Aren’t we glad we didn’t redo this graphic today?

Here’s a list of conference realignment moves that have been made known since we last wrote about conference realignment moves, which, for the record, was like two hours ago:

• Tulsa is joining the Big East. Not the Big East with all the basketball schools in it that’s going to be called the Big East down the line. Tulsa is joining the first Big East. This is happening in 2014.

• East Carolina is joining the Big East, also not the basketball Big East — though wouldn’t it be droll if one of these teams accidentally ended up in the Catholic 7 — and also in 2014.

• Conference USA is joining the Sun Belt. All of it. This part we made up, probably.

All this reported by college football realignment oracle Brett “Sources” McMurphy. We’ll see you back here in a couple hours for the next shuffle.

The story of one day in the college football postseason, as told through social media.

Solid crowd at LP Field, but don’t judge it yet. This quaint stadium on the river is a honky labyrinth from hell to get to.

— Steven Godfrey (@38Godfrey) December 31, 2012

Mike Glennon still leads all prospective NFL draft picks in neckness.

— edsbs (@edsbs) December 31, 2012

Nobody stands Paul Johnson up for dinner. RT @insideusc: Lane Kiffin has some type of scrape or bump between his eyes. Not sure reason why.

— CollegeFootballTalk (@CFTalk) December 31, 2012

Does Lane Kiffin think the Sun Bowl happens on the Sun? WHAT ARE YOU WEARING CUZ

— Jason Kirk (@JasonKirkSBN) December 31, 2012

The Red Lobster scholar of the year is once again a pile of popcorn shrimp.

— Bill Hanstockings (@sundownmotel) December 31, 2012

Red Lobster scholar of the year wins a semi truck full of Cheddar Bay biscuits and a real bad attitude when you ask for a soda refill.

— Bill Hanstockings (@sundownmotel) December 31, 2012

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What could be more patriotic than an upended bronze bell filled with reasonably-priced auto parts?

The 2012 Liberty Bowl is just hours away. We’re sure you have so many questions. We’re here to help. (For an X’s and O’s breakdown, click through to Zac Ellis’ game preview.)

• What’s all this, then? This here’s the Liberty Bowl. Its logo is the Liberty Bell. The game is played in Memphis. Why is the logo not a pyramid? The Liberty Bowl originated in Philadelphia, and continues to honor its roots with a bell-shaped trophy and the Spirit of 1776 Award.

• Where will this game be played? Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium, also home to the Memphis Tigers and, for one glorious season, the XFL’s Memphis Maniax. And some other teams. None with a name like Maniax.

• When is it on television? Coverage begins at 3:30 p.m. on ESPN, with Mark Jones and Brock Huard in the booth and Jessica Mendoza on the sidelines.

• Whom does it feature? Current tie-ins are Conference USA and SEC.

• What about this year? In the interest of cozying up to the Big 12, bowl organizers selected 6-6 Iowa State to face 10-3 Tulsa. THAT IS A PRETTY DIFFERENT RECORD THIS IS GONNA BE A BLOWOUT. Check the regular-season schedule, dear reader: The Cyclones and Golden Hurricane met in Ames in Week 1, and Tulsa pulled the upset. ALL WEATHER MASCOTS BOWL WOOOOOOO. That’s probably a better sentiment.

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• SHE’S BACK. AIN’T NO STOPPING US NOW. Oh, Switzie Award winner LizHoney2U, we have missed you terribly.

Our own reaction to the hiring of Bret Bielema at Arkansas can best be summed up by this animated image.

• And while we’re on Wisconsin. Could Barry Alvarez return to the sidelines for the Badgers’ bowl game?

• Coach-firin’ season! Lane Kiffin would like it if his new defensive coordinator could succeed against Pac-12 offenses … we think it’s actually spelled “l8ly,” but that doesn’t mean former Appalachian State coach Jerry Moore didn’t get screwed … he’s not a coach, but do make time for this colorful account of the end of Ross Parmley’s reign as Tulsa AD … and he’s not fired, but Charlie Weis made a whopping $2.5 million per win in 2012. Math is fun!

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James White was part of a Badgers ground game that tallied 539 yards and eight scores. (Getty Images)

Quick hits from the Championship Saturday action. For more on Week 14, check out our Friday Snaps, coverage of Louisville-Rutgers, Oklahoma-TCU and the epic clash between Alabama and Georgia, plus our complete Top 25 review.

• Wisconsin 70, No. 14 Nebraska 31. This game wasn’t even as close as the final score indicates, which is really saying something. The Huskers were down 42-10 at the half — Wisconsin scored its final touchdown of the second quarter on a trick play with 20 seconds left on the clock, because Bret Bielema enjoys reminding folks he’s Bret Bielema — and scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter after the Badgers had already crossed the 60-point mark.

“We kind of set our minds before the game that this is our game,” Monteé Ball said afterward. “The running backs were going to set the tempo.” Offhand, with 539 yards gained on the ground alone, we would venture to suggest they succeeded in their efforts.

Fun tidbit: Ball rushed for 201 yards on 21 attempts and three touchdowns, and was neither the leading scorer nor the leading rusher for the Badgers. Melvin Gordon rang up 217 yards on nine carries with one score, while James White added four touchdowns and 109 yards on 15 carries. Lost in all that: Taylor Martinez doing this Family Circus touchdown run. Don’t forget that Taylor Martinez did this, because it was awesome.

Wisconsin trailed Nebraska 3-4 in the series before tonight’s cannon show. Has a series ever been leveled with such gusto? And what will a defense of Stanford’s caliber make of these five-loss Badgers, who wouldn’t have even been in position to claim the Big Ten title and earn a Rose Bowl berth if not for other programs’ sanctions? “It’s OK to get there,” said Bielema of the Rose Bowl, “but you need to win it.” They’ll get their shot on New Year’s Day. [BOX | RECAP]

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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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Speedster Dri Archer helped Kent State secure its first MAC title game berth by beating Bowling Green. (AP)

Snap Judgments from the Week 12 early slate. For more, check out our midday Snaps, our coverage of Stanford-Oregon, our look at the new BCS landscape and our complete Top 25 review.

• No. 25 Kent State 31, Bowling Green 24. Brothers and sisters, we have nearly come to the end of this thing. This is the last normal weekend of college football in the 2012 season: Next week’s games are scattered willy-nilly over the Thanksgiving holiday, and after that there’s just the conference championships and a dozen or so assorted other contests. Then, we will be all plunged into darkness with only the promise of Army-Navy and the New Mexico Bowl to guide us. So we understand your impatience, and you can imagine ours, as we flipped channels today only to be met time and again with lackluster on-field products.

We were delighted but not surprised to find the most compelling action of Week 12′s first flight of games in the form of daylight MACtion. If you’re not a regular reader of Profiles in Profiteroles or lack a fondness for college football’s less-celebrated conferences, you may not be familiar with the works of Kent State’s Dri Archer. The top-ranked kick returner in the FBS got most of the Golden Flashes’ touches at running back today, and to spectacular effect: 241 rushing yards, including touchdowns of 79 and 74 yards.

Kent State’s other two touchdowns were scored by quarterback Spencer Keith (one passing, one rushing); the last gave the Golden Flashes their final lead of the game midway through the fourth quarter. The Falcons mounted an impressive final would-be scoring drive that ended with Luke Wollet picking off Matt Schilz in Kent State’s end zone with 21 seconds remaining on the clock, and punching the Golden Flashes’ first ticket to the MAC championship game. They’ll face Northern Illinois in Detroit on Friday, November 30. [BOX | RECAP]

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Monteé Ball’s last name is also a football word, which should save us all some headline writing time once he finally breaks this record. (AP)

Saturday college football games of varying degrees of interest, grouped in highly subjective categories. For more preview content, visit Andy Staples’ Walkthrough.

• Biggest game with nothing riding on it: No. 6 Ohio State at Wisconsin, 3:30 p.m. ET. The Badgers already know they’re headed to Indianapolis, as the only other teams with fewer than three conference losses in the Leaders Division (the Buckeyes and Penn State) are ineligible for postseason play. But a win here would be the biggest [screw]-you moment for Urban Meyer since the 2008 Florida-Georgia game. And if you think Urban Meyer doesn’t live for [screw]-you moments, please see the 2008 Florida-Georgia game.

What is actually at stake: The NCAA all-time career touchdowns record, currently sitting at 78 and held by former Miami RedHawk Travis Prentice. Monteé Ball is one score away from tying and two away from breaking this record, and he has a chance to do both at home. He recorded 198 rushing yards and three scores last week against Indiana; if Ball does break the record, expect to hear the hollering in Madison as far away as Kentucky, and expect little bits of glitter to spew from this page. (Please protect your eyes accordingly.)

• Biggest game we feel like we couldn’t predict if our lives depended on it: No. 21 USC at No. 17 UCLA, 3:05 p.m. We have well established at this point in the season that even when relying on math and the best available logic, picking games is tricky work. It’s much more fun, and equally ineffective, to rely on factors like spite and cussedness and probably-imaginary-but-maybe-not-surefire jinxes to decide, particularly in rivalry matchups, which is why this weekend’s clash in the Rose Bowl scares the hell out of us. Some factors to consider: Whose coach to dislike (or grudgingly admire) more? Is it cosmically dangerous to even bring up that “football monopoly” talk at this point? Can we straight-up call this game for USC because keeping an opposing team’s costumed representative from poking one’s field with a sword is the furthest possible thing from a power move imaginable?

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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.

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