Notre Dame defender Louis Nix stole the spotlight Saturday with this rumbling two-point conversion play. (USA Today)

By Zac Ellis

After yet another weekend full of spring football games, here’s a rundown of the latest news and notes from across the nation:

• Notre Dame: The Irish defense came to play in the annual Blue-Gold game on Saturday, accounting for 10 sacks, two interceptions and a safety in the scrimmage. The offense, however, failed to find its groove, with second-year quarterback Everett Golson finishing 6-of-13 passing for 98 yards with one interception. He was also sacked three times. Coach Brian Kelly said he wasn’t concerned with the offense’s struggles, admitting he’d seen improvement on that side of the ball throughout spring. But the offense did find a spark late in the game when nose guard Louis Nix III took a goal-line snap and rumbled in for a two-point conversion. Perhaps Kelly should consider that package for the fall.

• Alabama: The Crimson Tide were anything but streamlined in Saturday’s A-Day game. The Crimson and White teams combined for nine turnovers — six interceptions and three fumbles — in the contest, leaving coach Nick Saban understandably upset. “The biggest thing I was concerned about was how the team would go out there and what would be their energy, their enthusiasm, and their attention to detail,” Saban said. “I don’t think that there were enough guys that answered that question in a positive way to my liking. But I’m never satisfied.” SI.com’s Lars Anderson reported on the game from Tuscaloosa. Oh, and AJ McCarron’s famous female companion Katherine Webb also made an appearance.

• Penn State: Around 28,000 fans ventured to Happy Valley for the Nittany Lions’ spring game this weekend, braving the icy elements in State College. But there wasn’t much closure for fans hoping to get a feel for Penn State’s quarterback situation, in which Steven Bench and Tyler Ferguson are battling for the starting job. Coach Bill O’Brien was non-committal when discussing both passers after the game, but the competition may become more heated when five-star recruit Christian Hackenberg arrives on campus this summer.

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UCLA’s Johnathan Franklin rushed for 171 yards and two touchdowns in a victory over USC. (Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

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

• No. 17 UCLA 38, No. 21 USC 28. You heard a lot last week about the football monopoly in Los Angeles being over. No, again. No, for real this time. Well, you’ll hear even more about it this week, but only because it’s finally, demonstrably true. (We’re taking suggestions on which board-game related jokes to start making in its place from here on out. Balderdash? Sorry? Jenga?)

On a rainy afternoon in the Rose Bowl, the Bruins dashed out to a 24-0 lead midway through the second quarter, only to see the Trojans snatch momentum back by the start of the third, by which point Matt Barkley had thrown two touchdown passes and defensive tackle George Uko had scored a genuine Fat Guy Touchdown on a slip-and-slide fumble recovery. (Storied rivalry, historic venue, high conference stakes, home-and-home jerseys AND a FGTD: This game had it all, y’all.) A pair of traded touchdowns and a successful USC two-point conversion later, and the Trojans were trailing by three points with a little more than seven minutes left in the fourth quarter.

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Everybody who wants to see the national championship trophy filled with marzipan, thumbs up! (AP)

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

• Biggest game we feel like we couldn’t predict if our lives depended on it: No. 3 Kansas State at TCU, 7:00 p.m. ET. We’re still harboring a dream that seemed far-fetched just a few short weeks ago, a dream inspired by Tom Fornelli suggesting that if Bill Snyder takes home the crystal football this year, he’ll break it in half and make two hard candy dishes. The ‘Cats, at 9-0, are one of six undefeated teams remaining in FBS play. No gimme games remain, but then again, they haven’t played a gimme game since Oct. 6 against Kansas. In their past three outings, they’ve beaten three ranked opponents by a combined score of 154-68.

The Horned Frogs, no slouches on defense, will pose a greater threat to K-State’s undefeated season if the Wildcats take the field without starting quarterback Collin Klein. The Heisman frontrunner’s status for Saturday has been carefully guarded almost since the moment of his injury during last week’s game against Oklahoma State. It’s entirely possible we could see this contest played out without either team fielding the quarterbacks that topped the depth charts at the year’s outset. Only one thing is for certain: This will be the purplest football contest of the regular season.

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Tajh Boyd displays fierce jazz hands and passing acumen. (AP)

• No. 14 Clemson 42, Wake Forest 13. Where to begin: Clemson’s Tajh Boyd set school records for single-game passing yards (428) and touchdown passes in a half (five). That also ties his own single-game touchdown passing record, which he shares with Cullen Harper. Each scoring pass was thrown to a different receiver. Sammy Watkins caught balls with a vengeance, if that’s possible, setting a program record for single-game receiving yards (202 on eight catches). And we may have already sourced the Deacs’ primary error, which is quite correctable: Y’ALL S’POSED TO BE TURNIN’ LEFT IN THAT THING. [BOX | RECAP]

• No longer technically under our purview, but …  Former LSU teammates Tyrann Mathieu, Jordan Jefferson, Karnell Hatcher and Derrick Bryant were arrested yesterday on drug charges after officers were summoned to Mathieu’s apartment complex pursuing a complaint that “a man [was] attempting to force his way in to the complex through a security gate.” (The interloper in question was Jefferson, if any of you have any remaining jokes you’d like to burn off about his abilities against other kinds of defenses.)

• Now here’s some sunshine. “Head coaches in football and basketball will be held directly accountable for NCAA rules violations by members of their coaching staff in radically new legislation that is expected to be adopted Tuesday by the Division 1 Board of Directors,” and it just gets spicier from there. Our pal and former colleague George Schroeder has more.

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Will Nuke go … nuclear tonight in Winston-Salem? (We are very sorry.) (AP)

You have but one choice for Thursday night FBS football, in the form of No. 14 Clemson at Wake Forest. We’re sure you have so many questions.

• Why? What else are you gonna do, watch baseball? Of course you’re not gonna watch baseball. Besides, this might be fun. Clemson holds a three-game win streak over Wake Forest, but the Tigers have been a touch snakebit in this particular slot, going 1-9 in Thursday primetime ESPN ball since 1998. The last time they played Wake in such a game, the Demon Deacons won 12-7 and Tommy Bowden was fired within days. Basically, Halloween is coming right up, and one of these teams has “Demon” in its name, and you never really know what hexes are put on night games. So watch.

• What even is a Demon Deacon? Wake Forest will gladly explain this for you, but we’d like to sum it up with our favorite quote from the school’s reading material on the subject: “And while there are any number of ways to dress a Tiger, there is only one way to dress a Demon Deacon — with distinction.”

• What information do I, the discerning consumer, require in order to consume this game? The Tigers and Demon Deacons kick off at 7:30 p.m. ET on BB&T Field at Groves Stadium. The game will be televised on ESPN and streamed on WatchESPN.

• What’s at stake here? Clemson is 6-1 overall and 3-1 in ACC play. That one loss came to Florida State, but the ‘Noles are carrying an L as well, and the Tigers could take the Atlantic if they win out and FSU stumbles just one more time.

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Unfamiliar with Wake Forest’s Michael Campanaro, currently a national top-15 receiver in yardage who is averaging more than 125 all-purpose yards per game? This video should fix that, indelibly. [Via @DHPIV.]

• Be warned, these people do make soup from frogs. TCU announced Tuesday that the Horned Frogs will play LSU in the 2013 season-opening Cowboys Classic. They’ll presumably face off in prime time, against Alabama and Virginia Tech in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff.

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• You heard the national champion Gopher women’s hockey team. “Do the Gopher!” they say. “Don’t mind if we do!” say we.

• Sadness and bitter recriminations roundup! Friends of the Program dives into Arkansas messageboardlandia … Wake Forest “wins” this week’s Spike Factor … shake it off, BYU … angry Memphian football types, you have been scorned by Notre Dame; please respond proportionally … and Colorado offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy will move from the booth to the sidelines for the Buffs’ upcoming Washington State game; no word on how that will help Colorado avoid giving up more than the 69 points it surrendered to Fresno State.

• “Don’t lie to yourself, or to America.” Pat Forde breaks down the holy rules of field-storming.

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Tracking the zeitgeist of college football’s third weekend through social media:

Will the Cougs be Leaching Las Vegas w/ a win?

— Michael Felder (@InTheBleachers) September 15, 2012

Terrible kill by Marquess Wilson. #Pac12Volleyball

— edsbs (@edsbs) September 15, 2012

Very appropriate ending to the football equivalent of raccoons rummaging through garbage cans. Sure it’s fun to watch, but what a mess.

— Ralph D. Russo (@ralphDrussoAP) September 15, 2012

@edsbs Too bad Carter had to give up the magician gig due to ESPN’s ‘no Christian magicians’ policy. Same thing happened to Olbermann.

— Flubber McGee (@FlubberMcGee) September 15, 2012

Deon Bucannon’s four-way head turn there was magnificent toddler-opera: 1. “DAWG!” 2 wait 3. Naw I was– 4. DANG [flag]

— edsbs (@edsbs) September 15, 2012

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Freshman running back Rushel Shell racked up 157 rushing yards in Pitt’s upset win over Virginia Tech. (AP)

Snap Judgments from the early Week 3 slate. For more coverage, check out our midday Snaps, Alabama-Arkansas recap, Cal-Ohio State recap, Stanford-USC recap, evening Snaps and complete Top 25 review.

• Pitt 35, No. 13 Virginia Tech 17. We will not lie: We had not harbored high hopes for what appeared to be a dismaying Week 3 slate of games. With only three matchups between ranked teams and many other programs wrapping up their cupcake games before league play, we entirely expected to sit around in various states of boredom or sadness until USC and Stanford kicked off at 7:30 p.m.

So, of course, along comes Pitt, one week removed from getting waxed in its conference opener and two weeks removed from losing its season opener to an FCS team. The Panthers proceeded to stun us all, scoring more than twice as many points on No. 13 Virginia Tech than they managed against the Youngstown State Penguins in Week 1. College football’s gods are a capricious bunch, but let it never be said that they will let us remain without entertainment for long.

Tino Sunseri, so often maligned for reasons both fair and unfair, completed 19-of-28 passes for 283 yards and three touchdowns. One of those scoring throws landed in the hands of Ray Graham, less than a year removed from an ACL tear. Graham bears responsibility for the Panthers’ two remaining touchdowns as well, both of which came on short-yardage runs. Freshman Rushel Shell, who split carries with Graham, recorded 157 yards on 23 touches. The Panthers finished with 537 yards of total offense against Bud Foster’s defense. That is neither a trick nor a typo.

Let’s not let the defense go without credit: Pitt forced four turnovers, including three interceptions thrown by Logan Thomas, and two sacks. Thomas was also the Hokies’ leading rusher, winding up with a grand total of … 28 yards.

As first wins go, this is a doozy. As first wins between future division rivals go, it’s a shot across the bow. (It would be like the Sunseri of old to attempt a shot across the bow that strikes a direct hit on an opponent, wouldn’t it?) [BOX | RECAP]

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Assorted bests and worsts from college football’s weekend that was:

Houston quarterback David Piland, seen in this 2010 photo motivating Southern Miss’ Octavius Thomas to grow Golden Eagle wings, is an operational death star. (AP)

• Pointiest pointsplosion. Louisiana Tech beat Houston 56-49 on Saturday and set a handful of NCAA offensive records in the process. We mentioned Saturday the game’s 1,293 combined yards of offense; here’s more of what putting teams like Houston and LaTech in the same place will do: Records snapped included most combined plays in a regulation game (209), most combined first downs (78), combined completed passes (87) and combined passes without an interception (129). Teamwork!

• Best innovation in tailgating technology. This R2-D2 keg hails from LSU, but you might have guessed that even if there were no caption and the photo were black and white:

@billisking r2d2 LSU keg twitter.com/whiskeydranks/…

— Zack(@whiskeydranks) September 8, 2012

• Best touchdown celebration. Chuckie Keeton, QB, Utah State. The kid who Almost Beat Auburn is now the guy who Really Did Beat Utah.

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