We share your bemusement at your stat lines, Tino Sunseri, and offer our sincere congratulations. (AP)

You have two college football games to choose from, this fine Friday evening — and, we assume, several burning questions about them. We’re not here to help you with those questions, for the most part.

Pitt @ Syracuse

• What information do I, the discerning consumer, require in order to consume this game? The Panthers and Orange kick off at 7 p.m. ET in the Carrier Dome. The game will be televised on ESPN and streamed on WatchESPN.

• Why should I care about two teams with a combined record of 3-5 when I could be doing things in the real world on my Friday evening? In fairness to Syracuse, and not just because our boss went there, we’re going to point out that the Orange had to play a tougher first two games than many of their AQ brethren, facing Northwestern and USC in Weeks 1 and 2. Right, and what about losing to Minnesota and beating Stony Brook by only 11 points? NOW THERE. Stony Brook just beat Army! Show some respect, or something.

As for Pitt, at this point we’re tuning in because we’re afraid not to. Watching Panthers football this season has been one series of duck traffic moments after another — as in, it’s like sitting at a stoplight, glancing around and seeing a duck driving a car. That duck, in this case, is Tino Sunseri, right? Correct, and what a majestic waterfowl he’s turned out to be. Pitt has lost to an FCS team and a conference opponent and beaten Virginia Tech and another FCS foe. Through it all, nothing is so jarring as seeing Sunseri put up top-15 pass efficiency numbers.

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Tracking the zeitgeist of college football’s third weekend through social media:

Will the Cougs be Leaching Las Vegas w/ a win?

— Michael Felder (@InTheBleachers) September 15, 2012

Terrible kill by Marquess Wilson. #Pac12Volleyball

— edsbs (@edsbs) September 15, 2012

Very appropriate ending to the football equivalent of raccoons rummaging through garbage cans. Sure it’s fun to watch, but what a mess.

— Ralph D. Russo (@ralphDrussoAP) September 15, 2012

@edsbs Too bad Carter had to give up the magician gig due to ESPN’s ‘no Christian magicians’ policy. Same thing happened to Olbermann.

— Flubber McGee (@FlubberMcGee) September 15, 2012

Deon Bucannon’s four-way head turn there was magnificent toddler-opera: 1. “DAWG!” 2 wait 3. Naw I was– 4. DANG [flag]

— edsbs (@edsbs) September 15, 2012

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Fan-altered Notre Dame helmets, coming to an ACC stadium near you. Huzzah, realignment news! (Landov)

• News that is mostly not about football. From a fresh ACC release: “The Atlantic Coast Conference Council of Presidents has unanimously voted to accept the University of Notre Dame as a new member. The Irish will compete as full members in all conference sponsored sports with the exception of football which will play five games annually against league programs.” Pete Thamel has more, including the thorny issue of the Fighting Irish’s exit date for its sports currently operating in the Big East. We now return to football things.

• It is also a secret music box that plays “Afternoon Delight.” In yesterday’s Profiles in Profiteroles column we mentioned that the new trophy for the Toledo-Bowling Green Battle of I-75 rivalry hadn’t been completed in time for last year’s game. It’s more than ready now, making a splashy entrance with its own hype video, complete with four Toledo football players flexing their acting chops.

• Injury report story hour. Jordan Wynn impresses in his retirement press conference … Robert Marve has, you might have suspected, torn another ACL … TCU defensive end Ross Forrest is likely out the rest of the season  with a knee injury … Syracuse receiver Jeremiah Kobena is out for several weeks with what the school is calling “an upper body injury that required surgery.”

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Tracking the zeitgeist through college football’s opening weekend.

I like that when we play overseas, we send Navy. Just in case.

— Brody Logan (@BrodyLogan) September 1, 2012

Mark Richt has lost control of my bougainvilleas.instagr.am/p/PC6_QMrv3n/

— sarah sprague (@sarah_sprague) September 1, 2012

Casual Todd Blackledge is disconcerting, like seeing your teacher at the grocery store

— Bobby Big Wheel (@BobbyBigWheel) September 1, 2012

Somewhere, I imagine Derek Dooley’s mom visibly seething that her son is on national television with his shirt untucked like a heathen.

— Matt Hinton (@MattRHinton) September 1, 2012

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Shawne Alston led West Virginia’s productive rushing attack with 16 carries for 123 yards and two scores.
(Justin K. Aller/Getty Images Sport)

Snap Judgments from Saturday’s early slate. For more from SI.com check out our midday and evening Snaps, plus our game coverage of Alabama-Michigan, Auburn-Clemson, Ohio-Penn State, South Carolina-Vanderbilt, Washington State-BYU, NC State-Tennessee and Boise State-Michigan State and our full Top 25 review.

• No. 11 West Virginia 69, Marshall 34. Minutes after wrecking Clemson in the Orange Bowl to conclude his first season as West Virginia’s head coach, Dana Holgorsen walked into his postgame press conference, looked around and declared, “Yeah, that’s exactly how we draw it up, right?”

He might have said much the same thing after the Mountaineers’ 2012 season opener. We’ve just seen the last version of the Friends of Coal Bowl for the foreseeable future, and WVU made it a memorable one. Holgorsen’s war machine wound down the afternoon in Morgantown with 655 yards of total offense, almost perfectly balanced — 331 rushing and 324 passing. This first stat was achieved without the presence of running back Dustin Garrison, who is still recovering from a December ACL injury. Shawne Alston led the ground attack for the Mountaineers, amassing 16 carries for 123 yards and two scores. Andrew Buie trailed with 80 rush yards and one touchdown (and one monstrous block), Tavon Austin with 67 yards and quarterback Geno Smith with 64 yards and a rushing score.

Through the air, Smith put on close to a perfect performance, completing 32-of-36 passes for 323 yards and four touchdowns. Backup Paul Millard got into the action late, throwing one touchdown and one interception. Stedman Bailey led the Mountaineers in receiving, with nine catches for 104 yards and two scores, followed by J.D. Woods, who caught seven passes for 75 yards and a score. Austin and KJ Myers hauled in additional touchdown grabs.

The defensive highlight of the afternoon came when linebacker Isaiah Bruce returned a fumble 43 yards for a score. Is it nonsensical to say this is the unit we’re most interested in tracking, development-wise? The Mountaineers’ offense is obviously potent, but these games will take a turn for the hair-raising once they get into conference play and face other formidable points generators. (Not that this will happen soon; the next scheduled opponents are James Madison and Maryland.) [RECAP | BOX]

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Give us this day our daily Catlab.

• And now, the weather. Today in Hurricane Isaac Affects Sports: LSU has canceled practice but still plans to play it season opener against North Texas. Oregon State’s opener against Nicholls State has been postponed indefinitely due to travel concerns.

• Football is here now give us football please and thank you. Today in Yelling At Your Television Provider: Pac-12 gets catty regarding DirecTV and its current lack of a distribution agreement … AT&T U-Verse plays footsie with the Longhorn Network … and we find ourselves among those unfortunate Americans with a cable provider not interested in carrying WatchESPN. Our feelings on this matter are summed up here.

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• You would have to have absolutely zero familiarity with us to think we’re joking. Stand down, crabby Scout denizens; we’re serious: This is one of the best promo videos we have ever seen. Wonder of wonders, it is actually funny; how often do university videos find success in that department? The gently swaying hips. The “SHUT UP, DENNIS!” The punctuating vending machine punch at the end. Well done, Memphis. [Via.]

• May our children forgive us. The Pac-12 Networks went live Wednesday night, without any untoward destruction of property. There’s a new website, which is unsurprisingly slick. Here is a joke about cupcakes.

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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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*****

1. Fighting Okra, Delta State Statesmen: D-II Delta State made a strong late push for consideration with the recent release of the above “FEAR THE OKRA” video, a reassuring sign to committee members that the University has moved beyond the stodgy disavowals of association and embraced the surefire branding touchdown that’s been right under their noses for two decades. Offering free Okra bracelets didn’t hurt, either. The Committee is not above susceptibility to bribery. Spiny when dry, slippery when wet, and delicious in gumbo, the Fighting Okra is everything a fruit or vegetable mascot should aspire to be.

2. Brutus Buckeye, Ohio State Buckeyes: The most privileged and well-known of the fruit and vegetable mascot set brings a sterling resume to the argument, with a proudly bizarre costuming history and multiple national championships to his credit. The Committee docked Brutus a slot, however, after much heated argument over whether a seed from within a pod could be counted as a fruit itself, whether mascots should strive for completion in this matter, and whether it was a positive or a negative that the nuts themselves are poisonous. Read More…

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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