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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Dorial Green-Beckham made the biggest news of the day by signing with Missouri. (AP)

SI.com’s Signing Day live blog is a maelstrom of activity. Our friends at Rivals are also conducting a live Signing Day chat, if that’s your thing. And because no one is more committed to bringing you news of children smugly selecting hats from cafeteria tables, we present our unofficial scoreboard of announcements for the day.

Clubhouse leaders

1. Kwon Alexander, LB, LSU: Employed purple bowtie and suspenders.

2. Justin Taylor, RB, Kentucky: Shrugged off Alabama’s grayshirt offer.

3. Kyle Dodson, OT, Ohio State: Spit rhymes!

4. Dorial Green-Beckham, WR, Missouri: Is Dorial Green-Beckham.

5. Kevin Hart, OL, Missouri Western State: Is actually signing a for-real LOI this time.

6. Darius Hamilton, DL, Rutgers: Sticking with the scarlet sans Greg Schiano.

7. Bralon Addison, WR, Oregon: Flitted to the Ducks from the Pokes and Aggies after what seemed a why-not trip to Eugene.

8. JaQuay Williams, WR, Auburn: Reminds us why covering recruiting is maddening.

This board will be updated as events warrant. The top slot will automatically go to any player bringing out a baby animal at his signing announcement.

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Yep, that's a foul pole. (Icon SMI)

The 2011 Pinstripe Bowl is just days away. We’re sure you have so many questions. We’re here to help. (For an Xs and Os breakdown, check out Zac Ellis’ game preview.)

• What’s all this, then? Last year, football games at Yankee Stadium were a new and much be-hyped thing. This year it’s just a field mashed into a baseball diamond, hype not included.

• But to be fair, as football games in baseball diamonds go, this is still light-years ahead of that infamously cramped Northwestern-Illinois game at Wrigley Field in 2010, correct? Correct.

• When is it on television? Kickoff is scheduled for 3:20 p.m. on Friday, December 30. The game will be televised on ESPN.

• Whom does it feature? Designated conference tie-ins for the one year of this bowl’s existence are the Big East, Big 12 and Notre Dame.

• What about this year? We get 8-4 Rutgers versus 6-6 Iowa State.

• Who will call the game? Chris Fowler, Jesse Palmer and Tom Rinaldi will bring the action from New York to your living room.

• What on earth is Chris Fowler doing calling a bowl game for two teams with 10 losses between them? Think of ESPN, in this moment, as Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls, attempting to make “fetch” happen.

• Who sponsors the game? New Era Cap Company.

• Don’t they make baseball hats? Also other kinds of hats!

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Denard Robinson rushed for two touchdowns and passed for three more in a win over Ohio State. (US PRESSWIRE)

Snap Judgments from the Week 13 early shift. For swing shift Snaps, click here. For late Snaps, click here. For Andy Staples’ recap of LSU’s win over Arkansas, click here. For Staples’ take on Alabama’s rout of Auburn, click here. For a recap of all the Top 25 action, click here. For highlights from SI.com, click here. 

• No. 17 Michigan 40, Ohio State 34: I swear, looking at Michigan box scores week after week, you’d think nobody knows that Denard Robinson is a player who ought to be defended on the football field. This week’s reasons to put a body on Denard: 14 pass completions for 167 yards and three touchdowns and 26 rushes for 170 yards and two additional scores. This week’s reason a team might put bodies on Denard and still lose: The Michigan quarterback’s ability to place the football in the hands of running back Fitzgerald Toussaint, who will then do things like run for 120 yards.

Michigan’s defense, the year’s most reluctant talking point, must not be overlooked here. Ohio State’s Boom Herron was contained to 37 yards on 15 carries, his third consecutive sub-century game after running wild against Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana following his return from suspension. More problematic for the maize and blue was Braxton Miller, who cracked 100 yards rushing for just the third time this season (accomplished previously against Indiana and Penn State) while shattering his former personal best outing as a passer with 235 aerial yards and two touchdown passes. The Buckeyes hung with it early and late, turning a 16-7 first-quarter deficit into a 24-23 halftime lead and adding 10 more points in the fourth to make the margin of loss more than respectable.

Still, the streak ends here. The Wolverines, you’ll recall, hadn’t beaten the Buckeyes since November 2003. They can now start their own cheeky counter: “It has been two hours since Michigan beat Ohio State in football.” We’re also almost surely witnessing the end of the tenure of Luke Fickell, a Buckeyes lifer thrust into a near-impossible situation in the wake of NCAA scandal and Jim Tressel’s resignation.

Time now to look to the future: Miller appears to be a young quarterback with many fine double-threat attributes. Wonder where the Buckeyes will find a head man with experience coaching up such athletes? Anybody hear anything? [RECAP | BOX]

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After starting the season 0-2, Mark Richt's Georgia Bulldogs won nine in a row to claim the SEC East. (AP)

Snap Judgments from the Week 12 early shift. For late shift Snaps, click here. For swing shift Snaps, click here. For Stewart Mandel’s take on the BCS chaos, click here. For Andy Staples’ Nebraska-Michigan wrap, click here. To see how Top 25 teams fared, click here. For highlights from SI.com, click here.

• No. 13 Georgia 19, Kentucky 10: An uneasy afternoon for several SEC teams playing presumed gimme games began with one division very nearly folding in on itself.  But now the race is over, and the Georgia Bulldogs are the sacrificial critters who will be handed over in an early December ceremony to an SEC West team that will almost surely make mincemeat of them. My Athens-educated beau has been referring to today as “2 for $20 Saturday,” with slapdash games barely qualifying as football littering the schedule.

Georgia prevailed despite problems cropping up early and often in an area that has been fraught with drama this season: the tailback position. With Richard Samuel not slated to return from injury for several weeks and Carlton Thomas missing a game for unspecified personal reasons, the first drive of the game was about the worst possible time for freshly hatched star Isaiah Crowell to leave the game. He sprained an ankle during a collision with a teammate, and did not return. For what should be obvious reasons, the ground attack didn’t really gain any traction until the second half.

Aaron Murray appeared out of sync with his receivers, and promising drives were cut short by turnovers. We can let the defense escape largely without criticism; despite allowing one monster pass from Maxwell Smith to Matt Roark and committing a couple boneheaded penalties, Todd Grantham’s boys played lights-out ball. From here, of course, it only gets harder. [RECAP | BOX]

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Oklahoma State upended Robert Griffin III and Baylor, holding the Bears scorelss in the first half. (ZUMAPRESS.com)

Snap Judgments from the Week 9 swing shift. For early 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. 3 Oklahoma State 59, Baylor 24: I tell you what, sports fans, Oklahoma State was dressed for Halloween today, and Baylor played like a buncha zombies. HA! Sorry, that’s out of my system, but for real: The country’s 103rd-ranked defense just held the country’s second-ranked offense scoreless for an entire half, didn’t allow a touchdown before entering the fourth quarter with a 49-3 lead and finished with a 59-24 win despite being outgained, 622-599. Spookay!

Records were readily attained in Stillwater today: Joseph Randle and Justin Blackmon had career days on the ground and through the air, with 152 and 172 yards, respectively, and six touchdowns between them. Herschel Sims and Jeremy Smith were right behind Randle, recording 104 and 77 ground yards. It’s a mark of how spectacular the running game was for OSU that Brandon Weeden comes in here as almost an afterthought, with 24 completions for 264 yards, three touchdowns and no turnovers. (In a typical week, the Cowboys average closer to 387 passing yards, so this really was a slow day, only in ways that turned out not to matter.)

The ‘Pokes had help, mind: Baylor turned the ball over three times, played inefficient red-zone ball at crucial moments and diligently slathered its best receivers’ hands with sweet creamery butter before the start of every offensive series. All three Bears turnovers took place in Cowboy territory, and all took place in that astonishing first half of football.

And I want to know what, exactly, Art Briles was thinking calling out the field goal unit down 42-0 early in the third quarter. Did he think — and could he really be blamed for thinking? — that Oklahoma State’s first-half defensive performance was some kind of elaborate performance art, that the Cowboys would break character any second and that somewhere over the next half-hour those three points might count for something? Or has Tommy Bowden taken a job moonlighting as an offensive prowess advisor in Waco? [RECAP | BOX]

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Ryan Broyles and the Sooners are used to scoring at will against the Wildcats. (J.P. Wilson/Icon SMI)

Plot threads to track in Week 9:

• No. 11 Oklahoma @ No. 10 Kansas State: The Wildcats actually cracked the top 10 of the BCS standings this week, though they remain the lowest-ranked undefeated team outside of Conference USA. Since the beginning of October, voters and onlookers anxious to take the true measure of K-State have been waiting for this stretch of games, when home stands against Oklahoma and Texas A&M bookend a road trip in Week 10 to Oklahoma State.

Wildcats quarterback Collin Klein has his work cut out for him; he’s a running threat more than anything, but the Sooners are allowing a mere 117 yards per game on the ground. They’re even stingier against the pass, allowing 114 yards on average, but passing isn’t something K-State’s too keen on anyway. Klein’s offensive line will face an even stiffer test against a defensive front that’s producing sacks at the terrifying rate of close to four per game.

And lest we forget, Oklahoma has a little something going on offense as well, with Landry Jones captaining the nation’s fourth-ranked offense and the bulk of that production coming through the air. Bad news for the Wildcats, who’ve proven much more capable of stopping the run, and who were cut to ribbons by Robert Griffin in Week 5′s one-point victory over Baylor.

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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.