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By Gary Cole
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Last season's national college championship again proved that the most talented football team does not always win the big game. It wasn't that the Florida Gators were without gifted players on both sides of the ball; it was simply that Ohio State appeared, at least on paper, to hold the stronger hand. But then those two mysterious characters that don't make their presence known until the opening kickoff -- momentum and emotion -- emerged. Suddenly the Buckeyes' Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, Troy Smith, became almost ordinary, and Florida quarterback Chris Leak displayed a calm and confidence that had not been consistently present earlier in his collegiate career. And the Buckeyes got blown out.
Let's also give credit to Florida coach Urban Meyer, who not only came up with the right game plan but imbued his players with a confidence and poise that made them the better team that day. By taking just two seasons to turn former Gators coach Ron Zook's talented but underachieving group of recruits into national champions, Meyer has earned the honor of being Playboy Coach of the Year for 2007.
In the past few seasons, coaching charisma has become more valuable than ever. Notre Dame lured Charlie Weis from the New England Patriots. Texas and USC hung on tightly to the high-profile and highly successful Mack Brown and Pete Carroll, respectively, while Louisville, with less football tradition and fewer dollars, lost Bobby Petrino, the latest football-coaching wunderkind, to the NFL's Atlanta Falcons. Alabama took a desperate gamble by giving the farm to Nick Saban, an unlikely resident for the likes of Tuscaloosa. And no one even bothers to make a stink anymore when a football coach earns five or 10 times as much as a history professor. College presidents may not see the wisdom of a play-off system, but they do understand that winning increases a school's visibility and puts cash into the endowment fund.
When we look at the teams in this year's top 25, we see that most of the names are familiar, but the deck, as usual, has been shuffled. Let's take a look at who is likely to come out on top.
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