These are some of the CFB Blog Awards Nominees.
The Brady Quinn Award
FOR: The prettiest blog, the best layout and design. CRITERIA: An aesthetic appeal, whether from a stylish banner, a pleasing layout, or an eye-catching incorporation of blog technology.
College Football Resourse- CFR has a great layout and has every link and a Portal to hit all the hot sites.
The Best Community Interaction Award
FOR: The blog with the best community interaction. CRITERIA: A regular solicitation of input from readers and utilization of reader-produced content.
Accordingly, I simply will say this: Peter is a leader in the blogosphere, not just through the example of his weblog (although his influence there is profound), but in the manner that he conducts himself behind the scenes. He is both genuine and gentlemanly, offering aid, advice, and encouragement to all who take up this endeavor and seek his counsel.
In that respect, he is apt to be remembered as the Bear Bryant of the blogosphere, whose impact set off ripples that long will radiate as those who learned from him continue to carry that knowledge outward and upward. Coach Bryant's coaching staffs produced a myriad of future head coaches and those who have profited from Peter's example likewise have gone on to attain some success as webloggers that is due in large measure to his guidance. I know that to be true because you are reading one such weblog right now.
That couldn't be more true, as I also consider Peter my BlogFather! His guidance and support, as well as Kyle and Nestor who also helped me launch Conquest Chronicles, is the main reason I started blogging.
The That's Not Really Real Award
FOR: The best photoshop or other counterfeit gag of the year. CRITERIA: Could be a photoshop, a Motivational Poster, an On Notice Board, or something similar, as long as it elicited more than a mere smile.
The You Talkin' To Me Award
FOR: The best back and forth between rival blogs the week before a rivalry game. CRITERIA: Must be bi-directional, and both blogs must score points against each other. A unilateral beat-down will not suffice. Should be more in the spirit of fun than wildly abusive.
The clear winners, though, were Conquest Chronicles and Bruins Nation, who revealed how heated a rivalry the Battle of Los Angeles truly is. Heck, they had more back and forth after the game than most rivals do beforehand!
In all seriousness, Nestor and Paragon SC are both friends and colleagues of mine, so I hope tempers between the Bruin and Trojan contingents will cool in the weeks ahead, lest a storied institutional rivalry take on a decidedly unhealthy dimension of personal animosity, any more than it already has.
In the meantime, though, there's simply no way to claim that there is greater intensity in any rivalry represented in the blogosphere than that to be found in U.C.L.A.-U.S.C. Here's hoping Nestor and Paragon SC get to hoist this trophy together, then sit down and smoke a peace pipe afterwards.
We'll see how it goes. I know what DC Trojan would like to see ;-)
The awards will given out in January.