The 2006 College Football Blogger Awards: Best Big 12 Blog

by Joel Hollingsworth on Feb 1, 2007 1:00 PM EST

Hey, have you heard about the awards? Okay, well, to recap today's festivities anyway:

The Best Community Award, at Rocky Top Talk
The Keith Jackson Circa 1995 Award (Best Writing), at MGoBlog
Best ACC Blog, at Burnt Orange Nation
Best Big East/Notre Dame Blog, at Dawg Sports
Best Big Ten Blog, at Every Day Should Be Saturday

Note: The Tyrone Prothro and His Amazing Catch Award will be along shortly, probably sometime today, at MGoBlog.

And now for the Best Big 12 Blog Award. The nominees are:

Best Big 12 Blog
	Burnt Orange Nation Corn Nation Double Extra Point CrossCyed The 12th Manchild

And this year's winner is:

Burnt Orange Nation

Kyle at Dawg Sports, in nominating his SBN colleaque, put it best:

I doubt whether anyone failed to nominate Burnt Orange Nation for this category, so there likely is little I can add to augment the praise that has been and will be heaped upon Peter Bean and his coevals at B.O.N.

Accordingly, I simply will say this: Peter is a leader in the blogosphere, not just through the example of his weblog (although his influence there is profound), but in the manner that he conducts himself behind the scenes. He is both genuine and gentlemanly, offering aid, advice, and encouragement to all who take up this endeavor and seek his counsel.

In that respect, he is apt to be remembered as the Bear Bryant of the blogosphere, whose impact set off ripples that long will radiate as those who learned from him continue to carry that knowledge outward and upward. Coach Bryant's coaching staffs produced a myriad of future head coaches and those who have profited from Peter's example likewise have gone on to attain some success as webloggers that is due in large measure to his guidance. I know that to be true because you are reading one such weblog right now.

I am not nominating a Man of the Year here, though, so I should get back to the business at hand. Burnt Orange Nation, which epitomizes what it means for a weblog to be fan-friendly, is the handiwork of co-authors who bring their personalities to bear on a variety of questions, from the whimsical to the profound, while relying heavily on the quantitative without ever forgetting the importance of the qualitative to any analysis involving a game of emotion. B.O.N. generally, and Peter particularly, succeeds at being inventive without sacrificing tradition and the site is unstinting in its devotion to its team without ever being guilty of viewing its athletics program through Rose Bowl-tinted glasses. Burnt Orange Nation is the model many of us strive to follow.

Hear, hear, Kyle. I second Kyle's characterization and that of BON reader/commenter/poster extraordinaire, 54b, who recently said "THE PETER . . . always brings insightful, thought provoking content to the site. His contribution is often timely and well-researched, usually makes a valid point or argument, and most importantly and notably, shows a mutual respect for his fellow reader/contributor. Without these type of commentators, there would be no BON. One might even be so bold as to call them the "backBON" of the site."

Peter would be the first to tell you, though, that he's just one of the herd over there. (ED. I wrote this a few days ago, and then, this. See? I told you so.) After all, there's a reason (about 1,400 of them, actually) that BON won this year's award for Best Community. Just take a look at the content on the right sidebar. Peter has made the site more adhesive than Billy Donovan's hair gel by, among other things, showcasing certain timeless BON posts such as the Schadenfreudian Rhett Bomar Dismissal Thread, What Kind of Longhorn Fan Are You?, How to Deal with a Sooner, and more. And take special note of just how many of those BON Classics are reader-submitted posts.

Burnt Orange Nation is a stampeding herd, I'm telling you. And it's this year's winner of the Best Big 12 Blog.

RUNNER UP: Double Extra Point. This Nebraska Cornhuskers blog launched in August, 2006, with blogger "Jeffie Husker" wondering aloud whether "Fall camp [would] provide[] sufficient "grist for the mill'' to keep this thing going." Well, suffice it to say, he had plenty of material, and with only one football season under his belt, he's already the runner up for the Best Big 12 Blog. Congratulations to Double Extra Point.

UP NEXT: MGoBlog, with the Best Pac-10 Blog Award, at around 2:00 EST.

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