2006 College Football Blogger Award Ballot

The night air is brutally cold and filled with more questions than answers. Will Willie Martinez be the new head coach of the Rice Owls? (Evidently not. Dang.) Will Chan Gailey be the new head coach of the Miami Dolphins? Where will Georgia Southern turn now that Brian VanGorder is gone? Does Georgia have a shot at getting Coach VanGorder back in 2008? Do I have a shot at the Keith Jackson Circa 1995 Award for 2006?

Admittedly, that last one came from out of left field, but tomorrow is the deadline for voting for The 2006 College Football Blogger Awards, so it seems only fair that I, as a voting member of the Academy of Intercollegiate Athletics Weblogging Arts and Sciences (O.K., I just made that up on the spot), should reveal how I voted.

A portrait of the author as a College Football Blogger Award voter.

The Lawgiver's new-fangled voting machine provided electors with the opportunity to order the finalists from first to last, so I should state from the outset that I ranked Dawg Sports last in each of the three categories in which it was nominated. I just didn't feel right about ranking myself ahead of any of the other worthy contenders.

That said, here are the nominees behind whom I cast my support:

• Personally, I'd have classified E.D.S.B.S. as a national weblog, rather than as an S.E.C. weblog. I say that to Orson's credit, but, since the site was placed in the conference-specific category, I felt he deserved my vote.
• On "The West Wing," when Josiah Bartlet was running for re-election, the remark was made that the president would rather carry his home state and lose the election than carry the rest of the country and lose his home state. Along those same lines, I'd rather have R.B.U.A.S.'s Johnny vote for me for the Keith Jackson Circa 1995 Award than to win the thing outright.
• For some reason, "GameDay Recap" appeared on the list of nominees for Best Regular Feature, but not on the ballot itself. Had that option been available to me when voting, that would have been my choice.

Alert! Embarrassingly outdated cultural reference upcoming!

• Remember the beard-growing contest on "Cheers"? When I was in college, some buddies of mine and I thought about having such a contest, but, when we were discussing it, we all agreed that our pal, Jeff, couldn't participate, because, if there were a professional beard-growing circuit, Jeff would be the world champion. Seriously, Jeff could grow a beard, shave it, and grow another beard in less time than it would take an ordinary mortal man to grow the first one. In tribute to Jeff, though, we agreed that the trophy for winning the beard-growing contest would be called "The Jeff Award." We may want to consider adopting a similar policy next year. If, as I suspect will be the case, certain categories produce slam-dunk landslide winners, we should think about allowing those winners to compete solely in the Mythical National Champion Blog category next year and name the league-specific categories from which they are excluded in their honor (e.g., "The MGoBlog Award" for the best Big Ten blog, "The Burnt Orange Nation Award" for the best Big 12 blog, "The Every Day Should Be Saturday Award" for the best S.E.C. blog). That would help the awards to shine the spotlight on weblogs that are less well known yet equally deserving.
• Along those lines, however the results turn out, Joel's idea was a good one and its execution has been a success in its most important particular: I have looked at weblogs I never visited before as a direct result of the fact that they were nominated, which was a large portion of the point. Nice work, Joel.