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It's a fantasycollege football playoff: SI.com presents a bracket with 12 top teams, and youmake your picks—including which team wins it all. Oklahoma and wideout JuaquinIglesias are seeded No. 1; wideout Louis Murphy's Florida is No. 2; quarterbackColt McCoy and Texas are No. 3; and running back Glen Coffee's Alabama is No.4. Plus ...

• Ranking all 34bowl games by Stewart Mandel

• Heisman ballotsfrom SI's eight voters

FOR MORE COLLEGEFOOTBALL COMMENTARY, SCORES AND NEWS, GO TO SI.COM/CFB.

FEATUREDWRITERS

IAN THOMSEN
Inside the NBA
How Kobe is lifting his fellow Lakers to championship level
SI.com/thomsen

BUCKY BROOKS
Inside the NFL
Will Peyton Manning or Adrian Peterson win the MVP race?
SI.com/brooks

LUKE WINN
Inside College Basketball
No surprise here: North Carolina is No. 1 in this week's power rankings
SI.com/winn

WINTERMEETINGS

Let's Make ADeal
This week baseball's G.M.'s and agents will converge in Las Vegas for wintermeetings to determine the destinations of free agents such as first basemanMark Teixeira. Go to SI.com for breaking news from Jon Heyman, analysis by TomVerducci and Ben Reiter, and Joe Posnanski's daily blog.

> BaseballProspectus plays G.M. for a day at SI.com/mlb.

SI VAULT
YOUR LINK TO SPORTS HISTORY

FROM SPORTSILLUSTRATED
DECEMBER 9, 1991

SI writer SallyJenkins profiled Michigan junior wide receiver Desmond Howard a week before hewon the Heisman Trophy.

LIVING ALONEallows Howard to meditate, a habit he picked up from his mother. For 10 or 15minutes each day he shuts off the lights and turns on water sounds, and thinks."It can be about anything," he says. "A big game, or a test."Howard rarely socializes. He might go to the L.A. Club Cafe sandwich shop nearthe center of campus, where a proprietor fixes Howard's favorite meal, agrilled chicken sandwich with cheese fries and a strawberry shake. Or he willgo to hear the more provocative public speakers who are regularly booked oncampus, such as the psychologist Akbar or 1960s radical activist Angela Davis.He has more important things to do than socialize. "I want to destroystereotypes about the black male athlete," Howard says. "It's a missionof mine to break down stereotypes about our behavior, our social life, ourliteracy, our academic situations."

> Check outthe latest classic SI story at SI.com/classic.

> For yourfavorite stories and covers, go to SI.com/vault.

Cover
PHOTOGRAPH BY BILL FRAKES
INSET PHOTO: David E. Klutho (Bradford)

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PHOTO

DAVID BERGMAN (COFFEE)

PICK 'EM Clockwise from top left: Coffee, Murphy, McCoy and Iglesias.

PHOTO

BOB ROSATO (MURPHY)

[See caption above]

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JOHN BIEVER (IGLESIAS)

[See caption above]

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JOHN BIEVER (MCCOY)

[See caption above]

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DAMIAN STROHMEYER (TEIXEIRA)

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MEL LEVINE (THOMSEN)

THREE PHOTOS