State College and Dublin are approximately 3,333 miles apart, which should make for a nice pregame warmup for Bill O’Brien and company. (Centre Daily Times/MCT/Getty Images)

By Zac Ellis

Another college football season opener in Ireland could be in the works. After Notre Dame and Navy squared off in Dublin last fall, Penn State and Central Florida are discussing the option of opening the 2014 season against one another in Ireland, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

Nittany Lions coach Bill O’Brien and Knights coach George O’Leary are both of Irish heritage and have talked about the possibility of a matchup across the pond for months. The game would serve as the second half of a previously scheduled home-and-home, with the first meeting taking place this Sept. 14 in State College.

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George O’Leary’s UCF Knights will be bowl eligible this season after winning their NCAA appeal. (Landov)

By Zac Ellis

The NCAA granted Central Florida’s appeal of a one-year postseason ban, the school officially announced Monday.

Reports surfaced on Friday that UCF’s appeal had indeed been granted, but the school released a statement on Monday confirming the decision by the NCAA.

“We are pleased with this ruling and applaud the NCAA for handling our appeal with care, competency and professionalism,” UCF President John C. Hitt said in a statement. “Our football program looks forward to competing for an American Athletic Conference championship and a bowl berth.”

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UCF’s decision to play in the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl last year was a gamble that paid off for the Knights. (Landov)

By Zac Ellis

Central Florida has a chance to go bowling as a new member of the American Athletic Conference. The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that the Knights have won their NCAA appeal and will be eligible for postseason play in 2013.

The school’s appeal came in reaction to heavy sanctions handed down by the NCAA last season as a result of recruiting violations and a loss of institutional control ruling. The school accepted much of the NCAA’s punishment across both the football and men’s basketball programs, but UCF president John Hitt decided to appeal football sanctions he felt were excessive. UCF played in the Conference USA title game and the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl last season while its appeal was heard.

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In the dystopian future of the Big East, BBVA Compass Bowl trophies will be a highly valued currency. (AP)

• “Group of five” still just sounds so ominous. Jeremy Fowler reports on the coalescing system the Big East, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt are working on to distribute playoff revenue from the new postseason system:

In this proposed system, more than half the group’s roughly $86-million playoff pot would be distributed among the Big East, Mountain West, Mid-American Conference, Conference USA and Sun Belt as guaranteed base shares, according to a source with direct knowledge of the discussions. The source expects those shares to be evenly split, but added discussions are ongoing. The second tier pays out based on a conference’s body of work — the top conference gets the highest amount, then “X” amount for the next-rated conference, and on down. The third tier pays a kicker to the conference with the highest-ranked team, which is guaranteed an access bowl bid or, if among the top-four teams in the country, a semifinal berth in the playoff.

• Harbros’ early broing days. Check out Dan Wetzel’s tale of relatively wee Harbaughs recruiting youngsters to their dad’s team at Western Kentucky, including an appearance by one Willie Taggart.

• Exactly how you would’ve guessed. Former Miami Hurricanes make up the biggest slice of Super Bowl roster pie charts, but two of the next five teams on that list are … Marshall and Utah? Marshall and Utah! Go ThunderUtes!

• From the no-jokes department. Compelling story via OTL on UCLA researchers and evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in living football players.

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The story of a bowl, as told through social media.

Buff O’Bortles Bowl, one scant minute away! #bortlesball

— Holly Anderson (@SIHolly) December 22, 2012

In the spirit of accuracy, I’ll remind fellow tweeters that Beef ‘O’ Brady’s has an apostrophe before and after the O. Very odd. #magicjack

— Greg Auman (@gregauman) December 22, 2012

@siholly a real beef o Rita. twitpic.com/bo1ogx

— Tom Burns (@the_tom_burns) December 22, 2012

At what point does Kyle Van Noy show up and beat both of these teams?

— Tom Fornelli (@TomFornelli) December 22, 2012

I INTEND TO WATCH ALL THE BEEF OF BRADY.

— Tom McGrath (@TCMcG) December 22, 2012

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The stuffy, ill-lit wonder of Tropicana Field awaits the Knights and Cardinals. (AP)

The 2012 Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl is just hours away. We’re sure you have so many questions. We’re here to help. (For a Beef O’breakdown, click through to R.J. Rico’s game preview.)

• What’s all this, then? Why, it’s the former St. Petersburg Bowl, sponsored since 2009 by chain restaurant Beef ‘O’ Brady’s!

• Still, with the apostrophes? Still, and that is absolutely the last time we’re typing that out correctly in service to this game. Read on for more facts about the Beefobradys Bowl, sponsored by Beefing Brady!

• Did we ever figure out what a magicJack is? We did not.

• Where will this game be played? In the bleak radiance of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla.

• When is it on television? Coverage begins at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN, with Dave Neal, Andre Ware, Desmond Howard and Cara Capuano on ESPN. The game will also be streamed on WatchESPN.

• Whom does it feature? Typically, the Big East and Conference USA.

• What about this year? A little Friday night MACtion! The Ball State Cardinals get to spend a December week in Florida instead of Indiana, where they’ll face the day-tripping Central Florida Knights.

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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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Bacarri Rambo had a fumble recovery and a pick in Georgia’s rout of Georgia Tech. (Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)

Snap Judgments from the Week 13 early slate. For more, check out Friday Snaps, Saturday’s midday Snaps, Saturday’s late Snaps, our recaps of Michigan-Ohio State, Florida-Florida State and Notre Dame-USC and our complete Top 25 review.

• No. 3 Georgia 42, Georgia Tech 10. Looky here, it’s two teams headed to major conference championship games next week! Don’t be too hard on Tech; the Jackets and their coach have battled the flu all week, were operating without the services of leading rusher Orwin Smith and still managed to pile up 458 yards in Sanford Stadium. It was scoring that posed the problem; Tech didn’t even attempt a punt in the first half but had three drives snuffed out by a fumble, a failed fourth-down attempt and an interception, respectively. Its second-half drives fared little better, ending in two punts, one touchdown and three more unsuccessful fourth-down conversions. Georgia’s first seven drives, by contrast: touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, punt, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown. Mark Richt, in his postgame press conference: “Our goal was to win every phase of the game, for every unit to win. I think we may have done that.” Seems like a solid take, coach.

The result is the biggest margin of victory for the Dawgs in their year-end rivalry game since 2002. And speaking of records: With Saturday’s scoreboard assault, the 2012 Bulldogs are officially the highest-scoring squad in program history. That same 2002 team scored 450 points in 14 games; with 12 games down and two to go, this year’s squad is already at 456. Safety Bacarri Rambo tied Jake Scott’s school record for career interceptions at 16. And Aaron Murray is now the first SEC quarterback to put up three consecutive 3,000-yard seasons.

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