Stewart Mandel reminds us of Jim Walden's curious vote of Florida as #1 after the SEC title game: "There are no shortage of figures deserving of recognition on the occasion of this, the Florida Gators' second national championship. First, however, let us take a moment to bestow praise on college football's new reigning genius: Jim Walden. Walden, you may recall, is the former Washington State and Iowa State coach who, back when the rest of the country was arguing over whether Florida or Michigan should have finished the regular season No. 2, was the only one out of 175 BCS pollsters with the audacity to rank the Gators No. 1. (Walden voted in the Harris Poll.) Following a regular season that saw three straight months of endless Buckeyes adulation, Walden was the one so-called expert to not only stand up and voice his dissent but to shout it to the hilltops. "Ohio State hasn't proved anything," he said at the time. Following a Michigan-Ohio State game so colossal it merited its own countdown clock, Walden was the one contrarian to voice his opinion that, "The Big Ten is as weak as it's been in 25 years." And he pointed to the Gators' 12-1 record against a grueling SEC schedule and proclaimed -- to much mockery -- "Florida deserves to be No. 1." If only we'd listened to you, Jim Walden."