Well, almost everybody. Of the Top 15 contestants in the 5th annual Living Room Times Pick ’em Contest, only one — Brian Dupuis, tied for 9th place with an 18-14 record, 2 points behind co-leaders David K. and Doug Mataconis — picked Troy to beat Central Michigan in the GMAC Bowl, which just got underway.
That means, no matter what happens tonight, David K. and Doug Mataconis (20-12) will remain tied for first place heading into tomorrow night’s title game. If they pick different teams to win the championship, everyone else will be eliminated, no matter what happens. If David and Doug pick the same team, then only those contestants tied for third place (presently 19-13) who picked the other team will have a chance.
Contestants can change their picks up until shortly before kickoff, and no one can see anyone else’s picks — not even me — until the change period ends and all picks are “locked.”
The third-place contestants, one point behind the co-leaders, are: Esteban Coca, Jon Schuman, Neil Waechter, Charles Fenwick, Brandon Allen, and T. Delli Santi. And they’ll be joined by Brian Dupuis, if Troy wins tonight. If Central Michigan wins, Dupuis — champion of the first annual Pick ’em Contest in 2005-06 — will be eliminated.
Meanwhile, everyone currently tied with Dupuis — Kevin Curran, Todd Morris, Carolyn Blessing, Mike Marchand, Sean Waterman and Conor Sullivan — has already been eliminated, by the mere fact that they made the same GMAC Bowl pick as the co-leaders. They’re 2 points behind, but only one bowl remains in which they could potentially gain points (or rather, a point) on Doug and David. So they’re done.
Heh, its like schrodingers bowl contest, until the game starts Doug picked Texas and I should pick Alabama or he picked Alabama and I should pick Texas (same for me from his perspective). Of course we could pick the same, and share the win. OR we could fight it out on the field. Hmmm, time to break out the old football pads…
Actually, I should have mentioned this in the post, but there’s a tiebreaker if you both pick the same team, based on your predicted score for the game, so you’ll battle it out either way… you’d first need your predicted team (that you both picked) to win (well, assuming that at least one of the 3rd-place contestants picked the other team… because the first tiebreaker is getting the champion right, so they automatically beat you if they rise up to tie you in the final game), and then you’d be hoping for a particular range of scores. I forget exactly how it works, but I’ll post another update at some point explaining it all, and certainly once the game is underway, I’ll run all the scenarios. 🙂
The Bowl Pick ’emers Dilemma
The big question is how often the Feds had to bail this bowl out.