You heard us right, we’re going to determine the 2011 National Champion the way it ought to be done… through a season-ending 16 team playoff. We’ve partnered up with Athlon Sports, seeded the top 16 teams according to our final Scripps Legends Poll, placed them into a tournament style bracket and will simulate all 15 game results starting January 2, 2011.

Join us on facebook and complete your own college football playoff bracket today!  You can challenge your Facebook friends to play as well with an invite after you have signed up to play the game. Also, you can review all the Legends Coaches brackets and see who they pick to win the National Championship in our playoff challenge game.

We’ll be simulating two games per day starting January 2 through January 8 and then reveal the ultimate National Champion on January 9. Check back daily at 1pm EST to see which teams have advanced.

We are offering a couple of really nice prizes:
Grand prize winner: A college football jersey of your choice signed by the Legends Coach of your choice. All game participants will be eligible to win this jersey based on a random drawing.

1st place winner: A replica National Championship Trophy from the winning team and year of your choice (only Coaches Poll winners from 1950 to current year). The first place winner will be determined by total points earned and a tiebreaker.

Sign Up Today and Complete Your Playoff Bracket

In the final poll of the regular season, LSU and Alabama remained on top of the rankings in the Scripps Legends Poll.

Oklahoma State managed to take four second place votes from Alabama after the Cowboys beat rival Oklahoma 44-10 en route to a Big 12 championship. However, Oklahoma State still wound up one spot behind the Crimson Tide, which received the other 15 second-place votes.

“Oklahoma State has had a heck of a season,” former Auburn coach Pat Dye said. “But I still think that LSU and Alabama are the two best football teams in the country, and that’s why I put Alabama No. 2.”

LSU is the only unbeaten team left standing in college football, and after another dominating victory over Georgia in the SEC championship game, the Tigers once again received all 19 first-place votes. No. 15 Georgia fell five spots after the loss.

Idle Stanford remained at No. 4, one spot ahead of Oregon, which won the inaugural Pac-12 championship game over UCLA in impressive fashion. The Ducks will face No. 8 Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl after the Badgers won the first ever Big Ten championship game over Michigan State.

No. 6 Boise State moved up a spot after finishing its regular season with just one loss. USC followed at No. 7, moving up four spots with its highest ranking of the season. No. 9 Arkansas and No. 10 Kansas State rounded out the top 10.

No. 13 Clemson made the biggest jump in the rankings after a resounding 38-10 victory over Virginia Tech in the ACC championship game. The ACC champs climbed eight spots.

No. 20 Houston fell 12 spots this week — more than any other team — after suffering its first loss of the season to No. 21 Southern Miss in the Conference USA title game. No. 22 Oklahoma dropped nine spots.

West Virginia, Penn State and Florida State rounded out the rankings.

No. 13 Oklahoma was picked as a preseason national championship favorite. But after a baffling midseason loss at home to Texas Tech and a Heisman-worthy performance by Baylor’s Robert Griffin III, the Sooners enter their game with rival Oklahoma State with two losses.

The one-loss Cowboys still potentially have an outside shot at reaching the BCS championship game, but they will need a dominant performance against Oklahoma and some help in the polls.

On Monday’s Scripps Legends Poll teleconference, Fisher DeBerry gave six reasons why he thinks Oklahoma State will prevail in the game.

1. Oklahoma State is rested

DeBerry: Oklahoma State has had two weeks now to get ready for the game and get healed up a little bit. Also, heal their pride.

2. Brandon Weeden and Justin Blackmon

DeBerry: Oklahoma State has a great quarterback and they’ve got several wide receivers, but particularly Blackmon who I think is as good as there is in the country. I think it’ll be tough to beat Oklahoma State this year based on the concerns I mentioned earlier about Oklahoma Sooners.

3. Landry Jones is struggling of late

DeBerry: Oklahoma concerns me a little bit for the fact that their quarterback, Landry Jones, who was having such a great year and he’s still been consistent – throwing about 400 yards the other night, but he hasn’t thrown a touchdown pass in two games.

4. Oklahoma’s injuries

DeBerry: Oklahoma has had a lot of injuries. In fact, they had one the other day to their defensive end, Alexander, who might be the defensive player of the year in the conference. I hope it’s not a serious injury and would get to play this weekend.

5. Oklahoma’s red zone offense

DeBerry: Oklahoma also concerns me because they just haven’t been very good in the red zone. They have trouble getting the ball across the goal line.

6. The game may have lost some luster, but it’s still bedlam

DeBerry: But at the same time the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State game is just like the Auburn-Alabama game. It’s pretty intense. Last year’s game was 47-41. I think it’ll be a similar type game.

Image courtesy of Flickr, RASMITH116

No. 6 Oregon and UCLA will face off in the inaugural Pac-12 championship this weekend. UCLA enters the game at 6-6, knowing that head coach Rick Neuheisel won’t be on the sidelines next season.

Because of its probation, No. 11 USC is not allowed to participate in postseason play this season, despite having a far better record and ranking than archrival UCLA. Pac-12 experts Don James and Terry Donahue — former UCLA coach — discussed the championship matchup on Monday’s Scripps Legends Poll teleconference.

James: Well, the gamblers have got it 30 points. So, it’s not a toss up game. It’s at Oregon and they’ve just got so many weapons. They’re fighting for their lives down there. UCLA is really under the gun and it’s a shame with USC’s problems that they’re not in the game. It would’ve been quite a game.

Donahue: UCLA just got beat 50-0 by SC, you think I’m going to talk?

Unless there’s some kind of a modern miracle, like Don said, it’s a 30-point spread and it’s being billed down here as the Nikes v. Yikes. That may be appropriate.

Oregon can’t do exactly what USC can do in terms of throwing the ball. They don’t have the same kind of receiving core, but they do it another way with their running game with the speed of LaMichael James and defense. Anthony Thomas and those guys are just unbelievable.

I would imagine that UCLA will get absolutely steamrolled. And I think we’re playing Friday night, it’s a short week, maybe that’s good after getting beat 50-0 – I’m not sure. But I don’t know. I don’t know what to tell you except that it’s not really a championship game in the sense that the best team in the South clearly is Southern Cal and they went up to Oregon and beat Oregon and a re-match would have been a really interesting game.

But other than that, UCLA has got to go up and play and somehow try to play well and make it a competitive game. The problem we had Saturday night was that after the first quarter the game wasn’t competitive. Somehow in the championship game we’ve got to find a way to just be competitive. I don’t know if UCLA can do that or not.

Image courtesy of Flickr, krmcguire