There is no such thing as a compelling photo of NCAA COI deliberations, so here is Sebastian in a vaguely menacing posture. (AP)

Assorted items of varying degrees of interest which you may have missed while grudgingly watching playoff football and sending surly tweets to the Golden Globes:

• The NCAA is Lucy, and Miami football is the football, and we are Charlie Brown running toward it, or something? This metaphor holds up only to demonstrate how very much we wish for this all to be over, but here we go: The Miami Herald is calling the release of NCAA allegations against the Hurricanes football program “imminent,” just short of the investigation’s two-year anniversary. Bylaw Blogger John Infante lays out all the ways this process could still be stalled, and how the Miami case might affect Oregon’s.

• Mike Stoops also a fan of Hi Haters Friday! Friday night, 6:06 p.m., Tulsa World‘s John E. Hoover posts a transcript excerpt of a Mike Stoops radio interview, specifically a question regarding Johnny Football: “They’re gonna be tough to deal with. If they can keep him out of jail or keep him eligible, he’s gonna be pretty good.” Friday night, 10:37 p.m., Tulsa World post headline: “Mike Stoops regrets controversial comments on Manziel.” Had Stoops’ defense possessed that kind of on-the-fly adaptability in the Cotton Bowl, perhaps Manziel would not have scored four touchdowns against it, PAAAOWL.

• Roster blotter. In better news for Miami: Seantrel Henderson, Brandon Linder and Curtis Porter announced Monday morning they all intend to return to the ‘Canes in 2013 … in even better news for Profiteroles fans, Dri Archer will stay on for his senior season at Kent State … Iowa State quarterback Jared “That Kid Who Beat Oklahoma State” Barnett and linebacker C.J. Morgan intend to transfer … Texas defensive tackle Brandon Moore will enter the draft … also declaring is USC corner Nickell Robey, whom we will dearly miss watching because of his too-perfect defensive name … Oregon linebacker Anthony Wallace will transfer … Case McCoy and Jordan Hicks have been reinstated at Texas … and Casey Pachall returns to the Horned Frogs.

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There are 11 conference races in FBS football, and heading into what will be their final Saturday of the regular season, only one — the WAC — has already crowned its champion. In every other league, and even among the independents where Army and Navy don’t play until next week, there’s at least a little room for movement at the top, if not an outright battle for the conference title. (For more in-depth preview content of this weekend’s SEC title game and other contests, visit Andy Staples’ Walkthrough.)

Georgia has a big game coming up. Of course there’s a song.

Actual Conference Championship Games, Actually

• Central Florida at Tulsa, 12:00 p.m. ET. In keeping with our tiebreaking theme, this game will serve as a best-of-three supremacy determiner: The Knights and Golden Hurricane are 1-1 all-time against each other when playing for the C-USA championship.

• Alabama vs. Georgia, 4:00 p.m. How many bowl scouts from games that can’t possibly hope to take Alabama or Georgia d’you reckon were awarded press credentials for this?

• Nebraska vs. Wisconsin, 8:00 p.m. If you like conference championship games featuring fewer than two division champs, this is the contest for you. Ohio State will celebrate its 12-0 regular season next Friday.

• Florida State vs. Georgia Tech, 8:00 p.m. It is technically still possible for a 6-6 team to receive a BCS bowl bid, at which point it would be a 7-6 team, which makes it all better, right? The majesty of the BCS!

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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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CAUTION: DO NOT KICK TO THIS PLAYER. HE WILL RUIN YOU. (Scott W. Grau/Icon SMI)

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

We lamented, last week, the loss of the best hope for a BCS-busting scenario in 2012, but please don’t think we’re writing off five conferences and the independents. This entire series is a labor of love, constructed to avoid precisely that notion. Louisiana Tech probably won’t make an appearance in the Orange Bowl, but the Bulldogs will be bowling somewhere. And after a week out of the national rankings, they’re right back in following their 70-28 obliteration of Idaho. All any team can ever do is beat every opponent placed in front of it, and should it stumble along the path to postseason glory, the absolute best thing a team can do is what LaTech is doing right now.

Tech clocks back in at No. 24 in the AP Poll, trailing Boise State at No. 21 and Ohio at No. 23 and ahead of Toledo, Tulsa and NIU stuck under the “also receiving votes” category. Ranked this week in the actual BCS standings: the Broncos at No. 21 and Bobcats at No. 24. This week marks the Bobcats’ first-ever appearance in the BCS standings.

First in votes also received, the Rockets really should’ve cracked the Top 25 this week, in our humble, unimportant opinion, after knocking off No. 21 Cincinnati. (If you missed it, this was one of the weirder games of the season, with Toledo recording a 29-23 victory without an offensive touchdown. Its scoring: A 75-yard interception return, a 91-yard kickoff return and five field goals.) Look for Toledo to make a for-real appearance in the polls next week if the Rockets can really pile it on at Buffalo this Saturday.

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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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Here we see Dri Archer running away from Buffalo’s defense. This happened a lot on Wednesday night. (AP)

• Kent State 23, Buffalo 7. It is expected, in major college football, that there will be punches and that those punches need to be rolled with, with all speed. Accidents happen. Injuries crop up. But we can’t really fault Buffalo for dropping a game in which four of its starters got knocked out, particularly when one of those was star running back Branden Oliver. Oliver missed the second half with what was announced as only a “leg injury”; strong safety Issac Baugh, wide receiver Fred Lee and defensive end Steven Means were also out by the end of the evening.

Also not helpful for Buffalo: Kent State running back Dri Archer. The junior edged out teammate Trayion Durham, 127 rushing yards to 112, our favorite being a 57-yard second-quarter scramble that included an ice-cold spin move to break a tackle. [BOX | RECAP]

• Daily inspiration. Disappointed in last night’s game? Understandable. But understand that better things lie ahead:

Heady move starting #MACtion with Kent State-Buffalo. Weeded out the flybys. For those with patience, it’ll be rewarded

— Brian Floyd (@BrianMFloyd) September 20, 2012

BYU and Boise State kick off at 9 p.m. ET. Join us, won’t you?

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ULM quarterback Kolton Browning edged the Warhawks past Arkansas and into history. (Wesley Hitt/Getty Images)

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

• HAIL TO THE SUN BELT, SURE IS A FUN BELT, RA RA RA! What could top Utah State’s thrilling Friday night victory over Utah? Nothing short of Louisiana-Monroe taking a top 10 SEC team to overtime, on the road, and pulling out the win on a fourth-down quarterback dash. Said quarterback, Kolton Browning, has since been named Davey O’Brien Quarterback of the Week and a Walter Camp National Player of the Week honoree. Browning accounted for 481 of ULM’s 550 yards of offense, and four of the Warhawks’ five touchdowns. The Warhawks have their first win over a ranked team since leveling up to FBS, and to round out the weekly awards, have been named Week 2′s Tostitos Fiesta Bowl National Team of the Week. Last week it was Ohio. (A moment of cynicism: We love the attention being bestowed on non-AQs more than just about anybody right now, but this Tostitos shout out is pretty adorable considering how nigh-impossible it would be for the Bobcats or the Warhawks to actually make it into the Fiesta Bowl.)

• It is barely Week 3 and we are already out of poll puns. Idle in Week 2, Boise State is unranked in both major polls for the first time in four years. BYU is the only ranked team in this week’s AP Poll at No. 25, with Boise State, ULM (whee!), Ohio and Utah State also receiving votes. The Aggies’ lone vote is the program’s first since 1966; the Warhawks’ 23 are their first in team history. We hesitate to even mention the Coaches’ Poll for fear of helping its continued legitimacy, but teams receiving votes from disinterested voting SIDs include Boise State, BYU, Louisiana Tech, Ohio, Nevada and ULM.

• EA Sports loves USA, after all. EA Sports personnel have been spotted in Mobile, making preparations to incorporate South Alabama into the next edition of NCAA Football.

• The best news. Tulane’s Devon Walker is reportedly “alert and responsive” following spinal surgery. Tulane has set up an assistance fund in his name; for more ways to support the Walker family, click here.

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Tired of reading exclusively about Missouri, Texas A&M and LSU heading into the weekend? We’ve got you covered. Read about the rest of the action in our Saturday Superlatives, which are kind of like preseason awards for the upcoming weekend of football, and just as binding. For additional preview content heading into Week 2, check out Andy Staples’ Walkthrough.

• Best Worst Anniversary. It’s Auburn-Mississippi State weekend, which means it’s the anniversary of No. 9 Auburn 3, Mississippi State 2. It also means it’s time to drag our favorite decrepit video down out of the bloggy attic.

We had what our parents called a “real job” in 2008, and constructed this 3-2 tribute video the Monday after the game on some ancient version of Quicktime while rendering something we were actually being paid to make in Final Cut. The video is grainy, but think of that aspect as a tribute to the quality of play captured. The end product is raggedy and not aging well, and it might just be the work we are most proud of in our entire lives.

Dan Mullen, discussing Auburn on his radio show tonight: “Hey, I’ll take a 3-2 win.” #2008

— Brandon Marcello (@bmarcello) September 7, 2012

PLEASE. PLEASE OH PLEASE. PLEASE MAKE THIS HAPPEN, DAN MULLEN POWERS. Week 2 proffers a uniquely terrible slate of games overall, and another 3-2 finish would be its crowning achievement. Auburn is looking to avoid an 0-2 start after an opening-week loss to Clemson, while Mississippi State is coming off a 56-9 win over Jackson State.

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Meet the new Boise. Same as the old Boise? If Joe Southwick has anything to say about it… (AP)

The return of our weekly highlight show of lesser FBS luminaries. Non-AQs and independents, be welcome. (Not you, Notre Dame; more on that at the bottom.)

• Time chasers. We mentioned this last week, but games we would most like to see played in other times: Boise State-Michigan State at the end of last year and Arkansas State-Oregon at the end of this one. The Broncos’ opening-week win streak was snapped, but not for a lack of effort on the part of Boise’s almost entirely rebuilt team. That Sept. 20 date with BYU is looking like appointment television about now. And we’re eager to see how Ryan Aplin and the Red Wolves develop offensively under Gus Malzahn as the season progresses against competition that’s more on their level. (Not included in this category: Memphis in Week 2. What do y’all reckon that score will look like?)

• ALL HAIL THE LORDS OF EARLY SEPTEMBER. Great show, Ohio. Now do it again, 11 more times. The Bobcats’ remaining regular season schedule, we remind you, consists of New Mexico State, Marshall, Norfolk State and eight MAC teams that finished with losing records in 2011. But this is MACtion, where accidents happen with a frenzied glee.

• HOUSTON. LOOK AT YOUR LIFE. LOOK AT YOUR CHOICES. We liked Houston. We really, really did. We agreed with noted football robot Paul Myerberg that the Cougars looked like a good bet to take the West, and look where that got us. Either Dennis Franchione has quietly built a program capable of winning in its first year of FBS competition, or Houston is flailing its way to a 2012 face plant. Or, heavens forfend — both. We know, at least, what Tony Levine thinks.

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Penn State players will face an emotional opening game — and a potential upset — against Ohio. (AP)

Kind of like preseason awards for the upcoming weekend of football, and just as binding:

• Best hi-lo upset potential: Ohio @ Penn State. From a football perspective it’s doable, with a loaded Bobcats squad visiting the depleted Nittany Lions. Both teams will be high-strung: On one sideline, Ohio will be facing its highest-profile game of the year (even if it reaches the MAC title game) and the trickiest obstacle to hurdle en route to a potential undefeated season. The home team will be beating the WE ARE STILL PENN STATE drums after an offseason of scandal. But the stakes are very different for each side. An Ohio win in State College will set the Bobcats on a downhill run to a division title. A Penn State win will mean the Lions have beaten a MAC team, but must still pass Virginia and Temple before settling down to the grind of Big Ten conference play.

• Best place for people-watching: Atlanta. Every once in a while, when the calendar gods smile, we get a magical weekend in the ATL where all of the following things are happening around the same time: The Chick-fil-A Kickoff, DragonCon, Atlanta Black Pride Weekend, NASCAR races and a Braves series. Are you at loose ends? Travel to Georgia this weekend. Head for Atlanta and any large, centrally-located bar or restaurant. Watch a burly Auburn fan try to politely squeeze past a table full of elves wearing glue-on pointy ears. Smile at the intersections of so many American dreams, and toast the nearest person in a BARVES shirt to our great nation. Repeat as necessary.

• Best haterade sweet spot: Alabama vs. Michigan. Given each of these fine programs’ ability to draw the ire of conference rivals’ fans, it’s hard to find another game quite so many otherwise uninterested parties will be watching this weekend, just to see the Tide or Wolverines brought low after lofty 2011 postseason performances. The real winners here are joint SEC-Big Ten households containing bitter haters of both teams. Any LSU-Ohio State couples out there? Show yourselves. We would like to study you.

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