It's been a week. My furlough is officially over. I am no longer unemployed, sitting on my front step listening to Biz Markie's "Just a Friend" on a continuous loop. (And if you don't get that reference, I started Netflixing "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" this week. It's phenomenal. Makes me wonder why I never watched it earlier.)

ANYWAY, not a whole lot happened while I was gone. That is a complete lie. LOTS happened. And quite honestly, it makes me feel good that it did. It justifies my existence as a sports reporter. So let's get caught up, shall we?

• For starters, Auburn somehow finagled its way to the top of a 7-5 heap in the SEC into the Outback Bowl, much to the chagrin of a bunch of SEC Eastern Division teams who traditionally go to Tampa. My take? Why not Auburn? It's not like Tennessee, Kentucky and Georgia were jumping off the page as can't-miss invitees. And the SEC is such a jumble that taking a team that went 3-5 over a bunch of teams that went 4-4 is not that ridiculous. And Auburn looks that much better after the way Alabama punked Florida on Saturday. Only Tennessee can say it played Alabama as well. And the Vols never led that game. That should count for something.

• About Northwestern, that should be an interesting matchup. Full disclosure: I'm a Wisconsin graduate and would have been very interested in seeing a Badgers-Tigers matchup in the Outback (even if nobody is really fond of Wisconsin's three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-tire-bits offense). But Northwestern is an interesting team. Pat Fitzgerald has that program doing good things. It's not as conventional of a Big Ten team in that the Wildcats like to pass the ball (266.1 ypg, 29th nationally). And they're not afraid to spread things out to level the playing field in terms of athleticism, since they can't recruit the kind of athletes that Ohio State and Penn State get on a regular basis. It's tough to tell what you're going to get when Northwestern takes the field. This is a team that lost to Syracuse and Minnesota earlier this year but finished with wins against then-No. 4 Iowa and then-No. 16 Wisconsin. Like Kevin Garnett says, anything is possible.

• There was finally some resolution on the long-awaited punishments from the ill-conceived "Big Cat" recruiting weekend at the end of May. Some colleagues of mine have great recaps here, here, here and here (scroll down a little). The most interesting development was that the SEC added some additional penalties beyond what Auburn had suggested (most notably keeping Trooper Taylor off the road until the end of November). So maybe the conference takes those "secondary violations" seriously after all. Also interesting, there were six recruits Auburn was not allowed to contact until the middle of September (about six weeks). Two of them -- Jessel Curry and Trovon Reed -- are Auburn commits. And the Tigers remain the picture to varying degrees with a few others. So maybe it wasn't the worst idea ever.

• Freshman Tyrik Rollison, the presumed quarterback of the future at Auburn, is currently serving a team-imposed suspension. Weird timing on this. It comes at a time when we reporters have virtually no access to Gene Chizik and we can't watch practice anyway (whereas suspensions to Eric Smith and Byron Isom were obvious because one was not at practice and the other was not active during a few games). So I'm curious if this news would have gotten out if not for the press release Auburn issued. Makes me think Chizik is trying to send a message to Rollison to get his head on straight. That seems to me to be the only reason for going public with it right now.

• Auburn hoops has not looked so hot. It's not an auspicious start if you lose to Troy at home. I'll be interested in Monday's game against Virginia, since I covered the Cavaliers for 4 1/2 years before coming down to Auburn. Tony Bennett is a brand new coach there but some of the players remain that I covered during my time there. The cupboard's not bare there, but the Cavs have some work to do to right the ship. That said, Auburn ain't exactly a world beater right now. Should be a close game.

• Watched a ton of football this week in between playing more video games than a grown-up should legally be allowed to play (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and NHL '10 on the PS3 kept me busy for most of the week). Some quick thoughts:

• Alabama looked dominant. There's no question who is the No. 1 team in the country. It makes Auburn's performance against the Tide look all the better.

• Am I a bad person if I took some delight in watching Tim Tebow cry after the game? Not a whole lot of delight, but some.

• Best game of the weekend was Cincinnati beating Pittsburgh. Back and forth, up and down the field. Snow. Missed extra points. Last-second touchdowns. Dave Wannstedt's mustache. It had everything.

• Best performance of the weekend: Ndamukong Suh of Nebraska. Simply dominating. 12 tackles, 6 tackles for a loss and 4.5 sacks to nearly help the 'Huskers upset Texas. I don't think I've seen as dominating of a defensive performance in a while.

• Worst performance of the weekend: Nebraska's offense. Seriously, JV high school teams look more competent with the ball. The Cornhuskers would have been better off quick-kicking on first down and hoping their defense could score points or force a turnover close enough that they could kick a quick field goal. Embarrassing.

• Biggest travesty of the weekend: That Texas, following a narrow win in which a second was put back on the clock so it could kick a field goal, was just assumed to be in the national championship after beating Nebraska. TCU and Cincinnati have just as legitimate arguments of being in the national title game. The Big 12 flat out stunk this year. Nobody seems to be saying this. Nebraska and Oklahoma had no offenses. Oklahoma State was mediocre. Nobody else was any good. I'd put TCU's wins against Clemson, BYU and Utah and Cincinnati's wins against Oregon State, West Virginia and Pittsburgh up against anything the Longhorns have accomplished this year. And what does Boise State have to do to ever get some respect? What a joke of a postseason setup. This would be the perfect year for an eight-team playoff. Perfect! But alas, we're stuck with a bowl system that will, bare minimum, leave us with two undefeated teams (possibly three) at the end of the year. It's the only sport that does this and there's no rational reason for not having a playoff. It's stupid and college football fans like myself are cheated of a legitimate conclusion to the season. [end of rant]

• As mentioned before, I have a Heisman vote. It's due tomorrow, so I'll have to pore over the candidates one last time before submitting it. I have a pretty good idea of who I'll be voting for but that could still change. I'll post my reasoning for who I selected tomorrow.

• While I was out, I went over 300 Twitter followers. I'd like to thank everyone who has decided to do so. And I'd like to encourage anyone who is not to follow the blog on Twitter by clicking here. The march to 400 begins!