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Two days after the end of the 2015 NFL Draft, the deadline arrived for NFL teams to exercise the fifth-year options on the contracts of the first-round selections in the 2012 draft. Twenty of the 32 first-round picks for that year had their contracts picked up for the 2016 season by the end of the business day on Monday. Of the 12 who didn't, four were among the first seven players picked in 2012, including two former Alabama standouts.

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Alabama's 2012 NFL first-rounders go 2-for-4 on fifth-year options-al.com

Three of the seven Alabama players selected in the 2015 NFL Draft last week were ground-breakers. Drafthistory.com sifted its massive data base on the 80 NFL Drafts and found that 65 players - one-quarter of the 256 picked this year - had first names that had never been called previously in the draft. Included in the unique first names were former Crimson Tide standouts Jalston Fowler, Arie Kouandjio and Xzavier

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3 Alabama players prove to be unique in NFL Draft-al.com

Each of the first bowl projections for 2015 have the same three teams playing in the College Football Playoff semifinals in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic and Capital One Orange Bowl: defending national champion Ohio State, TCU and Auburn. The fourth teams were different with Brett McMurphy choosing USC to win the Pac-12 title and Mark Schlabach choosing Oregon.

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One has Alabama in the Sugar, the other in the Peach. For the life of me I can't understand the national love affair with Auburn right now. They return only four starters on offense, which was the strength of the team last season. Eight starters return on defense, but considering they gave up 400 yards and 30 points a game in conference play I'm not sure that's a good thing. Will Muschamp can certainly coach some defense and Carl Lawson should make an impact, but I'm not seeing a national title contender here.

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Interesting points here. Eliminating divisions would accomplish several things: 1) No more goofy geographic nonsense like Mizzou playing in the East. 2) Easier to maintain traditional rivalries while not forcing them in places where they don't make sense. 3) Ability to see more teams more frequently. 4) More competitive championship games. On the surface, I like it. On the downside, some less traditional rivalries such as Alabama-LSU would no longer be played every season and the schedule rotation might increase the odds that a team could skate to the title game by missing the top four or five teams in the conference. Perhaps we should have a poll...

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Minnesota isn't being bashful about plugging its new — and still-incomplete — professional football stadium as the site for the biggest events in sports. State officials and civic boosters planned Tuesday to announce a bid for the College Football Playoff National Championship.

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Good luck with that, Minnesota. Asking for a January playoff game in the coldest of the contiguous 48 seems like a tough sell.

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Jeff Long discusses Year 1 of the playoff, divisions in conferences and more-espn

Why Florida Didn't Succeed More With 8 Draft Picks-teamspeedkills

2015 NFL Draft: SEC Wrapup and Analysis-teamspeedkills

Yep, blue chips get drafted way higher-sbnation

21 terrifying old college mascots-sbnation

THE READ OPTION: ACC trio rules the draft-sbnation

Red beats other colors for Spring National Title-sbnation

The SEC returns more than a dozen touted, productive tailbacks for the 2015 season, but these five teams have tailback tandems that could dominate the conference.

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