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NCAA Football Rankings 2012: No. 10 Texas A&M faces No. 12 Oklahoma in Cotton Bowl

With bowl season on the horizon, two of the best teams in the country will battle it out at Cowboys Stadium.

Ronald Martinez

The dust on the college football season has settled, and the undefeated Notre Dame Fighting Irish will play for a BCS title against the best one-loss team, Alabama. These two teams lead Week 14's SB Nation's BlogPoll, with Notre Dame outpacing the Tide in first-place votes 42-11.

Regionally, the marquee game will be the No. 10 Texas A&M Aggies against the No. 12 Oklahoma Sooners in a Big 12-SEC showdown. Each team retains its slot in the BlogPoll despite having each won its fifth straight game to close out the season. Oklahoma passed all of its late-season tests with wins over TCU, Okie St. and West Virginia, while A&M cruised over Missouri and Sam Houston St. following their shock of Alabama. Aggie quarterback Johnny Manziel will look to add Cotton Bowl champion to his Heisman resume.

LSU remained at No. 9 after finishing the season two Saturdays ago with a win over Arkansas. The Tigers now play fellow 10-2 Clemson, who at 10-2 finished second in the ACC.

Texas and TCU remain outsiders in the Top 25, but received enough votes to garner a mention. The 8-4 Longhorns lost two straight to finish their season including a 20-13 defeat to TCU. They will play Oregon State in the Valero Alamo Bowl. The Horned Frogs lost four of their final six games, but five of those games were against ranked opponents, and they will meet Michigan State in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl:

College Football Rankings 2011

Results for Week 14

# School Points/blog SD Delta
1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (42) 24.59 0.88 --
2 Alabama Crimson Tide (11) 23.89 0.82 --
3 Oregon Ducks 21.43 1.88 --
4 Florida Gators (1) 21.20 1.95 Arrow_up 1
5 Kansas St. Wildcats 20.00 1.50 Arrow_up 2
6 Georgia Bulldogs 19.48 2.45 Arrow_down -2
7 Stanford Cardinal 18.38 2.27 Arrow_up 1
8 Ohio St. Buckeyes (2) 18.05 7.51 Arrow_down -2
9 LSU Tigers 17.05 2.14 --
10 Texas A&M Aggies 16.88 2.90 --
11 South Carolina Gamecocks 14.71 1.82 --
12 Oklahoma Sooners 14.36 2.43 --
13 Florida St. Seminoles 13.43 2.14 --
14 Clemson Tigers 11.82 1.39 Arrow_up 1
15 Oregon St. Beavers 9.82 3.19 Arrow_up 1
16 Northern Illinois Huskies 9.68 3.48 Arrow_up 3
17 UCLA Bruins 7.02 2.95 --
18 Utah State Aggies 6.66 3.10 Arrow_up 2
19 Boise St. Broncos 5.09 4.26 Arrow_up 4
20 Louisville Cardinals 4.84 3.31 Arrow_up 7
21 Northwestern Wildcats 4.25 3.42 --
22 Nebraska Cornhuskers 4.00 3.82 Arrow_down -8
23 Michigan Wolverines 3.70 3.07 Arrow_down -1
24 San Jose St. Spartans 3.61 3.11 Arrow_up 2
25 Kent St. Golden Flashes 2.84 3.23 Arrow_down -7
Others Receiving Votes: Wisconsin Badgers | Texas Longhorns | Vanderbilt Commodores | Penn St. Nittany Lions | Baylor Bears | Fresno St. Bulldogs | Oklahoma St. Cowboys | Ball St. Cardinals | Arkansas St. Red Wolves | Cincinnati Bearcats | Rutgers Scarlet Knights | San Diego St. Aztecs | Mississippi St. Bulldogs | Toledo Rockets | Arizona St. Sun Devils | TCU Horned Frogs | North Carolina Tar Heels | USC Trojans | Tulsa Golden Hurricane | Louisiana Tech Bulldogs | Arizona Wildcats | Central Florida Knights | West Virginia Mountaineers
Updated: Dec 4, 2012 6:30 AM PST

Photographs by jamesbrandon, jdtornow, phlezk, flygraphix, mcdlttx, tomasland, and literalbarrage used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.