Ah, the bright plumage of that rarest of birds: A sports figure’s social media account actually being hacked for reasons not involving a hastily walked-back comment. Larry Coker’s Twitter feed was compromised sometime early this morning, but cut the guy some slack: We have to imagine coaches would be more susceptible than the average person to malware links like the one displayed here. (Who hasn’t taken ill-advised Instagram shots of him- or herself in a roadrunner costume? Just us? What do the rest of you do at UTSA tailgates?)

Colby Cameron and Johnny Manziel lead two of the nation’s top offenses. Who wins? Or will they decide to film a buddy cop comedy instead? JOHNNY FOOTBALL AND THE COLB-CAM: LOOSE CANNONS. (AP-Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

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

It is time. The Ohio Bobcats are 6-0, bowl eligible and unranked and likely to stay that way for a little bit while AQ teams above them take losses and are dropped in the polls accordingly. They’re also not making a great case for Big Important Bowl Inclusion, having allowed three non-AQ teams (Marshall, UMass and Buffalo) to play them closer than their Week 1 opponents at Penn State. Six MAC teams remain on the schedule, not one of which finished 2011 with a winning record and only one of which (Kent State) is currently above .500 in 2012. If the Bobcats plan on ascending into the national Top 25 before the year is out, they’ll have to stage some blowouts.

This week, national spotlights will be trained on Louisiana Tech, a team less likely to go undefeated but more likely to impress the BCS if it does. A matchup viewed as a high-stakes Week 1 upset possibility has only seen its stakes increase since Hurricane Isaac forced a six-week delay, as both LaTech and Texas A&M went and got themselves ranked. Tech’s No. 23 AP ranking is just the second AP nod in program history and its first since 1999. A&M has rattled off four straight wins since dropping its first SEC game to Florida in Week 2, with the final scores ranging from the predictable (70-14 versus South Carolina State) to the uncomfortable (30-27 at Ole Miss).

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Central Michigan scored a win for the MAC by knocking off Iowa in the final seconds. (Matthew Holst/Getty Images)

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

This will mark our fifth season tracking the record of non-AQ programs against teams from power conferences, for no other reason than liking to watch where the numbers go. We’re not sure we’ve ever seen a weekend produce a winning record for a mid-major league that involved more than one or two games. But glory be to the MAC, which played seven games against BCS-favored opponents, and won four. (Yes, we’re even including Northern Illinois’ win over Kansas, even though Kansas is Kansas. COUNT IT.)

MAC teams beat one Big Ten team, two Big East teams and one Big 12 team. Directional Michigan schools had a particularly grand weekend, with Central Michigan knocking off Iowa and Western Michigan laying out UConn. Eastern Michigan also acquitted itself admirably, putting up a dogged fight against Michigan State.

The fifth big winner of Week 4 was the gaudiest: Louisiana Tech, a team with qualities we have been relentlessly touting since last December or so, mowed down Illinois on the road, 52-24. The Bulldogs currently field the nation’s third-ranked scoring offense and have two more high-profile nonconference matchups in the next three weeks: at Virginia and home against Texas A&M. Stay tuned; they’re our favorites behind Ohio to finish the 2012 regular season undefeated.

Speaking of the Bobcats: They’re through their nonconference gauntlet after a Week 4 win over Norfolk State and received 40 votes in this week’s AP Poll. The only other non-AQ teams on that list are Boise State at No. 24 and Louisiana Tech, which received seven votes.

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Robbie ‘Mighty Mouse’ Rouse, out for a leisurely stroll against one of the worst football teams in human memory. (AP)

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

Soooo remember last week, when we were all “Robbie Rouse is 79 yards away from becoming Fresno State’s all-time leading rusher, isn’t that swell?” We all know by now what happened next. So while we’ve got Mighty Mouse up on a pedestal, let’s put some of his teammates up there with him.

Video game football doesn’t begin to cover what Fresno State did to Colorado in Week 3; this was more akin to watching a cartoon. Were you aware … 

•  Rouse’s 94-yard touchdown run, the one that made him Fresno State’s all-time leading rusher, wasn’t even the Bulldogs’ longest scoring play of the game? On Fresno State’s prior possession, Derek Carr and Isaiah Burse combined for a 97-yard pitch-and-catch touchdown run.

•  Carr recorded his 300 passing yards and five touchdowns all in the first half?

•  Fresno State’s defense recorded four interceptions and four sacks?

•  Safety Phillip Thomas was responsible for three of those interceptions, two of which he returned for touchdowns?

•  Even the Bulldogs’ punter, Andrew Shapiro, got in on the rout with a career-long 69-yard punt? 

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• Georgia State has a night game this weekend. The Panthers play UTSA at 6 p.m. ET, a fact you will not forget, because they went and made this video to remind you. Please change your mind about retirement, Bill Curry. Please?

• Injury report story hour. Duke defensive end Justin Foxx had hand surgery on Tuesday and will be out indefinitely.

• Teams that will not be featured in injury report story hour: USC has de-banned Scott Wolf from practice, but remember yesterday when we said barring reporters from reporting on player injuries sounded like a move characteristic of a team much worse at football than USC? Good morning, Washington! Local sportswriters, your thoughts?

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Meet the new Boise. Same as the old Boise? If Joe Southwick has anything to say about it… (AP)

The return of our weekly highlight show of lesser FBS luminaries. Non-AQs and independents, be welcome. (Not you, Notre Dame; more on that at the bottom.)

• Time chasers. We mentioned this last week, but games we would most like to see played in other times: Boise State-Michigan State at the end of last year and Arkansas State-Oregon at the end of this one. The Broncos’ opening-week win streak was snapped, but not for a lack of effort on the part of Boise’s almost entirely rebuilt team. That Sept. 20 date with BYU is looking like appointment television about now. And we’re eager to see how Ryan Aplin and the Red Wolves develop offensively under Gus Malzahn as the season progresses against competition that’s more on their level. (Not included in this category: Memphis in Week 2. What do y’all reckon that score will look like?)

• ALL HAIL THE LORDS OF EARLY SEPTEMBER. Great show, Ohio. Now do it again, 11 more times. The Bobcats’ remaining regular season schedule, we remind you, consists of New Mexico State, Marshall, Norfolk State and eight MAC teams that finished with losing records in 2011. But this is MACtion, where accidents happen with a frenzied glee.

• HOUSTON. LOOK AT YOUR LIFE. LOOK AT YOUR CHOICES. We liked Houston. We really, really did. We agreed with noted football robot Paul Myerberg that the Cougars looked like a good bet to take the West, and look where that got us. Either Dennis Franchione has quietly built a program capable of winning in its first year of FBS competition, or Houston is flailing its way to a 2012 face plant. Or, heavens forfend — both. We know, at least, what Tony Levine thinks.

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Penn State players will face an emotional opening game — and a potential upset — against Ohio. (AP)

Kind of like preseason awards for the upcoming weekend of football, and just as binding:

• Best hi-lo upset potential: Ohio @ Penn State. From a football perspective it’s doable, with a loaded Bobcats squad visiting the depleted Nittany Lions. Both teams will be high-strung: On one sideline, Ohio will be facing its highest-profile game of the year (even if it reaches the MAC title game) and the trickiest obstacle to hurdle en route to a potential undefeated season. The home team will be beating the WE ARE STILL PENN STATE drums after an offseason of scandal. But the stakes are very different for each side. An Ohio win in State College will set the Bobcats on a downhill run to a division title. A Penn State win will mean the Lions have beaten a MAC team, but must still pass Virginia and Temple before settling down to the grind of Big Ten conference play.

• Best place for people-watching: Atlanta. Every once in a while, when the calendar gods smile, we get a magical weekend in the ATL where all of the following things are happening around the same time: The Chick-fil-A Kickoff, DragonCon, Atlanta Black Pride Weekend, NASCAR races and a Braves series. Are you at loose ends? Travel to Georgia this weekend. Head for Atlanta and any large, centrally-located bar or restaurant. Watch a burly Auburn fan try to politely squeeze past a table full of elves wearing glue-on pointy ears. Smile at the intersections of so many American dreams, and toast the nearest person in a BARVES shirt to our great nation. Repeat as necessary.

• Best haterade sweet spot: Alabama vs. Michigan. Given each of these fine programs’ ability to draw the ire of conference rivals’ fans, it’s hard to find another game quite so many otherwise uninterested parties will be watching this weekend, just to see the Tide or Wolverines brought low after lofty 2011 postseason performances. The real winners here are joint SEC-Big Ten households containing bitter haters of both teams. Any LSU-Ohio State couples out there? Show yourselves. We would like to study you.

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62% of the country is dead wrong on the most important question facing the nation this week. twitter.com/11W/status/240…

— Eleven Warriors (@11W) August 29, 2012

• PEOPLE. WE ARE A DAY AWAY. GET IT TOGETHER. In other wrongity-wrong map news, please enjoy playing “how many mistakes are in this picture” with this map of college football rooting interests (via @RedditCFB).

• And now, the weather. To yesterday’s list of teams affected by Hurricane Isaac, you may now add Louisiana Tech, which has moved its Thursday opener with Texas A&M to Oct. 13, and South Alabama, whose all-n00b debut versus UTSA will shift from Thursday to Saturday.

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NASA at the moment of “touchdown confirmed.” twitpic.com/ag2g8o

— Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) August 6, 2012

• ROLL DAMN MARS. NASA’s Curiosity rover landed on Mars in the wee hours of Monday morning, and if NASA is calling it a “touchdown,” it means we need to start asking the obvious questions:

@siholly How fast you think Eddie Lacy can run on Mars, Paaawwwwllll? I’ll hang up and listen.

— Cory McCarty (@crmccarty87) August 6, 2012

You can read more about Curiosity (and see a gallery of photos already beamed back from Mars) at NASA.gov.

• Clemson now, if possible, even more infuriating to bet on. Dabo Swinney told assorted media types in Greensboro last month that star receiver Sammy Watkins was working through a laundry list of penances following his May arrest for drug possession, and that he hoped to have a decision on any in-season punishments by the start of fall camp. Friday night, the school announced Watkins will sit the first two games of the 2012 season. This will sideline the Tigers’ star receiver for the trip to the Georgia Dome against Auburn, and a decidedly less daunting contest with Ball State. Watkins will get some warm-up action against Furman in Week 3 before the team travels to Tallahassee on September 22. Read More…

UTSA will join the WAC in 2012 as a transitional FBS member before leaving for Conference USA. (Icon SMI)

You didn’t ask, but we answered:

• What’s all this, then? On July 1, a crop of the realignment changes we’ve been so resistant to took effect. Among the movers was UT San Antonio, which joins the WAC as a transitional FBS member along with Texas State.

• Hey, repopulating the WAC! That’s a noble endeavor. Not so fast. The Roadrunners will be WAC members for precisely one year before hopping [<--- bird pun] to Conference USA in July 2013.

• That’s mean! That’s realignment. Who falls behind is left behind.

• Why have I never heard of UTSA having a football program? Up until a very short while ago, it did not. The team began putting players on scholarship in 2010 and played its first season in 2011.

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