(1) Alabama (SEC Champions) vs Troy (Sun Belt Champions)

(8) Ohio State (Big 10 Champions) vs Georgia Tech (ACC Champions)

(4) TCU (Mountain West Champions) vs West Virginia (Big-East At-Large)

(5) Florida (SEC At-Large) vs BYU (Mountain West At-Large)

(6) Boise State (WAC Champions) vs Virginia Tech (ACC At-Large)

(3) Cincinnati (Big East Champions) vs Central Michigan (MAC Champsions)

(7) Oregon (Pac-10 Champions) vs Iowa (Big 10 At-Large)

(2) Texas (Big 12 Champions) vs East Carolina (C-USA Champions)

Leading to: Alabama vs Georgia Tech ; TCU vs Florida ; Virginia Tech vs Cincinnati ; Oregon vs Texas

Leading to: Alabama vs Florida (!) ; Cincinnati vs Texas

Leading to: .... ?

I really didn't expect it. I said several times that, while I wanted Alabama to beat Florida because of the insufferableness of our SEC East rival if they won two straight national championships, I expected Florida to win. While I never got around to actually getting a fanpost up, the general reason was that I thought Florida's defense was better, would shut down a less effecient and more prone to "oops" Alabama offense and, really, that Tim Tebow would be Tim Tebow and win the game like Tim Tebows do.

I was, quite obviously, very much wrong.

I was impressed with Alabama very, very much -- as I'm sure most anybody was. When Florida showed life, Alabama responded immediately. When Florida tried to rally his troops, Alabama stiffled the Gators. And, in the end, Alabama just played better in every aspect of the field.

So, well done, Alabama, and good luck in Pasadena beating the hell out of the Longhorns. And color me impressed and, finally, convinced that Alabama is the best team in SEC, and in the Nation. Now don't make me wrong again come next month.

• Week 11 bracket, plus explanation of the system, here.
  

(1) 10-0 Florida Gators (SEC Champion) vs (16) 7-3 Troy Trojans (Sun Belt Champion)

(8) 9-1 Pittsburgh Panthers (Big East At-Large) vs (9) 9-2 Ohio State Buckeyes (Big 10 Champion)

(4) 10-0 TCU Horned Frogs (Mountain West Champion) vs (13)7-3 Virginia Tech Hokies (ACC At-Large)

(5) 10-0 Cincinnati Bearcats (Big East Champion) vs (12) 9-2 Iowa Hawkeyes (Big 10 At-Large)

(6) 10-0 Boise State Broncos (WAC Champion) vs (11) 8-2 Oklahoma State Cowboys (Big 12 At-Large)

(3) 10-0 Texas Longhorns (Big-12 Champion) vs (14) 8-2 CMU Chippewas (MAC Champion)

(7) 10-1 Georgia Tech Yellowjackets (ACC Champion) vs (10) 8-2 Oregon Punchers Ducks (Pac-10 Champion)

(2) 10-0 Alabama Crimson Tide (SEC At-Large) vs (15) 6-4 SMU Mustangs (C-USA Champion)

Changes:

• The only changes to the top 8 was (formerly #8 seed) Southern California dropping out of the polls completely to be replaced by the Pittsburg Panthers. Apparently an overtime win over the-team-which-cannot-be-defeated-which-has-now-been-doubly-defeated for Ohio State last week wasn't as impressive as the Panthers survival narrow victory win beatdown!!!! of Notre Dame. Iowa only dropped 3 seeding spots after the loss. Dang expectations, and living up to them!
  
• #10 Oregon is only up 2 spots after an easy win over Arizona State. Next week's game against Arizona is big, if the 'Cats win out, they will be the Pac-10 champion. That's easier said than done, the Wildcats have to win home against Oregon and at USC, as well as a trip to Sun Devil Stadium.
• Virginia Tech replaced formerly #13 Miami Hurricanes this week in the "last team in" spot, Penn State and LSU were both overlooked for the "only two teams per conference" rule. I really don't get how the ACC has two teams here, for that matter. Really, I'm somewhat surprised that the Pac-10 doesn't have two in there.
• If Nevada defeats Boise State on November 17th, they would seal up a spot in the system. That game is, now, the "conference championship" of the WAC. Nevada is 7-3 (6-0). Man, though, it's a shame a playoff system would mean that each game doesn't matter -- tell that to Houston, Southern California, and Miami who all dropped out of the playoffs. Oh, and Temple is also undefeated in the MAC, so they could squeak in here.

Because everyone else is doing it, and I want to be like the cool cats, I decided that I would finally put my ideas for a college football playoff down on paper, and I will admit that the system looks a lot like the FCS system for determining who plays. I am an Appalachian State fan along with my love of UT-K, and I think that the FCS system is pretty dang good.

So, with that being said, here is how I would pick the field of 16:

• 11 Conference Winners, these winners coming from the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big 10, Conference USA, Mid-American (MAC), Mountain West, Pac-10, SEC, Sun Belt, and the WAC. Sorry Notre Dame, Navy, and Army, you'll have to hope for an at-large berth because, quite frankly, you should be in a conference. That's how this stuff works. All NCAA FBS conferences would get an automatic qualifier in the tournament because, quite bluntly, that is fair. Enough with this BCS conference crap, that just creates pre-season boundaries that "inferior teams" cannot crack, which is the problem to begin with, isn't it?

• 5 At-Large Teams that would be the top 5 non-conference champions based off of a take-your-pick poll. The BCS poll could be used in deciding this, and I'll use it later on to show the seedings as they would stand right now. There would be a limit of 2 teams from one conference in the tournament, so sorry LSU.

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That was ESPN's College Football frontpage as of Wednesday 11:40 am, a picture highlighting Pat Forde's weekly "40-yard dash" feature on College Football. First and foremost, this: Florida is number 1 in the BCS, AP, and Coaches poll. Alabama and LSU are gearing up for a massive battle on Saturday. And yet it's Tennessee on the front page. Actually, it's not even just Tennessee's uni's  being on the front cover, it's the text accompanying it:

Mess With Your Uniform Month featured some misses. Urban Meyer just plain missed. But November has some games not to miss. The Dash passes judgment on it all.

Hold up, say it ain't so. ESPN thrashing Urban Meyer? The Golden Boy, Boy Wonder? Yep. Which all leads me to point at one thing: Lane Kiffin is winning at the SEC Football season, and that spells wonderful things for Tennessee's program. The link to the article can be found here, and I'd just like to comment a bit more on it.

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So, I took it upon myself to go ahead and check out some of the red zone stats for SEC teams and compare their performances from last year / this year and just see what happens. This all started from checking out Alabama's red zone statistics. First off, Tennessee:

Obviously the most shocking statistic is that we are on pace to score Eighty Eight (88!) more points in the red zone this year that last year. The green outline means that everything is better for the Volunteers in red zone scoring. Absolutely everything, which is somewhat amazing. On the defensive side, things are just a little bit worse, with the heavy increase in scoring % mostly mitigated by the lower Touchdown numbers. Both this year and last year, teams have had to settle for field goals against us. The other awesome thing about this chart is that no offense has scored a touchdown on us from outside the red zone.

Rest of the SEC after the jump...

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