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MRI Football 2006 - Rankings Bowl Final

January 9, 2007  |  By Benjamin Miraski

Dump the Gatorade. It is time to celebrate this year's MRI champion for football. And as in some of the past years in basketball and football, this year's champion is not the one that will be taking home the crystal football.

No, this year, the LSU Tigers, probably the hottest team over the second half of the season, are the champions. It didn't come easy. LSU played their toughest four opponents in conference on the road this year. That gave them room to schedule a little lighter outside of conference, but even LSU didn't expect Fresno State to be as disappointing as the Bulldogs ended up this season.

LSU began to roll after losing their two conference games to Florida and Auburn, defeating Tennessee and Arkansas, before being selected as an at-large selection to the Sugar Bowl to take on Notre Dame. As expected, in the MRI, and across most of the country, LSU defeated the Irish, 41-14, and until Monday night, had the largest gain the rankings.

Their conference foes who are going to be holding onto the crystal football were not going to let LSU get all of the glory. Despite Ohio State being given a 72.85% chance of winning in the MRI, Florida grabbed the victory, coincidentally, by the same score as LSU over Notre Dame. The win catapulted Florida from 7th to 3rd in the MRI, still behind those pesky Buckeyes. How is this possible? The MRI analyzes the whole season, and despite losing their final game, the MRI rated the Ohio State season better than Florida's. Florida did do one thing. Should the game be held again, on a neutral field, Ohio State's percentage chance of winning would be down to 54.72%. Something tells me that if they hadn't waited almost two months before playing the final, the percentage would have been somewhere in the middle.

The rest of the Top 5 belongs to Louisville and Boise State, who couldn't make up any ground towards the top of the charts. Both teams won their BCS bowl games which says something about the changing face of college football. Not too many years ago - two to be exact - only one of the two teams would have been able to get into the BCS, and neither would have qualified for the "Big Dance".

Look for more on the bowl season, and the season in general as the week moves on. Until then, check out all the ratings, in this, the Bowl Final edition of the MRI for football.

Posted January 9, 2007 11:00 PM