DeWayne Walker set the coaching carousel spinning once more with his late departure from New Mexico State. (AP)

Tommy Tuberville’s sitting by the phone* and Jimmy Sexton’s got that particular sparkle in his eye. It can mean only one thing: The coach firin’ season is upon us once more. We’ll be tracking the carousel of progress, right here, for as long as it takes to stop spinning. Raise a glass to times past, won’t you? * Well, not anymore, but never tell us we don’t have the gift of very specific prophecy through throwaway jokes.

New Mexico State [updated 02.01.2013]

• Who’s out: DeWayne Walker, who jumps to the NFL with less than two weeks remaining between now and Signing Day. And not even for a coordinating gig: Walker will coach defensive backs for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Walker released the following statement through the athletic department: “I really appreciate the opportunity that Dr. Boston and New Mexico State gave me to be a Division I head football coach. Unfortunately, I did not get the program as far as I would have liked from a wins and losses standpoint. But, we do have a better locker room, better kids and a better foundation for the program moving forward. There are a lot of people that I want to thank for their support and will be reaching out to those individuals in the coming days. They have helped me in moving the program forward. I am excited about starting a new chapter in my coaching career, as is my family. I wish New Mexico State great success in the future and wish everyone the best. Go Aggies!” • Who’s in: Doug Martin — the one who played at Kentucky, not the one who played at Boise State. Although if Martin The Younger is really so opposed to his excellent nickname, we’re gonna refer to Martin The Elder as coach Muscle Hamster instead. It’s been a whirlwind courtship for Martin and the Aggies: He was announced as offensive coordinator on January 17, temporarily promoted to interim head coach on January 24 and will be officially announced as DeWayne Walker’s successor on Monday, February 4. Martin’s previous head coaching experience consists of a seven-year stint at Kent State, from 2004-2010. Read More…

• Les Miles has some thoughts about what constitutes a nice holiday weekend.

“I can tell you that if I was looking for a New Year’s Eve event, and I was really trying to impress the Mrs., I think maybe taking her to Atlanta, getting a game in with my favorite team and finding a way to celebrate New Year’s — let’s say the game is over by about 10:30 p.m., freshen up a little bit, and go find a place I can twirl my sweetheart. … At midnight, I might get a kiss.” Who are we to argue with The Hat?

• Worth it for the graphic alone. And also the words. Patrick Hruby on sports welfare: “They’re the team owners sitting in luxury boxes built with taxpayer dollars, charging PSL fees for seats constructed with the same. They’re the athletes writing off fines for bad behavior. They’re the multimillion-dollar professional leagues, Ozymandias-shaming college athletic departments and — ahem — charitable bowl games all enjoying lucrative and dubious non-profit status.”

• No Cougars were harmed in the making of this team. Washington State wraps up its internal investigation of the football program, and CougCenter breaks down the findings.

• Tommy Tuberville is not that mean. According to Tommy Tuberville.

Read More…

• It’s really and truly over. With Army-Navy receding in the rearview, and a football-free week between now and the New Mexico Bowl, it’s time to confront the close of the 2012 season with the following range of emotions:

Everything is terrible.

• What verbal glories await in Hattiesburg? As a kind of farewell to Oklahoma State offensive coordinator Todd Monken, the Oklahoman rounds up a collection of his more memorable (if PG) quips during his tenure in Stillwater. One favorite: “Up until that point, there hadn’t been a moment for myself. Dana had been here, I was just running his stuff. Up until that point there was a trust, but it was still, ‘Who is this guy that stands in front of us?’ It’s like in ‘The Sandlot’ when the goofy kid with glasses finally catches the ball. It’s like, ‘All right, he’s OK.’ Up until that point he’s just the nerdy kid in the outfield with his hat on weird.”

Read More…

• Louisville 20, Rutgers 17. We’ll let SI.com’s Gabriel Baumgaertner tell y’all all about the antics of Teddy Bridgewater, but don’t go away without watching him let it all out postgame with offensive coordinator Shawn Watson. Bridgewater led the Cardinals to a primetime win, on the road, against the country’s fourth-ranked scoring defense. And then this happened:

How Bridgewater is even remaining upright at this point is anybody’s guess, but up he his, and no matter your particular partisanship, you must applaud. Have you a pulse? You will be moved. But don’t take our word for it. Listen to his teammates. Here’s Louisville offensive lineman Alex Kupper, after the game: “His legacy at the University of Louisville keeps building and building, and he’s only halfway through. He’s just an unbelievable player, the way he fights. When you’re playing next to him, if you do anything less, it’s shame on you.”

Rutgers still gets a share of the Big East title, and Cincinnati could force a four-way tie atop the conference standings with a win over UConn, but take it from Louisville safety Calvin Pryor, as the Cardinals mull their postseason possibilities: ”Whatever it is is better than going to the Belk Bowl!” [BOX | RECAP]

Read More…

• 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.

Read More…

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.

Read More…

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!

Read More…

What glories yet await Cory Dorris and the Golden Hurricane as Conference USA play continues? (AP)

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

Tis the season for car commercials with big-ass bows and conference math. We attempted to explain, in bewildering detail, how the MAC races could shake out from here in our Wednesday night MACtion preview. We are here to inform you (with some glee, as we adore late-season chaos) that the MAC has far from the most convoluted conference race situation at the moment. Very quickly, the current states of the remaining non-AQ conference races, as teams not named Navy or BYU begin to prettify themselves for postseason suitors:

• Conference USA: Two teams with perfect 6-0 league play records top the two divisions: Central Florida in the East and Tulsa in the West. After Saturday, one squad’s record will bear some blemish when the two clash in Tulsa, but don’t expect that to affect the race. The Knights have only UAB to clear after that in the regular season, and hold a head-to-head advantage over East Carolina, the only other team in the division with fewer than three conference losses. Tulsa’s championship game aspirations could still be spoiled with a loss tonight and another at SMU November 24, assuming the Mustangs (4-2 in league play) beat Rice in the meantime.

Read More…

Eyes on the prize, Colby Cameron. (AP)

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

• Broncos and Bulldogs and bustin’. If you follow our pre- and midseason Crystal Ball projections, you know how hilariously bad we are at predicting which teams will land in which bowl games. But after a second loss, even Boise State’s new-money brand-name recognition won’t keep the Broncos afloat in the polls. So what does this mean for our early-season busting favorites, the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs? Quoth our designated postseason prognosticator, Stewart Mandel: “Louisiana Tech, No. 20 in the standings this week, may be that group’s lone hope, but the Bulldogs need to beat 8-2 Utah State in two weeks, climb at least four spots and hope BCS No. 16 Nebraska loses so that Tech finishes ahead of an AQ champ.” Same as it ever was when it comes to non-AQs with aspirations of crashing the party: Win big, and hope bigger. A perfect run through November won’t be easy for LaTech. Texas State should pose no problem in Week 11, but neither Utah State nor San Jose State are any kind of pushover.

Sonny Dykes, as ever, prefers to marvel at where he’s gotten this team once he gets there, and only then: “If we go and do not play well Saturday, Texas State will beat us and that will end all of the discussion. We have to worry about playing well this week, and like I said, when it is all over with, we will kind of look up and say, ‘Wow, here we are.’”

Read More…

Fresno State’s offense gets plenty of attention, but Phillip Thomas would have you know the Bulldogs are also ranked seventh nationally in pass efficiency defense. (Courtesy of Fresno State Athletics/Cary Edmondson)

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

Profile in Ownage: Phillip Thomas, SS, Fresno State

It’s nine weeks into the first season of the Tim DeRuyter era at Fresno State, and if your thoughts turn to the Bulldogs, they probably turn to quarterback Derek Carr, the younger brother of David currently putting up more than 300 yards of offense a game, or Robbie “Mighty Mouse” Rouse, the diminutive back who scored four touchdowns in a quarter against Colorado. But as the season winds down, we’d suggest familiarizing yourselves with the body of work being assembled by senior strong safety Phillip Thomas. The Bakersfield, Calif., native has recorded an FBS-leading seven interceptions through two months of play, three of which he returned for touchdowns, and one fumble recovery. He’s also forced three fumbles, made seven tackles for loss and collected three sacks.

“This 3-4 defense that we run, we learned it from Dick LeBeau and the Steelers, and Phillip’s our Troy Polamalu,” DeRuyter told SI.com. “Where you’ve gotta have a guy who’s gonna be a difference-maker, you can blitz him, you can have him in pass coverage, you can have him as a run-force player, he can play man coverage and he can disguise everything? That guy, for us, is Phillip.”

Thomas is keying a major defensive turnaround. A team that ranked 116th nationally in turnover margin last season is up to 11th in 2012, thanks in large part to a player who spent most of his junior year watching from the sidelines on one good leg.

“I know we’ve had a reputation here offensively,” said DeRuyter. “When you’ve got players like Derek and Robbie, it’s deservedly so.

“What I think people don’t know is Phillip didn’t play a year ago.”

Read More…