Ugh. Do we have to? (We do?) Fine. Well, okay. I guess I'm ....wait, what happened Monday night? Really? An absolute throttling?

Ugh.

Okay. Well. Here's the final BlogPoll for the year. Let's just be done with 2011, okay?

Rocky Top Talk Ballot - Week 16

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama Crimson Tide	2
2	LSU Tigers	-1
3	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	-1
4	Oregon Ducks	--
5	Stanford Cardinal	1
6	Arkansas Razorbacks	1
7	Boise St. Broncos	-2
8	Wisconsin Badgers	--
9	South Carolina Gamecocks	2
10	Michigan St. Spartans	--
11	Baylor Bears	3
12	Georgia Bulldogs	--
13	Oklahoma Sooners	-4
14	Kansas St. Wildcats	-1
15	TCU Horned Frogs	2
16	Houston Cougars	--
17	West Virginia Mountaineers	--
18	Michigan Wolverines	-3
19	Southern Miss. Golden Eagles	4
20	Northern Illinois Huskies	2
21	Missouri Tigers	4
22	Cincinnati Bearcats	--
23	Clemson Tigers	-5
24	Virginia Tech Hokies	-5
25	Florida St. Seminoles	--
Dropouts: Arkansas St. Red Wolves, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Tulsa Golden Hurricane

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings "

Notes below the jump.

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Yeah. Late. I know. Thread. Big game. Go.

;-)

Happy (observed) New Year's Day. Here's your Sports Television Gorge Blueprint. Who do you like in all of these things and why? Are you rooting for the SEC? Against SEC East rivals? For some and against others? And what about Oklahoma State? Do you want them to lose just to remove any doubt about who should be playing in the National Championship? How do you see the Ducks/Badgers playing out?

This is the day's thread. We'll have a separate one for the Vols' basketball game. Happy Day to you.

Not to mince words here, but: the early bowl games are kinda bad. That being said, I know y'all are watching them anyway, so we may as well just use an open thread for all the games. (Except for the Independence Bowl, which received special treatment.) All games should be on ESPN3*, and hey look, a bowl schedule! We'll hold this thread for:

• Motor City-turned-Little Caesar's Bowl (Western Michigan / Purdue, 12/27, 4:30 EDT)
• Belk Bowl (Fightin' Charlie Strongs vs. Notorious T.O.B., 12/27, 8:00 EDT)
• Military Bowl (Toledo vs. Air Force, 12/28, 4:30 EDT)
• Holiday Bowl, aka the only decent game of the lot wait WHAT (Cal v. Texas, 12/28, 8 PM EDT and a complete downer compared to what's normally going on here)
• Champs Sports Bowl (FSU vs. Notre Dame vs. national relevance vs. echoes in a four-way death match, 12/29, 5:30 PM EDT)
• Alamo Bowl (CREAM! and the rest of Baylor vs. Washington, 12/29, 9 PM EDT)
• Pinstripe Bowl (currently in progress - Rutgers vs Iowa State, 12/30)
• Music City Bowl (Mississippi State vs. Wake Forest, 12/30, 6 PM EDT - hide the children)
• Insight Bowl (iowa vs. Oklahoma, so because this game is before January Stoops should be okay, 12/30, 9:30 PM EDT or so)
• Meineke Car Care Bowl (HOT NEW SEC TEAM Texas A&M vs. Persa Strong, 12/31, 12 PM EDT)
• Sun Bowl (Georgia Tech vs. Utah, 12/31, 2 PM EDT)
• Fight Hunger Bowl (...let's not talk about this, 12/31, 3:30 PM EDT)
• Liberty Bowl (Cincinnati vs. HEY YOU GUYS JAMES FRANKLIN IS REALLY TURNING VANDERBILT AROUND, 12/31, 3:30 PM EDT, come decked in red and black plzkthx)
• Peach Bowl (Virginia vs. Auburn, 12/31, 7:30 PM EDT)

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They may not be the most interesting matchups to most people, but it's football, and we have only 35 of these things left to enjoy. So today's lineup has:

• Gildan New Mexico Bowl: Temple "@" Wyoming, 2 PM EST
• Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: Ohio "@" Utah State, 5:30 PM EST
• R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl: San Diego State "@" UL-Lafayette, 9:30 PM EST

All of today's games are carried on ESPN. There is a programming note of interest to UT fans: the Lady Vols will take on UCLA at 5 PM EST today. It will not be televised and may have an online video feed, but there will be a live thread regardless. Not sure how we'll handle the intersection between it and the Potato Mash, but we'll survive somehow.

Bowl season starts tomorrow, so today's your last chance to get in and get full points in the 2011 Rocky Top Talk Bowl group at Fun Office Pools. If you played last year you should've gotten an email back on or around December 5 with registration info, but either way you can also head on over to the Fun Office Pools website and search for "Rocky Top Talk 2011 Bowl" to find us. Same as the regular season, we're picking straight up with confidence points, which is even more of an adventure with 35 bowl games.

After the jump, the complete breakdown of how our community is leaning on all 35 bowl games...

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We've opened the official RTT Bowl Pick 'Em contest, once again through Fun Office Pools. If you played in our bowl pool last year, you should've received an email invite. If you're new, you can create an account at Fun Office Pools, then join our group by clicking here and searching for "Rocky Top Talk 2011 Bowl". It's free to play and just like the regular season, we'll use confidence points and pick winners straight up. With 35 bowl games, the stakes are even higher - if you've never played in one of our pools before, you place 35 points on the outcome you're most confident in, 1 on the least, etc. The tiebreaker will be predicting the score of the BCS National Championship Game.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments. The fun begins with Temple against Hooper's Wyoming Cowboys in the New Mexico Bowl on Saturday, December 17. You'll want to get your picks in for the early games before they kickoff, but note that all remaining picks lock on Monday, December 26.

Good luck!

First off: there are no right answers. I'm a fan of looking at wins - hence, why Oklahoma State gets #2 here. I know the argument for Alabama, too; both are right and neither are right, and that's what happens when you have a system that's designed to pair two teams together in a single game and at least three teams who deserve to be there. That's how it goes.

Further downpoll, Wisconsin and Michigan State get a nice bump for playing two very even games. Oklahoma looks kind of weird between them now, but I'll live with it. Houston and VT get spiked, Clemson comes back, and the 21-25 includes teams who have lost to Kansas and UAB. Remember, the bottom of the poll is where bad teams go to die.

Rocky Top Talk Ballot - Week 15

Rank	Team	Delta
1	LSU Tigers	--
2	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	1
3	Alabama Crimson Tide	-1
4	Oregon Ducks	--
5	Boise St. Broncos	--
6	Stanford Cardinal	1
7	Arkansas Razorbacks	2
8	Wisconsin Badgers	3
9	Oklahoma Sooners	-1
10	Michigan St. Spartans	4
11	South Carolina Gamecocks	2
12	Georgia Bulldogs	--
13	Kansas St. Wildcats	3
14	Baylor Bears	3
15	Michigan Wolverines	--
16	Houston Cougars	-10
17	TCU Horned Frogs	1
18	Clemson Tigers	--
19	Virginia Tech Hokies	-9
20	Arkansas St. Red Wolves	-1
21	Nebraska Cornhuskers	-1
22	Northern Illinois Huskies	-1
23	Southern Miss. Golden Eagles	--
24	Tulsa Golden Hurricane	1
25	Missouri Tigers	-1
Dropouts: Toledo Rockets, Louisiana Tech Bulldogs

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings "