The Hlist: Call the Big Ten divisions the Houdinis and Copperfields

A lot of odd, strange and curious things can happen when you have 124 Football Bowl Subdivision teams.

Like Oklahoma and UTEP playing past midnight in El Paso.

And Taylor Martinez of Nebraska throwing more touchdown passes (5) than Matt Barkley of USC (4).

And anyone who bet on Michigan to beat Alabama.

1. The Big Ten and Great Escapes

OK, Michigan didn't slip past Alabama. It did slip, though.

But Michigan State scored with 8:12 left to grab the lead from Boise State and hang on for a 17-13 win.

Minnesota needed three overtimes to defeat UNLV.

Wisconsin batted away a Northern Iowa pass on a 4th-and-1 at the Wisconsin 41 to secure a 26-21 victory.

Iowa got a 23-yard TD run from Damon Bullock with 2:15 left for an 18-17 win over Northern Illinois.

And Northwestern scored with 44 seconds left to knock off Syracuse, 42-41.

The Wildcats' winning score was a pass to Demetrius Fields. Two years ago, Northwestern upset Iowa with a TD pass from Dan Persa to Fields with 1:22 remaining.

Fields has had a nice career, but hasn't been anything resembling an All-Big Ten player. He's never had more than 32 catches or three touchdowns in a season. His game-winner against Iowa was his only TD grab of '09.

2. The Big 12 is 9-0

Don't get too excited about this. Of the nine vanquished foes, the best one probably is Tulsa, which fell to Iowa State.

The others were SMU, Marshall, Savannah State, Missouri State, Northwestern State, UTEP, Wyoming and South Dakota State.

How can a BCS conference have an entire week's slate of nonconference games without playing one ranked team? What am I saying? The ACC, Pac-12 and Big East did the very same thing.

3. Divorce sometimes hurts both parties

Offensive coordinator Paul Chryst left Wisconsin after last season to become the head coach at Pittsburgh, and took three other Badger assistant coaches with him.

Saturday, Pitt lost to FCS Youngstown State in Chryst's debut as head coach, 31-17.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin was unspectacular in its 26-21 win over Northern Iowa.

Montee Ball only scored one touchdown for the Badgers. He needs 38 more to tie his FBS record, set last season.

4. Another sadistic September

College football couldn't have been well-served by the following FBS-FCS contests:

Arizona State 63, Northern Arizona 6

North Carolina 62, Elon 0

Missouri 62, SE Louisiana 10

New Mexico 66, Southern 21

Florida State 69, Murray State 3

And ... Oklahoma State 84, Savannah State 0

Savannah State got $385,000 for the trip. It will get another nice check this Saturday when it visits (uh oh) Florida State.

5. Bobcat Goldthwait would be so proud

The Ohio Bobcats, riding the momentum of their Idaho Famous Potato Bowl victory last year, won at Penn State, 24-14.

The Texas State Bobcats, making their FBS debut, won at Houston, 30-13.

Texas State was a 34.5-point underdog. Houston went 13-1 last season.

That was an upset.