The week in the undercards.

There's a marked dearth of not-obvious storylines in mid-major action this week, so in descending order of importance, we present the collected wisdom of a weekend that largely served to solidify what we already knew:

Houston can't play defense.
To review: 93 points, 1,358 yards, 67 first downs and 12 touchdowns between Houston and Southern Miss, and while we like video game numbers as much as the next geek (559 of those yards belonged to the right arm of Case Keenum alone), it bodes further ill for the Cougars' bowl chances. A win is a win, but they avoided overtime only by the grace of a batted-down Hail Mary pass from Martevious Young as time expired. Allowing that kind of offensive production from a team led by a second-string C-USA quarterback does not a BCS buster make.

TCU: Very good at beating bad teams.
Another Saturday, another TCU beatdown. The week's victim: UNLV, unhappy recipients of a 41-0 shutout in front of a shameful number of empty seats in Amon Carter Stadium. The Horned Frogs are sixth in the latest BCS standings and have one more tuneup date, a trip to San Diego State, before their last real test of the season, a home stand against forgotten but still formidable Utah. Taking into account the scores of TCU's last three games (41-0 over Vegas, 38-7 over BYU, 44-6 over Colorado State), the fact that one of those whippings was delivered to a then-top-20 team, and the fact that Utah needed all four quarters to surmount Wyoming, we're prepared for a November cruise and a high-profile postseason bid for the blood-spitting darlings of Fort Worth.

Cue the 'family affair' headlines.
All right, this is actually sort of adorable: Boise State quarterback Kellen Moore's little brother Kirby caught his first touchdown pass Saturday in the Broncos' otherwise unremarkable beatdown over San Jose State. Feel-good stories like this are important for the Broncos at this juncture as far as keeping them on the radars of various media voter types down the stretch, because beating teams like the Spartans -- or any of the upcoming lineup of Louisiana Tech, Idaho, Utah State, Nevada and New Mexico State -- isn't going to do it.

The angry ostrich and his stealthy stalk.
We had our suspicions last week, but after three winless weeks to open the season, preseason darkhorse Nevada is 5-3 and finally looking like the team we expected out of Reno in August. An early Hawaii lead was no match for the flailing limbs of Pack quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who put on a fairly balanced offensive performance all by his lonesome: 184 aerial yards, 114 rushing yards, and two scores in each medium in Nevada's 31-21 win.

You can't spell 'bowl' without 'owl' (sorry).
With Temple's improbable 27-24 win at Navy, the Owls are breaking all kinds of precedents: First bowl-eligible season since 1990, longest winning streak (six games) since 1974, sole possession of first place in the MAC East and, if all goes well and they secure a bid, the program's first bowl trip since the 1979 Garden State Bowl. They grow up so fast! Over 30 years!

Yarbnalls, a warning.
Idaho, we tell you this because we find you improbably lovable and want you to succeed: We're going to have to back off our bold and increasingly ridiculous prediction that you'll be the ones to knock Boise State out of the undefeated column if you don't start playing up to your WACmates. A last-minute drive for a one-point comeback win over 3-5 Louisiana Tech, on the heels of a gruesome loss at Nevada, isn't engendering much hope over here. Firm up for Fresno State this week or you'll be in real trouble on the blue turf of Nov. 14.

Malzahn is missed, part nine in a continuing series.
Bad: Tulsa lost. Worse: Tulsa lost to SMU. Worse than that: Tulsa lost to SMU at home. And worst of all: Tulsa allowed SMU's newly promoted freshman quarterback, Kyle Padron, to throw for 354 yards while suffering through its most dismal offensive effort in terms of yards and points against C-USA defense in more than three years, leaving the Mustangs one Houston stumble away from first place in C-USA West.

Sky blue; water wet; Memphis bad.
I sat through Memphis' entire Tuesday night horrorshow against East Carolina, and the Tigers could handily lose to Pearl Cohn High at the moment. They're playing kiddie ball. ECU didn't really do themselves any favors, but four Memphis turnovers spelled doom for embattled coach Tommy West and his ragged band.

Profiles in continuing ineptitude.
We have a winner! As in one winner with one singular win! Miami (Ohio) topped Toledo 31-24, despite being outgained slightly in total yards and time of possession, to exit the ranks of the winless and earn Mike Haywood his first victory as a head coach. Otherwise, New Mexico came closest to dragging itself out of the cellar, blowing a second-half lead in a 23-20 loss to San Diego State. Hopeless noob Western Kentucky actually led at halftime and ended up scoring 49 points, doubling its previous season high, but it didn't much matter since North Texas scored 68 in return, the last 19 as part of a fourth quarter rally to pull away. That, in turn, wasn't as bad as Eastern Michigan's patsy play date with Arkansas, ending in a 63-27 beating at the hands of the Razorbacks and an eighth consecutive loss for the Eagles. Rice had a bye, which by the Owls' standards through an 0-8 start ought to count as a resounding victory.

What should have been ...
... as in, "There is no way Louisville should have beaten Arkansas State thanks both to being down to their third-string quarterback and to being Louisville in 2009," but win the Cardinals did, 21-3, despite a mediocre performance by new 'Ville quarterback Will Stein.

... and what never had a prayer:
Thanks be to Tressel; the New Mexico State scourge is slain. Saddest possible postgame quote:

"Ohio State was my dream school coming out of high school," said linebacker Ross Conner, a native of NMSU’s hometown in Las Cruces. "I made it to the 'Shoe."

Saddest-er possible postgame quote:

"As the game went on, we were just trying to get out of here healthy," NMSU coach DeWayne Walker said.

In that case, count the 45-0 loss as a resounding success. 

Player of the Week: Joe Webb, QB, UAB.
Give a yell for the senior triple threat, whose passing, rushing, and receiving efforts accounted for 304 total yards and four touchdowns touchdowns to lead the Blazers to that rarest of all phenomena, a road win in El Paso.

Dan LeFevour Stat Watch.
Scoring records were indeed set in the Boston College-Central Michigan tilt, but not by our boy. In the Chippewas' first loss since dropping their season opener to Arizona, Rust Belt Tebow managed only 152 yards through the air, 26 on the ground, no touchdowns of his own and an interception while enduring a 31-10 beating to the Eagles.

(A Somewhat Arbitrary) Mid-Major Top 10
1. TCU (8-0) Frogs can afford to cruise for one more week, if you can call outscoring their last three opponents 123-13 'cruising.'
2. Boise State (8-0) Still undefeated, will not top TCU barring collapse on the part of the Frogs. Rinse, repeat.
3. Central Michigan (7-2) Can we value a loss to a Big Six school over the next two schools' near-misses against Southern Miss and Wyoming? That's why it says "arbitrary" up there at the top.
4. Houston (7-1) Look alive, Cougars. Smarting Tulsa doesn't offer much margin for error this week.
5. Utah (7-1) Utes needed overtime to win last week and this week trailed to Wyoming. Favorable schedule saves total collapse, again.
6. Temple (6-2) C'mon up, you sons-a-guns. A Navy win counts for a lot around here, especially when it's a comeback in the final frame.
7. Troy (6-2) Best of the Sun Belt is bumped up by attrition and an easy win over ULM.
8. BYU (6-2) Saved by the bye.
9. Idaho (7-2) Games like this are why we call Louisiana Tech "pesky."
10. Nevada (5-3) Welcome back, gentlemen.
Dropped out: Navy

Stay Tuned.
Piquing our interest for Week 10: Virginia Tech at East Carolina, Boise State at Louisiana Tech, BYU at Wyoming, Navy at Notre Dame, Army at Air Force, New Mexico at Utah, Memphis at Tennessee, Houston at Tulsa, Idaho at Fresno State.

• Most Realistic Upset: East Carolina over Virginia Tech? We know how that sounds, and ECU's win over Memphis Tuesday night wasn't the tidiest of affairs, but the way Virginia Tech played this week, they look like they could lose to just about anybody. The former top-five outfit is only a 12-point favorite in Greenville, where pirates will be about in force.

• Most Unrealistic Upset: Navy over Notre Dame. It's a great rivalry, but Navy's just not congealing as a team and after wiping the Alamo Dome with Washington State, the Irish are nothing this season if not thorough eliminators of inferior competition.

• Most Inevitably Gruesome Blowout: Memphis at Tennessee. It's homecoming in Knoxville, and while that didn't go so well for Tennessee last year (see: grim, plodding loss to Wyoming five days after Phil Fulmer was fired), the Tigers looked absolutely abominable in mid-week play, and the Vols proved in the opening blowout over Western Kentucky that they're far from averse to running up the score.

Scoreboard.
No wins over BCS schools this week for our plucky mids in four attempts. After nine weeks of competition, mid-major programs are 18-85 versus the Big Six.

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Holly welcomes your adulation and veiled threats at nastinchka-at-yahoo, etc.