This week in the undercards.

About that Houston run ...
Well, that happened. Two wins over the Big 12 South might leave even the pluckiest mid-major upstarts ripe for an emotional letdown, but there's "sleepwalking through a 'trap game,'" and then there's "losing your top-15 ranking against a 1-3 C-USA team off a 57-point loss that wasn't even that close." Even the good Doctor is baffled by this one, and if the Cougars are looking for an easy rebound, they're not going to find it next week in Starkville, unless they've quietly decided only to show up in nonconference games.

Down to two.
Houston's El Paso bellyflop means your remaining mid-major undefeateds are Texas Christian and Boise State, both coasting Saturday to comfortable victories over SMU and UC Davis, respectively. Neither school has the easiest paths to perfect records remaining, but both are navigable. The Horned Frogs must face BYU and Utah, and after besting Colorado State -- brace yourselves -- it's more and more looking like 4-1 Idaho, off back-to-back upsets over Northern Illinois and Colorado State, is the potential trap game for the Broncos on Nov. 14. Forward, the yarbnalls!

Lost Boys.
Southern Miss and Hawaii find themselves sans starting quarterbacks for the rest of the year after the unfortunate events of this past week. Hawaii kept its loss a relatively reasonable one, for the WAC, but was still run over by Louisiana Tech and had better tune up fast defensively -- the Warriors have Fresno State, Idaho and Boise State without a break. Southern Miss' downfall was particularly painful, having never lost to UAB, but they've got struggling squads from Louisville and Memphis on which to cut their backups' teeth. (And both might take heart from the recent fortunes of Baylor.)

Tommy West is So, So Very Fired: Part Five in an Infinite Series.
Memphis is still losing, did you know? They put on quite a show for three quarters before succumbing under the weight of a 23-point unanswered rally by UCF. Even the hometown reporters are speculating on replacement coaches. (You ever notice how the more a coach gets called a Nice Guy, the worse he seems to be at coaching football? West is getting called a Nice Guy a lot these days.)

They come with fire, they come with water.
Navy extended its win streak over Air Force to seven games in the usual screwball contest, coming down to one overtime field goal by the Midshipmen (made) and another overtime field goal by Air Force (missed) after neither of the nation's top two rushing offenses managed 200 yards on the ground. The next Commander-in-Chief match is the Air Force-Army tilt on Nov. 7.

Profiles in continuing ineptitude.
Only one of the nine winless mid-majors notched one in the "W" column Saturday, as Nevada finally got its head right in a big way: 63 points on more than 700 total yards will undo a lot of offensive uncertainties, even if it is against UNLV. Keeping it together against Louisiana Tech -- the Bulldogs just held Hawaii without a touchdown for the first time since 2004 -- next week will be another story.

Your remaining poor oh-fer souls are: Rice, Miami (Ohio), Eastern Michigan, Ball State, New Mexico, Western Kentucky, Florida Atlantic and Florida International. Ball State came the next closest to undoing the bad juju, hanging in with Toledo until the final 30 seconds before the cruelty of a truly miserable season came crashing on top of them: The Cardinals went ahead on a Boise-esque two-point conversion, a Statute of Liberty play to go up 30-29 with 27 seconds to play, only to give up a 51-yard touchdown pass down the left sideline two plays later to drop to 0-5. Of the unhappy few, at least one will drop from the list this weekend -- Western Kentucky and Florida International are facing off Saturday in Bowling Green, although we wouldn't put it past them to both manage to lose, somehow.

What Should Have Been ...
Iowa Hawkyes, trendy pick for Big 10 title contenders? Try Iowa Hawkeyes, prey of the Sun Belt. It almost happened for Arkansas State here, overcoming the Hawkeyes' brick-wall defense and, to everyone's shock (though no one more than Iowa fans), even a real, live Ricky Stanzi quarterbacking performance. But for a couple more deep breaths on the part of Red Wolves quarterback Corey Leonard, this might have been the upset of the week and another nail in the Big Ten clown coffin.

... and What Never Had a Prayer:
Even with Red Raider quarterback Taylor Potts sidelined after getting his bell rung, New Mexico couldn't keep its major limbs away from a surly Texas Tech buzzsaw. Elsewhere in middle America, Cincinnati's Robo-Pike got his roll slowed, but unless you can score some points on the Bearcats in return (and Miami, Ohio most assuredly cannot), even a half-speed Cincy offense will prove insurmountable.

Mini-Major Meltdown Watch.
South Carolina State didn't make it close but put in a yeoman effort in its first '09 loss, against big brother South Carolina. The Gamecocks look alternately solid (Ole Miss) and like one of the worst one-loss teams around: 38-14 is a cozy margin of victory; allowing 326 yards to a I-AA team when your defense is your alleged strong suit is visor-tossin' territory.

Player of the Week: Donald Buckram, RB, UTEP.
We lined up to crow about this guy already, but his line does bear repeating: 32 carries, 262 yards, four touchdowns, zero turnovers and one astounding surname in the upset of the week. (Oh, and one catch for zero yards, but with ground numbers like that, who needs to put the ball in the air?) Buckram's total on the ground was the individual mark of the season to date.

A Somewhat Arbitrary Mid-Major Top 10
1. Boise State (5-0) Pounding UC-Davis told us nothing. Yawn.
2. TCU (4-0) Same goes for Southern Methodist.
3. Central Michigan (4-1) Welcome back, Danny boy.
4. BYU (4-1) With offsetting performances in the win over Oklahoma and the loss to Florida State, it's still safe to say we know next to nothing before the TCU game.
5. Houston (3-1) Bizarre and embarrassing loss aside, they've still got those two Big 12 South wins to consider.
6. Utah (3-1) Idle; the Colorado State game this Saturday has us piqued, although less so since the Rams' weird midnight loss to Idaho.
7. Middle Tennessee State (3-1) Ditto the Blue Raiders' trip to reigning Sun Belt overlord Troy.
8. Idaho (4-1) Maybe the rest of the world's only hope for a Boise State collapse.
9. Tulsa (4-1) By virtue of being the only remaining one-loss team in the rest of the mids. (It says "arbitrary" right there, y'all.)
10. Navy (3-2) It was the Middies or Colorado State, and we like the win over Air Force and the near-miss at Ohio State more than CSU's once-impressive win at Colorado.
Dropped out: Southern Miss, Air Force

Stay Tuned.
Games we'll have an eye on next week include Louisiana Tech-Nevada, Vanderbilt-Army, Eastern Michigan-Central Michigan, Houston-Mississippi State, Utah-Colorado State, Florida International-Western Kentucky, TCU-Air Force, and UTEP-Memphis.

• Most Realistic Upset: Mississippi State over Houston. We have no earthly idea what caused the Cougars' collapse in El Paso, but if they think that was bad, wait until they meet a Bulldog team that might actually be respectable at football (someday).

• Most Unrealistic Upset: Not gonna happen at Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan. CMU warrior-poet/quarterback Dan LeFevour's got a stat sheet to pulverize.

• Most Inevitably Gruesome Blowout: We're going to veer from convention here and give this one to Florida International-Western Kentucky. After five straight weeks of humiliation, whoever gets their foot on the other's throat first isn't going to let up easy.

Scoreboard. With most of the major schools settling into their conference schedules, the needle moves a little slower this week, which is why going winless in four games against "Big Six" conference schools this time around isn't quite as bad as it looks. Mid-majors are 15-71 versus BCS teams for 2009, up from 15-67.

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