Merry Christmas, boys and girls! Ho, ho, ho!

Have you been good this year? Of course you haven’t, but Santa’s far too busy looking for BCS National Championship tickets on StubHub to dig any deeper. Oh, and did you know that you can get into the Orange Bowl for around the same price as foot-long sandwich and a bag of chips at Subway?

That’s what you’ll be receiving if you’re on the “Naughty” list this year, so consider yourself warned. Ho, ho, ho!

Being the college football fanatic and tailgating devotee that I am—North Pole University is just horrible at recruiting, and I blame this weather—I’ve decided to spend a good chunk of my time this year in our shop watching film of every team in the country.

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If you have not been able to tell, here at Your Best 11, the BCS National Championship Game has gotten us all up in a tizzy. We've hit on Notre Dame's zone run and Alabama's Power-O. We've also designed our own script for Alabama's first 10 plays and talked about Matthias Farley, Notre Dame's X-factor.

Now, we'll turn our focus to the man who will play the biggest role in the Fighting Irish's push for a BCS championship, sophomore quarterback Everett Golson.

Golson's not going to beat Alabama by himself, but the signal-caller is going to be integral to Brian Kelly's effort to get the win. Golson has some general rules that he needs to stick to in addition to his passing and running contributions.

Starting with the wide-angle lens, Golson has to play turnover-free football. Making mistakes is going to happen, but he cannot compound bad reads, a poor play call or an offensive-line failure by turning the ball over. That means no strip-sacks, no fumbles on the run and most certainly no bad-decision throws into traffic.

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We are exactly a week away from Christmas, and as Santa Claus is checking his list, likely for the second time, we here at Your Best 11 are doing the exact same thing. This season was a long one, but as always, it was not quite long enough as we get to the quickly approaching end.

As Christmas comes down the chute, we'll take a look at our naughty and nice list for this season.

Kicking off the naughty list, we have Lane Kiffin and USC, the team and coach that fooled everyone a year ago into thinking they had a shot to win it all entering 2012. Kiffin gets top billing, not for the play-calling or for his team's failures, but rather for the petty off-field dealings.

On the field, USC deserves the naughty designation for the way its defense played. The group lacked discipline, was inept in executing the fundamentals and was totally in over its head. It was bad enough to force Monte Kiffin out the door and in moments, like the Oregon and Arizona games, so bad that decent offensive performances were ultimately useless.

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Notre Dame’s offense suddenly has life, and that’s not something we would have thought would be possible when quarterback Tommy Rees was coming in to provide a spark just a few months ago.

Everett Golson has developed a great deal over the past few months, and he also has a handful of intriguing weapons at his disposal. But will they be able to move the ball against Alabama’s defense?

Although Nick Saban’s constructed stoppers aren’t exactly the unit they were last season, they’re still very solid. They have holes—especially in the secondary—but there aren’t many, and they can make you pay if you’re not careful with the football.

So, who has the advantage? That’s the question the Bleacher Report CFB team answered while down in Miami, doing some early tailgating for college football’s ultimate showdown.

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On Saturday, Arizona and Nevada kicked off the bowl season with the Gildan New Mexico Bowl in Albuquerque, playing in front of dozens of fans. The scoreboard—as foreseen—was lit up like a Christmas tree, and this box score had the look and feel of an uneventful college basketball game.

While few pegged this mid-December tussle between teams with a combined 14-11 record as must-see, the first of 35 glorified scrimmages kicked off Bowlmas in marvelous fashion.

Ninety-seven points, 1,237 yards (599 rushing) and 70 first downs (including a bowl-record 39 from Nevada) were only some of the incredible numbers that surfaced in this game. Nevada dominated throughout much of it and led the entire way…except for the final moments.

The final 19 seconds, to be exact.

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The "script" has become an integral part of the college football world in the last few decades. Coaches are using the limited practice time to rehearse their scripts, install new plays and get the entire offense on the same page.

Generally, the script runs anywhere from 15 to 25 plays, and teams can do real damage while operating off of their script. The blend of new plays that surprise the defense and familiar plays scheduled at the right time work together to really pump life into an offense.

We saw Alabama utilize a brilliant script in this very game a year ago against LSU.

The Crimson Tide used motions, shifts, tempo and great play design to catch the LSU defense off guard. Nick Saban's team did the same in 2009, in the SEC Championship Game against the Florida Gators. So expect the Tide to come out attacking in January as they look to gain an advantage against a very good Notre Dame defense.

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Alabama's running game, built on their offensive line and powered by Eddie Lacy and T.J. Yeldon, is the heart and soul of the Crimson Tide. For Notre Dame, stopping the run game has to be job one. Expect the Fighting Irish to load up the box and focus on maintaining gap integrity to limit the success of the running game.

Due to the importance of stopping the run, and Alabama's ability to use play action passing to successful means, that puts Matthias Farley on notice. Farley, along with fellow safety Zeke Motta, are going to be the key to the Irish's success in the BCS Championship Game.

Farley is a sophomore who was pressed into action following Jamoris Slaughter's season ending Achilles injury against Michigan State. The sophomore from Charlotte, North Carolina had some bumps in the road but with more time he grew into his starting role.

The Irish's ninth leading tackler in 2012 grew from the guy who left open holes against Miami, into the reliable player who helped contain USC's Marqise Lee and Robert Woods. Now, against Alabama, Farley will be one of the major factors in limiting the Tide's explosive plays.

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As much as I’d like to convince you that I see the future in college football, I simply cannot. That’s it; my credibility is destroyed. I’m finished. 

After all, if I could see the future, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be starring in my own real-life version of Back to the Future II, living in a mansion made of solid gold, taking down sportsbooks by the hour and consuming different kinds of luxurious cheeses for full meals.

This, unfortunately, is not my life, and I’m instead tasked to provide educated and informed predictions as best I can. Each year, near the end of summer—shortly before our calendars switch to September and our football thirsts are quenched—me and my kind outline how the college football season will unfold.

Some of this plays out exactly how I envisioned; some of it does not.

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