Bowl Season is coming to an end with the Louisiana State Tigers taking on the Ohio State Buckeyes for all the marbles on Monday, January 7th at the Superdome in New Orleans. The BCS National Championship is upon us!! College football fans everywhere will be watching this one…and wondering why their team wasn’t in it…(sigh). But ah well…what are you gonna do? There’s always next year, right?

This is the second consecutive national title matchup for the Buckeyes (and 18-20 in bowl games all-time) but this time out they’ll settle for nothing less than number-one. A championship title would put the icing on an impressive 11-1 season, but they’re facing a focused Tigers team whose offense is explosive — a team whose aggressive ground game threatens to pound the crap out of the Buckeyes. (Led by Jacob Hester, LSU scored 34 touchdowns on the ground and averaged 38.7 ppg.) The LSU defense is equally aggressive, allowing a mere 283.9 yards per game.

Nonetheless, Ohio State finished the regular season with the nation’s top-rated defense. The Buckeyes were first in the country in scoring defense (10.7 ppg) and total defense (225.3 ypg) and third in rush defense (77.1 ypg).

No matter how you slice this thing it’s going to be an exciting game between two competent teams that have toughed out a crazy season only to find themselves in an enviable position: the BCS National Championship.

The college football preseason rankings have just been released, and USC is the overwhelming No. 1 team. Will they go undefeated and play for the title? Or will they have to settle for another Rose Bowl, or (shudder) one of the non-BCS bowls on the following schedule? Time will tell.

San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl
Dec. 20: Mountain West vs. Navy/At-Large

R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl
Dec. 21: Sun Belt No. 1 vs. C-USA

PapaJohn’s.com Bowl
Dec. 22: Big East (or MAC) vs. C-USA

New Mexico Bowl
Dec. 22: Mountain West vs. WAC

Pioneer PureVision Las Vegas Bowl
Dec. 22: Mountain West No. 1 vs. Pac-10 No. 4

Sheraton Hawaii Bowl
Dec. 23: C-USA vs. WAC

Motor City Bowl
Dec. 26: Big Ten No. 7 vs. MAC

Pacific Life Holiday Bowl
Dec. 27: Big 12 No. 3 vs. Pac-10 No. 2

Texas Bowl
Dec. 28: Big 12 vs. C-USA

Champs Sports Bowl
Dec. 28: ACC No. 4 vs. Big Ten No. 4 or No. 5

Emerald Bowl
Dec. 28: ACC No. 7 vs. Pac-10 No. 5

Meineke Car Care Bowl
Dec. 29: ACC No. 6 vs. Big East

AutoZone Liberty Bowl
Dec. 29: C-USA No. 1 vs. SEC No. 6

Alamo Bowl
Dec. 29: Big Ten No. 4 or No. 5 vs. Big 12 No. 4

Petro Sun Independence Bowl
Dec. 30: Big 12 No. 7 vs. SEC No. 8

Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl
Dec. 31: Mountain West vs. Pac-10

Allstate BCS National Championship
Jan. 7: BCS No. 1 vs. No. 2

Sport Betting Tip: Apparently, the O in OU stands for Overvalued.

The Oklahoma Sooners are 3-2 to win the Big 12 South Division, behind only the Texas Longhorns at 11-10. Sure, the Sooners have over 100 years of tradition on their side, but that won’t earn them a conference title in 2007.

Not that OU doesn’t have plenty of talent. It’s just that there are enough question marks at key positions to make any handicapper think twice about taking the Sooners ahead of their archrivals from Austin. There will be a new quarterback and a new running back this year following the departures of Paul Thompson and Adrian Peterson, and Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year Rufus Alexander will be missed at linebacker.

The Sooners look like they’re on their way to one of the more prominent non-BCS bowls, perhaps the Cotton Bowl or the Holiday Bowl. But 2008 could be great for OU.

With the college football season kickoff only two weeks away, it won’t be long before the haves start separating themselves from the have-nots. At Bodog there is a clear-cut favorite for this year’s National Championship, with USC firmly entrenched as 5/2 favorites.

Next in line on the odds sheet is Michigan at 7/1, which should tell you how good Bodog believes the Trojans are. This year’s USC squad has a Heisman-caliber QB in John David Booty and possibly the best defense the school has ever seen, under head coach Pete Carroll. The defense has 10 starters returning and is packed with stars, including what could be the best set of linebackers in the country.

If the offense around Booty plays with even half the intensity that the defensive unit will almost certainly display, the Trojans could be an unstoppable force on the way to another National Championship.

Is this your first crack at filling in your NCAA Tournament bracket? Looking to kick some butt in this year’s office pool?

You may be the best worker in your office, but the real bragging rights are earned in March. Filling in your bracket correctly could mean the difference between getting that promotion and languishing in the mail room for another year. Especially if your boss is a college basketball freak.

One way to pick a successful bracket is to make a mistake. That may seem contradictory, but that’s what happened to Russell Pleasant last year. During last year’s March Madness, three million people filled out a bracket in ESPN’s March Madness game. Out of those three million people, only four correctly chose the Final Four teams. The reason there were only four is because of George Mason. The reason Pleasant ended up picking George Mason to reach the Final Four? He got them mixed up with George Washington. The small error ended up winning Pleasant $10,000 because he also picked Florida to knock off George Mason and eventually beat UCLA in the final. In case you missed last year’s tourney, that’s what actually happened.

If last year’s results prove anything you have to give at least a few Cinderella teams some respect to pick a winning bracket. Last year was the first time since 1980 that the Final Four did not include a No. 1 seed. Does this mean you should avoid putting any No. 1’s in the Final Four? Probably not. But, you also shouldn’t plot in all four No. 1 teams in the Final Four.

The perfect bracket no matter what year we’re talking about has to include a few of the top teams making it through the first three rounds as well as a few teams you may not have even heard of. Don’t just research the Top 5 teams in each region. Give a good look to the rest of the seeds as well. Remember, George Mason was a No. 11 seed last year.

Another way to become college basketball king in your office is to get as much info out of your fellow employees as possible, even if you have to sneak a peek at their brackets when they’re out to lunch. The office photo-copier has more uses than just work and copying various part of your body. Check out which Cinderella teams seem to be the favorites around the office and see if they really are worth picking. If you end up picking the correct Cinderella teams while everyone else picks the losers, they’ll be eating your dust before the Final Four even tips off.