Best New Blog

Maize N Brew - Dave's just a good writer that manages to be yet another relevant and important voice in a sea of Michigan bloggers.

Card Chronicle - Daily reading, really. Not relevant for these purposes, but the hoops coverage is great, too. I'm hooked.

Bear Meat - It's a must-read Baylor Bears blog. That's a ridiculous accomplishment.

Bruins Nation - Nestor pumps out the content on the main page, while his army of readers keeps the discussion lively in comments and diaries. Perhaps the most active college football community around.

EDSBS - The EDSBS readership is batshit crazy. Which makes the comment threads must-reads. Don't believe me? Check out this post from November, 2005. There are still readers commenting on it.

MGoBlog - Brian's readers are generally a literate, educated bunch who contribute worthwhile material to the discussion. It's hard to sort through other sites comments, but MGo's are generally worth the read.

Post Of The Year

Ian on "Fun Bags" - My work blocks Ian's site, presumably because the word "sexy" appears in the title, so I'm not completely sure I've got the right post, but I think this is it. Anyway, this puppy - while a little short of being a definitive football treatise - is chalk full of amazing digressions. I remember being immensely entertained.

Kyle on Notre Dame - It was impossible to pick one DawgSports story among so many worthy choices, so I went with one that stuck in my mind from a long time ago. Honestly, though, you could pick a random week from Kyle's archive, open it up, and probably find something worthy for this award.

How I'd Like To Know Vince Young (RBUAS) - BON's official winner, here. Johnny's another writer who has about a dozen posts that could win this award. Truly elite writing.

Blogger Championship Series

Note: Nominations for best blog from each conference. Notre Dame lumped in with Big East. Category for general college football included.

Big East/ND - Rakes of Mallow

ACC - Eagle In Atlanta

SEC - DawgSports

Big 12 - Corn Nation

Pac 10 - Conquest Chronicles

Big 10 - MGoBlog

General CFB - (tie) EDSBS and SMQ

Best Blog Overall - National Champ

The best blog, overall, should be a combination of all the things we've been talking about throughout this nomination process: entertaining, analysis-heavy, sublimely written, pleasing to the eye, and so forth.

I know, I know, I'm not supposed to talk about myself here....

In all seriousness, though, as difficult as it is to pass over Sunday Morning Quarterback, DawgSports and EDSBS, I have to tip my cap to Brian here. If there weren't a BlogPoll, this would be excruciatingly difficult. As is, Brian gets the nod. He can write as well as any of the aforementioned, his sense of humor rips up my insides, and his analysis is elite. The only regret I have is that the unnavigable Fanhouse distracts him from MGoBlog. Because when "MGoBlog" gets lit up bold in my Bloglines folder, I get excited. A giant tip of the hat to Brian, college football's best blogger.

A Final Note

There are dozens of blogs that I didn't get a chance to write about in this process. And while I agree somewhat with SMQ's sentiment that these award type things often do wind up making worthy people feel invalidated, I think we've successfully avoided that. While I didn't get a chance to talk about many of my favorite daily reads, in reading other bloggers' nominations, I saw some of them there, plus many others that I never even knew existed. In that sense, these awards are serving their intended purpose. I've added at least ten new sites to my RSS reader, and am grateful to have been introduced to their work. To everyone out there slaving away on their site, I hope these serve as a reminder that people do, in fact, notice. Even if you're not pulling in hundreds of readers a day, your writing and work is being appreciated by at least a few folks. Probably more than you realize.

--PB--