The Obligatory Predictions Competition - Bowl Edition will be nothing short of spectacular this year, punctuated by small school stud quarterbacks and monster BCS matchups with much at stake. 10 lucky readers, plus Jon and I, will vie for the ultimate reward: The first OPC Bowl Edition Trophy, plus the chance to write 500 words on the site about anything regarding college football.
You can download the bracket here and keep track of your success as the bowl season progresses. Notice on the bracket that a couple picks are highlighted in red. This red highlighter signifies that of all 12 contestants predicting the winner, this lucky expert was the only one to pick this team to emerge victorious.
I also made a list of the most contested games, games where all 12 experts contestants were nearly split in their selections. These "separating wheat from chafe" bowls are:
- The Poinsettia Bowl (Can TCU score 50 on decent competition?)
- The New Mexico Bowl (Who can be less mediocre?)
- The Hawaii Bowl (Go Warriors!)
- The Texas Bowl (Which Spread O will continue racking up points?)
- The International Bowl (Home field adv for Turner Gill)
- The Sun Bowl (Sexy running back matchup ooo)
- The Music City Bowl (Vanderbilt in a bowl game, what the hell?)
- The Champs Sports Bowl (Power v Speed)
- The Chick-fil-a Bowl (Thank god for a well run triple option!)
- The Armed Forces Bowl (Top notch defenses not featured)
- The Independence Bowl (...)
So please enjoy this extravaganza and don't forget the basic scoring rules:
- One (1) point is earned for a correctly picking the winning team.
- An additional two (2) points are earned for correctly identifying the winning spread by seven points or less.
- Two (2) bonus points are awarded for the "upset pick" -- an upset being defined as predicting: 1. Any BCS Top 25 ranked team to defeat any opponent of higher rank, which in fact does occur, or 2. Any non-ranked BCS Top 25 team to defeat any ranked opponent, which in fact does occur.
- Two (2) more points are awarded for picking a perfect spread.
Will PaternosGrandaughter and I be kicking ourselves for being the only prognosticators to wager on Penn State? Will Jon really care if his Bucks upset the Longhorns in the Fiesta Bowl and mess up his bracket? Is it wrong to yell obscenities at some unknown 19 year old Colorado kid whose missed field goal just crushed your bracket? Just some questions brought on by the upcoming Bowl Season.