almost exactly what we were expecting out of the New Mexico Bowl doesn’t mean it was any less satisfying to watch. Like the season proper, bowl season will contain all manner of football. There will be scoring barrages and slogs, footraces under the south Florida sun and grinding stops in the snow. But we can’t think of anything more proper to kick off the postseason than a fireworks show.

It took the Wolf Pack just more than two minutes to score their first touchdown, which seemed an appropriate length of time given Arizona’s defense. The manner of the scoring was also not unexpected, with Stefphon Jefferson motoring for a 16-yard rushing touchdown. What we did not expect to see was Arizona punting on the ensuing possession … and again on the Wildcats’ second possession. With a 17-yard scoring pass from Cody Fajardo to tight end Zach Sudfeld, Nevada went up 14-0, and the Wildcats gamely dug a deeper hole for themselves by fumbling the kickoff return. The Pack recovered, and on the very next play from scrimmage, Fajardo and Sudfeld teamed up again for a 28-yard score. (This all despite Sudfeld, according to the broadcast team, suffering from the lingering effects of stomach flu.) This being Nevada and Arizona, all this took place in the first 11 minutes of the ballgame.

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Who will succeed Steve Addazio in snuggling the New Mexico Bowl trophy? (AP)

The 2012 New Mexico Bowl is just hours away. We’re sure you have so many questions. We’re here to help. (For an X’s and O’s breakdown, click through to Zac Ellis’ game preview.)

• What’s all this, then? The New Mexico Bowl kicks off the 2012-2013 postseason. You are going to want to watch it, because for a mid-December bowl game, it features some fine pointy football. The nation’s top two rushers, Ka’Deem Carey of Arizona and Stefphon Jefferson of Nevada, are each averaging more than 140 yards per game on the ground.

• Where will this game be played? University Stadium in Albuquerque, New Mexico, home of the Lobos and host to the bowl since its inception in 2006.

• Have the Lobos ever been in this game? Twice, actually, in the bowl’s first two years. New Mexico is 1-1 in the New Mexico Bowl.

• When is it on television? The game is scheduled for 1 p.m. ET; an 11 a.m. local kickoff. The action will be televised on ESPN (and in 3D, for some reason) and streamed on WatchESPN.

• Whom does it feature? The Mountain West versus the Pac-12.

• What about this year? The 7-5 Nevada Wolfpack accepted their bowl invitation before they’d even played their final Mountain West game. They’ll face 7-5 Arizona out of the Pac-12. This will mark the Pack’s second appearance in this particular postseason contest; they lost 23-0 to New Mexico in 2007.

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• With a Champoline, bien sûr. Shutdown Fullback welcomes the 2012 postseason by drinking on  trampoline and discussing (sort of) the impending New Mexico Bowl:

A felicitous bowl season to all.

• Oh, you wanted football. Bill Connelly breaks down this weekend’s bowl action in New Mexico and Potato previews that contain maths.

• “Actual division names TBD.” Time to dredge up all those Ro-Tel-infested, be-Barbasoled threads concerning the infinite list of possibilites that would have made better division names than Leaders and Legends, for redistricting time in the Big Ten is upon us. This will in no way end with heartbreak and nationwide derision, particularly not if they go with that Hunger Games-inspired “inner-outer” arrangement.

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• By the time you see this post, all of this information will be out of date. Just keep this soothing mantra in your minds, and we’ll all get through this together:

When it all boils down, we’re all members of the Human Race Conference. #footballhugs

— Good Bull Hunting (@GBHunting) November 28, 2012

Change begets stress, and even good stress is stress, our mama has always said, so continue those deep, cleansing breaths while you read these releases from Middle Tennessee State and Florida Atlantic announcing their intent to join Conference USA in 2014. Karl Benson is making solar puns in all caps, so give him a little hug if you see him. And our pal Steven Godfrey finally realizes why Rutgers cut him off for a story a couple weeks back.

The Sun Sentinel is reporting that Western Kentucky and New Mexico State may be next, so if it’s all right with y’all we’re going to wait until next week to re-revise our handy realignment graphic.

• Bowltyme! Our postseason schedule is up and running, with new bowl teams added as they’re announced. It’s also in a font large enough for you to read first thing in the morning without your glasses a couple weeks from now, when you sit upright in bed and are terrified you have overslept into the New Mexico Bowl.

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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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Will Kent State’s Dri Archer earn a return to his home state of Florida this postseason? (AP)

• Peasants at the gates! Utah State and San Jose State make their first appearances in the BCS rankings, while Northern Illinois enters the BCS Top 25 for the first time in 2012. Are we in for some surprise gate-crashers in the big-money bowls after all? Maybe. Allow SMQ to explain it all for you: “So even for the winner, the potential stakes in the MAC title game range from the Orange Bowl to the GoDaddy.com Bowl, with nothing in between.” And remember not to overlook this Friday’s NIU-Kent State showdown while penciling the Golden Flashes in for a trip to Florida.

• Cajuns to New Orleans to repeat legendary tailgating feats. Bowl invitations issued over the weekend: Utah State to a second consecutive Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, Nevada to the New Mexico Bowl and the Ragin’ Cajuns to their second New Orleans Bowl. Now, we didn’t see the Cajuns in their postseason appearance in person last year, but we have been to New Orleans for college football games, and been to tailgates in Lafayette, and this game just became our first mandatory trip of the postseason. Stewart Mandel’s latest bowl projections can be found here, freshly updated with all invited teams.

• Coach firin’ season, continued. Jon Embree tells the Denver Post he’d been told just last week that his job was safe … one Post columnist calls Embree’s ouster shameful and unjust … Marshall’s defensive coordinator has resigned … and Ellis Johnson’s press conference has been canceled, with a team meeting scheduled for 4:00. Nothing to see here!

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Louisiana-Lafayette fans (and mascot Cayenne) celebrated the Ragin' Cajuns New Orleans Bowl win over San Diego State in style. (Icon SMI)

• Bowltyme! Important takeaways from the first three contests of the college football bowl season: Wyoming fans are people you want to party with. Louisiana fans, even more so. Maybe give Louisiana’s S&C coach a wide berth. Illegal stemming: It’s a thing! Penn Wagers: doin’ Penn Wagers things. A Cowboys extra point attempt very nearly triggered our long-standing “hit both uprights and the crossbar and you win the game” rule. It was the play of the day, until the last play of the night. And I know you’ve found yourselves wondering: Just how are these three contests like artisanal pork products? [Recaps: Temple 37-Wyoming 15; Ohio 24-Utah State 23; Louisiana 32-San Diego State 30]

• A souvenir football on every mantel: In non-FBS goings-on: Mars Hill’s Jonas Randolph is having a pretty good week. Pittsburgh State wins its second DII title in program history. Wisconsin-Whitewater captures a third consecutive Division III national championship. And the States of Sam Houston and North Dakota will vie for the FCS title in January.

• Fresh coaches, bought and sold! Amid speculation he might leave for the Pitt job, Paul Rhoads has re-upped with Iowa State. Reportedly out of the Akron and Southern Miss coaching searches, respectively: Pat Narduzzi and Kirby Smart. And take a minute today to read about the effect outgoing Iowa defensive coordinator Norm Parker had on one former player. And Gary Crowton will do … something … at Maryland.

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The New Mexico, Famous Idaho Potato and New Orleans bowls take place on Saturday, Dec. 17.

Three bowl games of varying degrees of glory kick off the 2011 postseason. Study up!

New Mexico Bowl (Temple vs. Wyoming): 2 p.m. ET, ESPN.

Read the preview:

The first bowl of the postseason features two programs with something to prove. Last season, Al Golden’s Temple squad finished 8-4 but was the only bowl-eligible team with more than six wins not to receive a postseason invitation. First-year Temple coach Steve Addazio helped the Owls avoid another snub in 2011 with a stingy defense and run-based offense that scored at least 34 points in seven of eight victories behind the nation’s seventh-best rushing attack (257 yards per game). Meanwhile, Wyoming aims to brand the New Mexico Bowl as its own by seeking the program’s second straight victory in the Albuquerque classic.

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