P6 2011: Final Standings

A week ago tonight, Alabama defeated Louisiana State to win college football's national championship. Due to extenuating circumstances (ie, work was nuts, I needed to write the Best Of, and we're about to have a kid), I'm only getting to posting the final update now. (The top two finishers were informed Tuesday morning, as soon as I ran the numbers after the final AP poll was posted.) We've reached the end of four months of clever names and silly pictures; let's see how it all finished up.

Biggest movers: Generally, not a lot happens between the end of the regular season and the ranking after the bowl games. It takes a major collapse to fall very far, like losing 70-33 to the champion of the weakest of the six major conferences. Of course, no Pick Sixer had Clemson, so that drop didn't affect the game. Among involved teams, West Virginia (+6) was the beneficiary of that Clemson beatdown, and Oklahoma moved up 3 after beating Iowa (as they should have, Iowa did not belong in that game, thanks a lot Pennsylvania State for screwing up the Big Ten's bowl lineup). Nosedivers: Virginia Tech, -4 after losing to the luckiest Michigan team in decades; Kansas State, -4 after losing the Cotton Bowl to a very good Arkansas squad, and a couple of red-clad -3s (Nebraska and Stanford).

Biggest gainer: Even though I just said most teams didn't move very much, three players managed to finangle a 10-point jump off those gainers: "QBKatt" and "Takin' that Pick 6 to the House!" (the only two players with identical picksets) plus "A Burfict Ten."

And now, your winner:

"Sidney" entered the final poll with a five-point lead on "HORRIBLE Dog." Both had Stanford and Southern Cal, so it really came down to the Big Ten vs. SEC Showdowns in Groups C and D: South Carolina or Wisconsin, and Outback Bowl combatants Michigan State vs. Georgia. Unfortunately for the dog, her two lost and Sidney's two won, allowing the lead to widen to eight points.

Congratulations to Sidney, winner of the 2008 Volunteer license plate, officially issued by the Tennessee Department of Revenue. Here's what this year's version looks like. And congrats to HORRIBLE Dog, winner of the Tennessee Volunteers coozie, which she no doubt will urinate on. The top scoring kitty is "The Boonster," ninth overall, which is a great comeback story after he didn't do so well last year (dead last). The top scoring child is "The Bobcat," seventh overall, who visited us this summer and loved meeting our (at the time only) kitty and who also jams a mean blues harp.

Quigley gets ready to say goodbye to the prize he won last year, and has no use for.

As always, you can check out the standings here. I color coded the sheet so you can see how your teams did in the bowl. Green is a win, red a loss, and black means that either they didn't make a bowl or they are on NCAA probation for providing impermissible benefits to star running back Reggie Bush. If you want to see how your team did over the season, just click the other tab called "Points."

I just want to say thank you to all the babies, children, cats, adults, and yes, even the dogs who played the game this year. It was a lot of fun to talk with you through the season. I hope you heed the call when the email goes out in August to pick six more teams.