The American Football Coaches Association has released its 2006 All-American Team and, although it is lead by many of the familiar faces that you would expect in Troy Smith of Ohio State, Lamarr Woodley and Leon Hall of Michigan, Calvin Johnson of Georgia Tech, and Joe Thomas of Wisconsin, there were a few notable surprises.

In my opinion, the biggest surprise is that Marshawn Lynch was one of the two first-team running backs. He is clearly a fine player and had a very good season, but there were a number of seemingly more-worthy players available. Ray Rice of Rutgers, Ian Johnson of Boise State, Michael Hart of Michigan, and even Garrett Wolfe of Northern Illinios would have all probably been ahead of Lynch on my list. Lynch was certainly an interesting choice.

It is also surprising to see that the coaches only selected two linebackers to their team, and even moreso, that Penn State’s Paul Posluszny, the winner of the 2005 Butkus and Bednarik Awards, did not receive a spot.

There are many rumors circulating that the LSU Tigers will play in the Rose Bowl. Their opponent will either be Michigan or USC. If USC wins they will most likely be headed to Glendale, but a loss would allow Michigan to leapfrog them and the Trojans would play in the Rose Bowl for the 2nd consecutive year.

I like this move by the Rose Bowl because in all likely-hood USC will beat UCLA and no one wants to see a rematch between Michigan and Notre Dame, but what this does say is that if Florida loses they will be out of the BCS even though they beat LSU. Arkansas would receive the automatic bid and LSU would get the at-large, something that would make Urban Meyer even more mad. The Tigers would become the first SEC team to play in the Rose Bowl since Alabama in 1946.

LSU is 10-2 with their two losses coming to Florida and Auburn on the road. Last week they did beat Arkansas on the road.

It is the last week of the regular season and that means it is Championship Week in college football. In the In The Bleachers Podcast, we talk about last week’s action and how it will affect the BCS Standings. We also break down every conference championship like the Big 12, SEC, ACC, Conference USA, and the MAC. There is a big game in the Big East as Rutgers and WVU collide, while USC hopes to beat UCLA and play Ohio State in the BCS National title game. Finally we talk about the greatest rivarly of them all, Army vs Navy. Jon from Corn Nation joins us again to give his take on the Big 12 title game and more!

Make sure you check your subscriptions for the podcast. If you want the podcast you must subscribe to the Feedbuner but if you want to subscribe to the blog please use the RSS feed. This is for iTunes to be able to archive the shows. Enjoy this week’s episode of In The Bleachers and if you have any questions or comments to the show please email them to inthebleachers AT gmail DOT com.

Three new invites to tell you about this morning:

Miami, who only became bowl eligible beating BC on Thanksgiving, will play on the Smurf Turf of Boise. They go to the MPC Computer Bowl to play WAC representative, Nevada. Nevada was 8-4 this year.

Besides the Hurricanes first trip to Idaho, it is Larry Coker’s last game as head coach.

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The Big 12 announced last night that the loser of Saturday’s Oklahoma/Nebraska game goes to Dallas and the Cotton Bowl. They will face an undetermined SEC team on New Year’s Day.

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The other bit of news also comes out of the Big 12 as the Holiday Bowl match-up is set.

Coming off their upset of Texas last Friday, Texas A&M has a date with the Cal Golden Bears on December 28th in San Diego.

This is usually the most entertaining pre-New Year’s game, and with BCS outsider Cal and A&M on the field, this looks to be a great matchup.

The great guys at Rocky Top Talk, along with some help from a few others have decided to start the First Annual BlogPoll College Football Blogger Awards. I think it is a great idea to rewards the hard work of so many bloggers who write, in my opinion, better insightful articles then you will read on any of the main stream sports sites.

Since this idea is brand new, they are looking for ideas for categories, as well as nominations. So that’s where you readers come into play. I know that there are some of you out there who are a little shy and don’t like to comment much, but I promise we won’t bite. So if you have an idea for an award, award name, or any nominations, please post them in the comment section in this post or over at Rocky Top Talk. First read over the Q&A about the awards and what they are looking for and if you listen to the podcast, don’t forget to nominate us (hint hint)!.

But seriously, this is a great way for us bloggers to network and get to know each other better. In The Bleachers has been fortunate enough to have such great bloggers as John from Mountainlair and Jon from Corn Nation on our podcast and it has been a pleasure. Also, the Heisman Pundit has been kind enough to pick In The Bleachers as one of the voters in his weekly CSTV Heisman Blog Poll and he has even offered to do something fo the site while he is at the Heisman Awards show. So we are very excited about that. So check out those sites and head on over to Rocky Top Talk and put your two cents in!

Here are teams that as of this moment have accepted an invite to play in a bowl game.

TCU vs Northern Illinois - San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl
Oregon vs BYU - Pioneer PureVision Las Vegas Bowl
Rice - R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl
East Carolina - Papajohns.com Bowl
San Jose State vs. New Mexico - New Mexico Bowl
Utah vs. Tulsa - Bell Helicopter Armed Forces
Arizona State vs Hawaii - Sheraton Hawaii Bowl
Central Michigan - Motor City Bowl
Florida State vs UCLA - Emerald Bowl
Oregon State - Brut Sun Bowl
Minnesota - Insight Bowl
Ohio University - GMAC Bowl
California - Pacific Life Holiday Bowl
Purdue - Champs Sports Bowl
Navy - Meineke Car Care Bowl
Iowa - Alamo Bowl
Penn State - Outback Bowl
Wisconsin - Capital One Bowl
Western Michigan - International Bowl
Ohio State - BCS Championship Game (Not technically accepted but it is obvious)

Don’t fret all of you people who still want to get a limited edition Phillip Rivers in a NC State Wolfpack jersey bobblehead.  Chuck’em seems to still be alive and kickin’, it even has a sale on the bobbleheads.

For those who don’t know, Chuckem.com is an e-commerce site devoted to a seemingly unending love of Chuck Amato and the NC State Wolfpack.  One would think that with the firing of Chuck Amato, that the site that love built would be no more.  Thankfully, beefyt and the lovely folks at Chuck ‘em re-upped the domain on 11/20/06, just 7 days before the firing.  So no hurry, you still have until December of ‘07 to get 1 of the 300 “A Howling Finish” Gator Bowl plaques signed by Chuckie himself.  Can you say collector’s items?

Chris Scelfo has been relinquished of his head coaching duties at Tulane after the 6th losing season in 8 years.  Scelfo has been at the helm of the Green Wave for the past 8 seasons, having taken over for Tommy Bowden.  I have no definitive proof of this aside from a potential google search (the Bowden thing, not the firing, that’s right here) that I’ll do within the next few days.

Scelfo led the Green Wave to a 37-57 record during his tenure.  No word on a replacement, but Steve Spurrier has been mentioned, like every other job.

The fourth Armed Forces Bowl will feature the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes and the Utah Utes, December 23rd at Fort Worth.

The game was known the last three years as the Fort Worth Bowl.

Tulsa, representing Conference USA, is 8-4 on the year, while Utah, from the Mountain West, was 7-5 in the regular season.

Tulsa accepted their invitation this morning.

For Utah, this is their fourth straight bowl game and for Tulsa their third in four years.

1. Troy Smith - Rumor has it that Troy is on the third paragraph of his acceptance speech as of this moment.

2. Michael Hart - It does not look like Hart will get his wish for a rematch, but if he returns next year he will be a front runner for the ‘07 award.

3. Darren McFadden - If McFadden would not have started the season injured we might be talking about him challenging Smith for the Heisman. This guy can do everything from play RB, WR, and he can even line up at QB. He’s a special player for the Razorbacks.

4. Steve Slaton - I think the injuries have finally caught up to Slaton. He has one last chance to show everyone what he can do against a tough Scarlet Knight’s defense.

5. Brady Quinn - I am done drinking the Quinn kool-aid. Even if Smith had had a bad game against the Wolverines, Quinn did nothing against USC to show that he was Heisman worthy. His little tantrum slamming down the phone on the sidelines didn’t help any either.

6. Colt Brennan - Brennan lacked the exposure needed for this award but that does not take away from his stats. Plus he showed that he can do it against a BCS team as the Warriors beat Purdue last Saturday.

7. Patrick White - White is the best dual threat QB in the nation. The injury hurt him against the Bulls, but if his passing skills keep developing teams will have a tough time game planning. White also needs a healthy Slaton for the Mountaineers offense to run on all cylinders.

8. Ian Johnson - The Division 1-A leader in rushing touchdowns for an undefeated team needs to be on this list somewhere. Don’t let the blue turf fool you; Johnson is a quality running back.

9. Calvin Johnson - Johnson is still hanging on the list since he is the best receiver in college football, but if Dwayne Jarrett would have played a full season
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10. Ray Rice - Rice will get to go head to head this week in Morgantown with two competitors for the 2007 Heisman.