What’s in the satchel, Fluellen? Touchdowns, probably. (AP)

A felicitous MACtion Tuesday to you all. Cleanse your spirit before the holiday binging begins in earnest with some sprightly weeknight college football, why don’t you?

• What information do I, the discerning sports fan, require in order to consume this game? The Zips and Rockets are scheduled to kick off at 7 p.m. ET in the Glass Bowl. The game will be televised on ESPN2 and streamed on WatchESPN.

• What’s at stake here? For the Rockets, it’s time to smile pretty for the bowl scouts. Toledo’s out of the MAC West race thanks to last week’s loss to Northern Illinois, but we can personally report that Boise is lovely in the wintertime. A win tonight would mark the 20th career conference victory for this class of departing seniors. On the other end of the see-saw, feet dangling in the air, Akron still seeks its first 2012 win over an FBS team. The Zips’ lone victory this season was a 66-6 thrashing of Morgan State, way back in Week 3. If series leads crank your tractor, tonight will also break an 8-8 all-time tie between these two programs.

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Can Willie Snead break the game open for Ball State? (AP)

Tonight in America, you have a choice of talking heads. Choose Joe Tessitore, Desmond Howard and Tuesday night MACtion.

• What information do I, the discerning consumer, require in order to consume this game? The unranked Cardinals (6-3, 3-2 MAC) and No. 23 Rockets (8-1, 5-0 MAC) are scheduled to kick off at 8 p.m. ET in the Glass Bowl. The game will be televised on ESPN2 and streamed on WatchESPN.

• So what’s at stake here? Ball State won’t grab control of the MAC West by season’s end, not with its remaining schedule, NIU and Toledo both still undefeated in conference play and the Huskies already holding a head-to-head advantage over the Cardinals. (The Huskies and Rockets will settle their own score next Wednesday night.) But the Cardinals could still spoil the Rockets’ run at a division title with a win here, and it’s a Tuesday night MACtion game presided over by JoeTess. So, as usual with weeknight football, You Never Can Tell.

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Don’t let this week’s opponents catch you, Ryan Aplin. They’ll as soon put you in a crawfish boil as look at you. (AP)

Sometimes during the course of a football season, like last Friday, there are days where one finds one’s self watching college football simply because it is there. This is not one of those times. Appointment television, ahoy!

• What information do I, the discerning consumer, require in order to consume this game? Arkansas State and Louisiana kick off at 8 p.m. ET at Cajun Field. The game will be televised on ESPN2 and streamed on WatchESPN.

• What’s at stake? Second place in the Sun Belt. Louisiana-Monroe is the only remaining undefeated team in conference play, but five squads currently sit at 2-1 in league games: Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee, North Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas State. One of those last two will add a second league loss and drop down with the likes of Troy after tonight.

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Brett Baer’s 50-yard FG won New Orleans Bowl for Louisiana last year; his kicking skill has paid big dividends in ’12. (AP)

A too-rare Sun Belt Tuesday game graces your television schedule this evening. We’re sure you have so many questions.

• What information do I, the discerning consumer, require in order to consume this game? The Ragin’ Cajuns and Mean Green kick off at 9 p.m. ET in Denton’s Apogee Stadium. The game will be televised on ESPN2 and streamed on WatchESPN.

• Apogee Stadium? Sounds fancy! It’s a smallish venue, but fancy is certainly an accurate descriptor. Read on for more on North Texas’ attempts to make a sustainably designed athletics arena. The stadium was awarded LEED Platinum Certification last year.

• Is this the best combination of team names we will see in one place all year? It really is.

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Chandler Harnish led NIU to a 63-60 win over Toledo last Tuesday; the Huskies and Rockets face more MACtion tonight. (US PRESSWIRE)

• Northern Illinois @ Bowling Green, 8:00 p.m. ET, ESPN2: NIU sits atop the MAC West this week with just one conference loss to its name (that weird Central Michigan shootout in Week 5) and a head-to-head advantage over Toledo. The Huskies are riding a four-game win streak in which they won the first two games (Kent State and Western Michigan) by a combined margin of 59 points and the last two (Buffalo and Toledo) by a combined margin of four. While NIU’s defense is nothing to crow about, hipster MAC Heisman poster boy Chandler Harnish will have to be stopped. It really is that simple. He’s the team’s leading rusher, can throw when he needs to, and the Huskies score A Lot. Bowling Green contained Temple and Toledo to an extent, but just lost to Kent State. With their rush-averse offense, the Falcons will have trouble slowing down the game tempo enough to keep Harnish off the field for long stretches of time. Oh, and their defense is also quite bad against the run. They’re a top-five punting outfit, however, so just hang onto that.

• Western Michigan @ Toledo, 8:00 p.m. ET, ESPNU: The Rockets won and broke hearts last week with their 63-60 loss to the aforementioned Huskies. Safe to say they’ll be gunning for a feel-good win against a Broncos team that was considered the class of the directional Michigans after beating UConn and playing then-No. 24 Illinois to within a field goal, only to lose to Eastern two weeks ago in a 14-10 slog. Or will the Rockets still be reeling? They can’t sleepwalk against Western, which has bowl eligibility in its sights and could drag Toledo down into the scrum of two-loss MAC West teams with a win. On paper, however, the Broncos 97th-ranked defense seems to give quarterbacks Austin Dantin and Terrance Owens and receivers Eric Page and Adonis Thomas the high-scoring edge.

Eric Page and Toledo were on the wrong side of a 65-30 loss to Northern Illinois last season. (Mike DiNovo/US PRESSWIRE)

Northern Illinois @ Toledo, 7:00 p.m., ESPN2: Exhausted with ecstasy already as we enter a second straight week of wall-to-wall football? Too damn bad, buttercup. Curl up with your corn-syrup hangover and a four-quarterback battle; it’ll cure what ails you.

It’s a lot easier to call Toledo one of the best three-loss teams in the country now that it’s 5-3 and not 2-3, but I promise you the Rockets have looked this good all year, save maybe in that one weird three-point stumble against Syracuse. (To remind, Toledo’s only other losses this season have come against two certain outfits out of Columbus, Ohio and Boise, Idaho. The Rockets also knocked off the mighty Temple Owls, one of the other fine 5-3 outfits, who’ll be featured in this week’s Wednesday primetime game.) The annual MAC scrum is a high-floating cluster this year, with a large handful of five-win teams, but only the Rockets are undefeated in conference play. Some of UT’s trickiest competition lies ahead, with NIU and Western Michigan and Ball State looming. Plenty of places left to trip. But the Rockets are only going to get better with the return of top tailback Adonis Thomas, who broke his arm in the Syracuse game and returned last week against the Miami RedHawks, to admirable effect.

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FIU speedster T.Y. Hilton (4) is nearly back to full strength after being limited by a hamstring injury in September. (US PRESSWIRE)

Florida International @ Arkansas State, 8:00 p.m. ET, ESPN2:  Because two nights a week without football is two nights too many, Week 8 gets ushered in early with the season’s first Tuesday night game. (FIU will also feature in the second such contest next week, hosting Troy in primetime. We’re also a week out from the first seven-day football week of 2011 with Wednesday games beginning on October 26, so up your weeknight wings-and-beer conditioning reps between now and then.) Tonight in Jonesboro, two 4-2 Sun Belt teams will jockey for position behind surprisingly resurgent Louisiana. The Ragin’ Cajuns handed the Golden Panthers their lone conference loss of the season, a defeat that slots them into fourth place in the conference standings despite being tied with the second-place Red Wolves for the second-best record.

Thus far in 2011, the Panthers have beaten Louisville in a surprising early upset and presumed C-USA division champ Central Florida, both by a touchdown, and lost to Duke and the Cajuns by less than a touchdown. The Red Wolves have played a considerably more rigorous nonconference slate, losing to Illinois in Week 1 and Virginia Tech in Week 3. FIU was predicted by many keen onlookers, including several SI staffers, to win the Sun Belt, but the Red Wolves are favored by a field goal here and a two-game hole would be difficult to climb out of the way Louisiana’s playing.

If you like your football pointy, this would be a good time to tune in. With two middling rushing offenses, two decent run defenses and two well-regarded passing attacks, we’re likely in for a shootout. Key figures in tonight’s action: You will recall that FIU has on its roster one T.Y. Hilton, an early-season trendy Heisman pick for Stewart Mandel and me, whose campaign was curtailed by a hamstring injury in September. He’s back at something approaching full strength, which is welcome news for a Panthers team that will have to score early and often, call on Wes Carroll to throw early and often and perhaps risk re-injuring Hilton utilizing his formidable return skills to keep pace with State’s big-play offense, led by quarterback Ryan Aplin and favored target Dwayne Frampton. One crucial matchup will pit FIU’s pass rush, ranked 19th nationally in sacks doled, against an ASU offensive line that’s allowing close to three sacks per game.

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