The Boise State Broncos: 21st in the BCS standings, first in blackout showmanship. (AP)

Miscellaneous awards dispensed in honor of college football’s weekend that was:

• ALTERNATE HELMET POWER RANKINGS. After careful deliberation with some of college football’s top minds, we have selected our top three alt football hats from Week 8.

1. Boise State, whose matte black be-Broncoed helmets topped what’s maybe the best blackout uniform we’ve seen this year. (That’s a short list, but still.) It’s the malevolent orange eye on the side that elevates these from mere headwear into the realm of art.
2. Michigan State, in green “Hydrochrome,” which is shiny and beautiful, has a hint of bass-boat finish about it and also has the benefit of sounding like it was made by a G.I. Joe villain. (Not, apparently, a villain equipped with the power to beat Michigan, but we can’t all be superbosses.)
3. Northwestern, whose black and silver contraptions popped beautifully in HD but really needed some neon purple whiskers or something to be truly on-trend.

HONORABLE MENTION: Duke, whose blue-on-black helmets didn’t carry well on television but were obviously effective.

Please, those of you whose teams’ helmets were not selected, take this as a deeply personal insult.

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After replacing an injured Braxton Miller, Kenny Guiton (13) rallied Ohio State past Purdue. (Kirk Irwin/Getty Images)

Snap Judgments from the Week 8 early slate. For more, check out midday Snaps, late Snaps, our coverage of South Carolina-Florida, Kansas State-West Virginia, Oregon-Arizona State and our complete Top 25 review.

• No. 7 Ohio State 29, Purdue 22 (OT). Braxton Miller has been knocked out of games before. Buckeyes backup quarterback Kenny Guiton had seen action in five of Ohio State’s seven games prior to Saturday, whether in mop-up duty or in temporary relief for an injured Miller. Guiton is a junior, albeit one with very limited meaningful game experience, but tonight in Columbus he’ll be something of a local hero.

In the final minute of the third quarter, at the end of a 37-yard run, Miller was tackled hard and had to be helped off the field. He was taken to a local hospital, the nature and severity of his condition undisclosed at the time, although it has since been reported that he is symptom free and will return from the hospital soon. Still, even prior to being knocked out, Miller was having one of his worst statistical outings of the season. Through three quarters, he recorded just 47 rushing yards on 12 carries, completed 9-of-20 passes for 113 yards, fumbled twice and threw a pick.

At the time Miller went down, the Buckeyes trailed the Boilermakers 20-14 behind three explosive Purdue plays: an 83-yard touchdown pass from Caleb TerBush to Akeem Shavers on the first play from scrimmage, a 100-yard Akeem Hunt kickoff return at the end of the first quarter and a 31-yard TerBush pass to Gary Bush. Ohio State might have been even further behind had a 34-yard Paul Griggs’ field goal attempt not been blocked on the previous drive. The Buckeyes dug themselves a little deeper with a missed 50-yard field goal attempt on the ensuing drive, but they held the Boilermakers near midfield — only to be pinned at the one-yard line by Purdue’s punt. Ohio State then committed a safety thanks to a block in the back in the end zone.

So you’re a backup quarterback, down 22-14 in the fourth quarter, to a conference opponent, at home. What do you do, hotshot? If you’re Guiton, the answer is “throw an interception, then lead a touchdown drive in the final minute, tie the game on a two-point conversion pass and lead another touchdown drive in overtime for the win.” Carlos Hyde rushed in the Buckeyes’ winning score from one yard out. [BOX | RECAP]

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• Baby Mangino, you had a hell of a run. You achieved internet glory and are surely a robust and take-no-prisoners schoolchild by now. We wish you all the best, and must now pass your mantle to another:

Best Halloween costume ever #ThrowbackThursday #kstate twitpic.com/b59y5x

— D. Scott Fritchen (@DScottFritchen) October 18, 2012

• No. 2 Oregon 43, Arizona State 21. Stewart Mandel took in last night’s carnage in Tempe:

For exactly three plays Thursday, No. 2 Oregon looked mortal. On second down of the Ducks’ first possession, the quarterback fumbled. One play later, Arizona State quarterback Taylor Kelly threw a 28-yard touchdown.

“I don’t know if there can be a worst start,” said Oregon defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti. “And then we decided that maybe, possibly we wanted to play today.”

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Like preseason awards, but for games, and weekly, and just as meaningful. For additional Week 6 content, peruse Andy Staples’ Walkthrough.

• Most internetty homecoming. After UAB callously ignored an online movement to model the Blazers’ 2012 Homecoming theme on Trogdor the Burninator, one enterprising agent took matters into her own hands. Did we attend UAB? We did not. Are we wearing a homemade “BURNINATE THE LIONS” shirt tomorrow? Do you know us at all?

• Best East Coast brunch game. A pre-noon kickoff in Eastern Time! Navy will start this year’s Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy series at 11:30 a.m. ET at Air Force.

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Georgia’s defense stifled Vandy; the ‘Dores went 2-of-14 on third-down conversions. (Getty Images)

Snap Judgments from the Week 4 late slate. For more coverage, check out our early Snaps, midday Snaps and complete Top 25 review. Also check out our coverage of Florida State-Clemson, Kansas State-Oklahoma and Notre Dame-Michigan.

• No. 5 Georgia 48, Vanderbilt 3: “I don’t have any complaints at all,” said Mark Richt following his Bulldogs’ casual mauling of the Commodores. Nor should he: Georgia finished with 567 yards of offense in its second conference win, held the ‘Dores to a single field goal and made its opponent look not terribly unlike the Vandy of old. “The numbers show that we’re executing well,” said Richt. So, too, did the scoreboard.

The Dawgs’ latest plug-and-play tailback, freshman Todd Gurley, led all rushers with 130 yards on 16 carries, and he recorded Georgia’s first and final scores. Aaron Murray enjoyed a bit of moderate exercise, completing 18-of-24 pass attempts for 250 yards and two touchdowns. Jarvis Jones sacked Jordan Rodgers on fourth-and-eight for an 11-yard loss in the third quarter that brought the house down.

Vanderbilt had 15 first downs tonight to Georgia’s 29. It converted 2-of-12 third downs. It was very nearly tripled up in rushing yards, 103 to 301. (Did we mention Georgia had more than 300 rushing yards? Georgia had more than 300 rushing yards. We’re not the only ones eyeing that Oct. 6 Bulldogs-Gamecocks matchup with increasingly rabid anticipation.)

“We talked about how this is the first [conference] game of seven in a row,” said Richt, “and how important it is to win every single one of them to get where we want to go. But you have to take them one at a time. We have a lot of respect for Vanderbilt.” We almost believe him. [BOX | RECAP]

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Denard Robinson will look to play hero against Notre Dame for the third straight season. (Lon Horwedel/Icon SMI)

Kind of like preseason awards for the upcoming weekend of football, and just as binding. For additional preview content heading into Week 4, including actual discussion of actual upcoming football games, actually, please see Andy Staples’ Walkthrough.

• Best opportunity for a drink refill and perhaps a nice nap inside a stadium. We have heard tell of this campaign to make Notre Dame fans watch football games more like living people and less like tastefully attired statues, but the combination of legions of Fighting Irish Down-In-Fronters and this banner does not inspire confidence in the possibility of a rollicking Saturday night in South Bend. More’s the pity, with both teams ranked and the possibility of an Actual Football Game looming large in prime time. Denard Robinson! Manti Te’o! Notre Dame’s defensive front! Denard Robinson again! Rejoice.

We have but one request, attendees of tonight’s festivities: Prove us wrong. Let your joy and anguish ring from sea to shining sea. We want it to be possible to relate to you, to like you, just in case your football team actually is planning on going the distance this year. Bridge the gap. Stand up and holler. Do the right thing.

*This makes Alabama very, very tall, yes. The football team, we mean. Not … well, you know.

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Perhaps voters merely admired Bret Bielema’s timely icing of Utah State’s kicker to seal a win over the WAC. Yes. They must have. (AP)

• Down in a poll. Feelin’ so small. Alabama and LSU perch atop the AP Poll. This, for the moment, does not worry us. They will play each other and this will sort itself out for real this time and we continue to believe we will not be subjected to a re-rematch. We must believe. Of greater concern for us, as usual, is what is going on in the bottoms of this exercise in folly we, as a society, continue to refer to as the “Coaches’ Poll.” Wisconsin is ranked. This is problematic and dumb. There are a dozen other stupidities lurking behind this link; can you spot them all?

• Get those Lorax costumes pressed. We’re just a couple short weeks away from the restart of the Harvey Updyke trial, and while from an entertainment standpoint we truly resent this being staged during football season, it’s probably best to get it over with while the whole state’s distracted with football good and football bad.

• Mark Richt, refined meanie. Folks ask us sometimes if we miss cussing a blue streak on the job. We do not, because there are ways to make one’s point without uttering so much as a “consarnit” if you really work at it. It’s like writing poetry with a very strict verse structure. Consider this, from Mark Richt on Sunday, on the subject of Week 4 UGA opponent Vanderbilt: “They have a lot of belief, and they’re playing to win it. They’re doing a good job of it.” The Commodores (1-2) recorded their first win of the season Saturday against Presbyterian, after losing in consecutive weeks to South Carolina and Northwestern.

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• Important things first. We will get to the part featuring teams expected to finish with winning records and play in the postseason momentarily, but for right now, please just bask in the radioactive glow of a Kent State player recovering a fumble and taking it 58 yards in the wrong direction. The announcers aren’t really enjoying this thing as much as they should, so maybe mute this and have the same spirited discussion with your coworkers that we had in our living room last night: Who’s the best/worst here? Andre Parker, the disoriented runner? The Towson players who tackled him even though a muffed punt can’t be returned (even in the wrong direction)? Or Parker’s Kent State teammates blocking for his wrongward journey? We love all three equally. We missed you, MACtion. (Kent State did manage a win, 41-21.)

• No. 9 South Carolina 17, Vanderbilt 13. The 2009 South Carolina-NC State 7-3 slog remains our gold standard for queasy Thursday night openers, but this game was a valiant attempt to carry on that legacy. Andy Staples was on the scene, and writes from Nashville: “Did South Carolina look like a top-10 team in its 17-13 win at Vanderbilt? Not even close. Did the Gamecocks look like a team capable of competing for an SEC — and, using a logical leap informed by the results of the past six years, the national — title? Nope. Did South Carolina leave Vanderbilt Stadium 1-0 overall and 1-0 in the SEC East? Yes. For opening night, that’s enough.”

• BYU 30, Washington State 6. We expected Mike Leach’s unseasoned band to have a rough go of it in Provo. We did not expect Washington State to not be able to score a single touchdown. Stewart Mandel was there to take it all in: “The outcome shouldn’t be entirely surprising. BYU, perhaps unduly overlooked by preseason voters (the Cougars garnered just 10 points in the same Coaches’ Poll that ranked them 25th to end last season), trotted out a senior quarterback, Riley Nelson, who went 6-1 upon taking over the starting job last season, along with seven returning starters from a top 15 defense. Wazzu, nine years removed from its last bowl trip, started a senior quarterback, Jeff Tuel, who’s experienced seven wins in his career (most while injured on the sideline), and a defense that returned three of the front seven from last year’s 82nd-ranked unit.”

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The story of opening night 2012, in tweet form: 

Gamecocks, we knew that eventually you’d have to play another game, in another city. We knew this day would come. It just hurts, is all.

— Capital One Bowl (@CapitalOneBowl) August 31, 2012

Nothing like watching two offenses work out the kinks in a driving rain.

— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) August 30, 2012

The first false start of the 2012 college football season comes from Guy Matched Up Against Jadeveon Clowney. Makes sense!

— SB Nation (@sbnation) August 30, 2012

…and then Clowney was all like, “Cthulhu!”

— Steven Godfrey (@38Godfrey) August 30, 2012

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Ring in the season Thursday night with the Ol’ Ball Coach. (AP)

Today, we are all Littlefoot, and these are our tree stars. Tonight in your living rooms and on your laptops: Actual honest-to-Sutekh football and two of the most quotable head coaches in the game.

Prime time

7:00 p.m. ET: No. 9 South Carolina @ Vanderbilt (ESPN). The Gamecocks clumsily pantsed the Commodores last season, in an ugly 21-3 affair characterized by ill-timed penalties and turnovers. Carolina sacked Vandy six times and threw four interceptions. After the game, Steve Spurrier called the performance the best he’d seen from his defense before excoriating his offense (and himself).

This night, the Gamecocks are favored by a little less than a touchdown. The player to watch is Marcus Lattimore, responsible for two of the Gamecocks’ three touchdowns in last year’s game, who returns to game action Thursday night for the first time since tearing his left ACL against Mississippi State last October. After Lattimore recorded more than 1,200 rushing yards as a true freshman in 2010, the loss was was one felt not just by South Carolina, but by the sport. (The other player to watch is backup quarterback Dylan Thompson, for those of you who like to make friendly wagers at home on just when Spurrier will yank an under-performing quarterback for the unpardonable sin of Not Being Danny Wuerffel.)

The SEC East will have a tight division race this year, even if it’s just a race to lose to the West in the Georgia Dome this December. Is Vandy coach James Franklin the youngest master curmudgeon in college football history? Can he match snipes and scores with one of the game’s all-time crustiest curmudgeons? He couldn’t last year, but this is growing into a whole new Vanderbilt. Just ask Franklin. NO. ASK HIM. [disconcertingly unblinking stare] Franklin trash-talked the Green Bay Packers in a roundabout way in interviews this week. Aaron Rodgers’ younger brother Jordan is Vandy’s starting quarterback, a trivia tidbit that could become the new Brock Osweiler Is Tall if the ‘Dores can back up Franklin’s assertions.*

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