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Jag History 1995-2004
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The Beginning Years 1995-Fall 1996
The Jag's Top 25 was first thought of in 1995 after I first started learning the Internet surfing through many sports websites. I wanted a
site that showed my love for college football. The actual site was built before the Fall of 1996, and for those who remember, my HTML skills
weren't quite developed yet. In the Fall of 1996, the site only had my football picks on a personal website I'd purchased for $20 at
http://pages.tca.net/jager. Luckily, I met some online friends at this time. One was David Wilson who runs the College Football RSFC
website. He was kind enough to put a link to my site on his. This is where it truly all began. Through David's site I have met many
friends that share the same interests in college football. In one of my football picks, I wasn't so kind to the ASU Sun Devils stating
that Washington St. would put a drubbing on them. Suddenly, I got an e-mail from someone by the name of Father John. He said that I was
smoking crack on this particular pick and that ASU would have a great season! That's when our friendship started. I invited him to do
football picks on my site since he didn't like mine. He was right about one thing, ASU would have a great season that year, beating
Nebraska in a shocker 19-0. ASU later on went to the Rose Bowl to lose to Ohio St. in a barn burner. Brett Keller was another friend that
I met through David Wilson's site who also had a college football site. He knew HTML much better than I and he had a weekly poll that he
would post depending on how teams would do in past games. That's when the idea hit me. I would have a fan poll and allow visitors to
vote in the poll to be tabulate in one poll. The year past on and with a 12 pollster vote, Florida Gators won the First Jag's Top 25
National Title. The Jag also won the First Pickin' Championship against Father John. My pick of the year was that Texas would beat
Nebraska. Texas did.
The Second Year Fall 1997
This year was going to be a great year for Father John and no one knew it but FJ. This year a Co-Worker joined up with me to add more
enthusiasm and competition to the Pickin' Championship. Gerald Ryan, The Greek, decided he had what it took to pick college football
games. Little did we know, there was no stopping FJ. Michigan was FJ's team, and it's only right to pick your team no matter what.
Michigan kept winning. Father John ended up winning the Pickin' Championship this year, but there was controversy in the polls. Nebraska
was on paper undefeated and had escaped loss by Missouri with an illegal kick(depending on who you route for). This year the AP and
Coaches Poll split the titles between Michigan and Nebraska. As for the Jag's Top 25 Poll, it was a tough year for me due to school.
There would be no way I could keep up with the poll since I tabulated all the votes by hand. That's when I met a new Gator/Longhorn friend
from Austin. He wanted the site and poll to continue, so Jake Decker volunteered to tabulate my poll. Jake also came up with another
great idea. Let the pollsters vote for their Heisman winner. I gave Jake the opportunity to name the poll after himself, but he chose to
name the poll, The Jag's "Real" Heisman. The Jag's 1st Real Heisman winner was Charles Woodson. A day later, Charles Woodson surprisingly
won the Heisman Trophy over Peyton Manning. I owe the success and continuation of the Jag's Top 25 to Jake. This year the pollsters grew
from 12 to 18. Michigan won The Jag's Top 25 National Title in a controversial ending where pollsters wanted to leave out Nebraska
because of the Coaches poll. Jake wouldn't have it. The Jag's Top 25 is not a bias poll, it's a factual poll. All Pollsters had to
re-vote and not leave out Nebraska. Some pollsters left the poll after this. In the long run, everything worked out.
Third Year Fall 1998
This year was the year I wanted a new look for the site. I got some help from Brian Kanthack, aka Ringo. Ringo helped me with some of the
graphics designs and I used them for the site. My HTML skills were better, but still a long way off. Also, a good friend, Jody Scott
wrote a program to help calculate the votes for me. This cut hours out of my day since I didn't have to count them manually. This year,
I decided to add another co-worker to pick games on the site. Michael Davis, aka Panther, joined us. Now the Pickin' Championship was
going to be tough between 4 people. This was going be a bad year for our football teams except for Panther. Panther's Texas A&M Aggies
beat the Kansas St. Wildcats for the Big XII Championship. Panther would give the Pickin' Championship a good run for the money, but he
lost first place during bowl week to The Jag. The Jag became 2 time Pickin' Champion. Ricky Williams had a great year in breaking the
rushing record against Panther's Aggies, and won both The Jag's "Real" Heisman and the Heisman Trophy. This was the year that Tennessee
got a lucky break from Arkansas, and remained undefeated for the year. Being the first year of the BCS poll rankings, Tennessee faced
FSU and won the National Title and The Jag's Top 25 National Title unanimously. The pollsters only grew from 18 to 21 this year.
Fourth Year Fall 1999
This was the year that I wanted the site to be something special. I registered a domain jags-top25.com and built my own server to run it.
Michael Leary and I thought of a new design together that would look more professional. For the first time, I was actually proud of the
way the site looked, but I needed new ideas. In the previous year, pollsters would e-mail me and tell me their picks. This is when I
decided to add a new section to my site. This new section was Beat The Jag. Beat The Jag would allow pollsters to post their football
picks each week and I would keep up with everyone's stats. Thanks to the help of Cliff Murphy who did all the back end programming that
would make this site automated without my intervention, this section was very successful along with all the others. This year Ron Dayne
had a phenomenal year breaking Ricky's rushing record just a year later and winning The Jag's "Real" Heisman. The BCS Poll had FSU facing
Virginia Tech in the Sugar bowl with FSU earning their second national title for Bobby Bowden. After beating VT, FSU became The Jag's
Top 25 National Champion. This year the Pickin' Championship would end in a two way tie for first place between Father John and The Jag.
As for the Beat The Jag, Tim Campbell won 1st place and the honor to join the "Great Ones" for one year. Although only 47 pollsters
voted in the final poll, I had an average of 70 pollsters that remained active week in and week out. This year had the biggest growth in
pollsters and participation.
Fifth Year Fall 2000
This year is no different from any other. There is big plans for the site and design. New ideas are in the mix. A new domain JagsTop25.com
was registered to help pollsters to remember the address easier. Tim Campbell(Marco) wins the "Great Ones" his rookie season, and earns the right to stay as long as the Jag's Top 25 continues to operate. Rideat wins Beat The Jag, and will try to make a run against the "Great Ones" in 2001.
Sixth Year Fall 2001
This was the year for The Jag as not only did his team(Miami) win the MNC, but The Jag completely dominated the "Great Ones" race and won Beat The Jag. With The Jag winning the "Great Ones" race, Rideat is force out of the elite group and must try to win Beat The Jag again. Not everything was grand for The Jag this year however. The Greek had to drop out of the race to take care of his niece who had cancer, and Double Nickel had to leave for personal reasons.
Seventh Year Fall 2002
Nothing has really changed at the Jag's Top 25 since the redesign. Marco won the Great One's pickin' Champ for his second time. BikeMan won Beat The Jag and earned a chance to face off against the Great Ones for the 2003 season. Brad Banks won the Jag's Real Heisman race which was different from the conventional Heisman winner. Ohio St. won the Jag's Top 25 National Championship.
Eighth Year Fall 2003
Father John won his 3rd Pickin' Champ Title. NOFX won BTJ. We said good-bye to BikeMan from the Great One's panel. Larry Fitzgerald won the Jag's Real Heisman.
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