[This post was originally published on The Living Room Tumblr.]
And a little child shall lead them. Three little children, actually.
All three of Becky’s and my daughters – ages 6, 4 and 2 – finished in the Top 7 of the ninth annual Living Room Times Bowl Pick ‘em Contest.
The 6-year-old, known on the Internet as “Loyette,” not only won the contest, but smashed the all-time record for margin of victory, prevailing by a whopping 6 points (out of 60). “Eternal Glory” indeed!
Meanwhile, the 4-year-old, “Loyacita,” came in 4th, and the 2-year-old, “Loyabelle,” finished 7th. That means 52 of the 56 adult contestants finished behind all three Loy girls. (This includes both of their parents, by a mile. I finished 35th; Becky finished dead last, in 61st.)
Loyette, of course, had already clinched victory on Friday – with much fanfare – when the Orange and Cotton bowls gave her an insurmountable lead. But Loyacita and Loyabelle weren’t assured of their Top 10 finishes until Monday night. If, for instance, Auburn had achieved one final “team of destiny” miracle by scoring a game-winning touchdown in the last 13 seconds, Loyacita would have finished 12th and Loyabelle 13th.
Instead, the Seminoles prevailed, ending the SEC’s national championship dynasty – and perhaps inaugurating a Loy daughters gambling dynasty (or “Loynasty”). Not only did Loyacita and Loyabelle join the Top 7 thanks to FSU’s win, but big sister and contest champion Loyette saw her final point total jump from 41 to 45. Her nearest competitors, Jonathan Bates (@iampangean) and the Loy girls’ uncle, Casey Zak (@caseyzak), each had 39 points, 6 behind Loyette.
The previous largest margin of victory in the 9-year history of Living Room Times Bowl Pick ’em Contests was a mere 2 points, set in 2010-11 by Randy Styles and matched in 2011-12 by @Nyghtewynd. So Loyette tripled the record. (More details after the jump on the record.)
In celebration of her triumph, Loyette wins not only “Eternal Glory,” but also a couple of tangible prizes. Recalling that Loyacita’s victory in my law firm’s 2012 NCAA office pool involved actual cash money (a good portion of which still resides, 21 months later, in her allowance jar, as-yet unspent), Loyette was going to be jealous if her triumph didn’t also earn her some sort of goodies. So I gave her an awesome astronomy book from the post-Christmas discount shelf… and $13 of my own money, a bit of “extra allowance” as a Pick ’em prize.
Notwithstanding her massive margin, points-wise, Loyette’s win-loss record of 25-10 is only one game better than Bates’s 24-11, and nowhere near @Nyghtewynd’s all-time record (I think!) of 29-6 in 2011-12. But Loyette went 4-1 in picking the BCS games – including her successful predictions of back-to-back double-digit upsets by Central Florida (over Baylor) and Oklahoma (over Alabama), and a milder upset by Clemson (over Ohio State) – and 11-3 in the “major” non-BCS bowls. Those games are worth more points than the “minor” bowls (in which Loyette went just 10-6). Her success in picking the biggest games, particularly in a year when they were quite unpredictable, set her apart.
Bates, by contrast, was just 2-3 in picking the BCS games. He was 10-4 in the “major” non-BCS bowls, and 12-4 in the “minor” bowls.
Bates nevertheless celebrated winning the title of “Bowl Pick ’em Champion, Adult Division” as the highest-ranked contestant age 18 or above. (It was suggested that next year’s contest should have “weight classes.” Of course, those aren’t usually instituted to protect the heavyweights from being walloped by the featherweights. Heh.)
Earlier in the day, Bates, a USC alum and Trojan fan, engaged in some friendly trash talk with Courtney Tawresey (@ctawresey), a Notre Dame alum and proud Domer, who would have leap-frogged into 2nd place if Auburn had won. Instead, FSU’s win dropped Tawresey to 24th as she was passed by numerous competitors who picked the Seminoles.
Bates’s 39 points was equal to Casey Zak’s total, but Zak finished third – just missing out on the “adult division” title – because his win-loss record was just 22-13, to Bates’s 24-11. (The first tiebreaker is number of games picked correctly, regardless of point-weights. The second tiebreaker is correctly picking the BCS champion. The third tiebreaker is coming the closest to the total number of points scored in the BCS title game.)
Behind Bates and Zak was a cluster of five contestants with 38 points apiece: Loyacita, John Prisner, Stephen Peroz and Loyabelle (all 22-13), and Zach Bloxham (@zbloxham) (21-14). That quintet finished in the listed order, 4th through 8th, based on tiebreakers, with the 4th through 7th spots settled by the third tiebreaker: number of points in the title game. (They predicted 70, 72, 73 and 23, respectively; the actual total was 65.) Bloxham trailed the group, finishing 8th, because of the first tiebreaker, total number of games picked correctly.
Rounding out the Top 10 were defending champ Ryan Morgan (@rpm002) and 2010-11 winner Randy Styles (@wolfmanbc), each of whom led this year’s contest at one time or another. They both ended up with 37 points, but Morgan went 23-12 – actually the contest’s third-best prediction record, after Loyette and Bates – to finish 9th, while Styles was 22-13, for 10th. Lauren Fowler (@ndlauren) also had 37 points, but finished 11th because she went 21-14.
Notably, in addition to the Loy daughters’ success, two other small children finished in the Top 20: Mike Pusatera’s daughter and son, first-grader Morgan (15th place) and 4-year-old Drew (19th). That means 42 of the 56 adults in the contest finished behind all three Loy girls and both Pusatera kids. As with the Loys, that includes Pusatera himself; he finished 56th.
The moral of the story: take your kids to Vegas, I guess?!? Heh.
I should make clear, lest anyone be suspicious, that each Loy girl truly did make her own independent predictions. I would simply tell them the two teams playing in each game (always in the same order: underdog first, favorite second, per the Vegas line), then they would announce their preference. Here, again, is the audio of Loyette making her picks:
With certain exceptions – like favoring Arizona teams (because Grandpa and Grandma live there), Florida teams (because of our recent vacation there), local favorite Colorado State, parental alma maters USC and Notre Dame, and Mitt Romney alma mater BYU – there was no obvious pattern to Loyette’s choices. She picked 14 upsets, going 9-5 in those games (but memorably and crucially getting the UCF and OU games right), and 21 favorites, going 16-5 there.
Loyacita and Loyabelle, on the other hand, were significantly more predisposed to pick the Vegas favorites (i.e., the second team I said), with notable exceptions: Loyacita correctly picked Colorado State over Washington State (because of the home-state connection), incorrectly picked Miami over Louisville (because of the Florida vacation), and correctly picked Oklahoma over Alabama (no idea why). Loyabelle’s picks were straight “chalk,” picking all favorites, with just one single exception: Michigan State over Stanford in the Rose Bowl (again, no idea why, but it certainly worked out well).
Anyway… after the jump, full standings in graphical form, and then a bit more historical detail about Loyette’s record-setting margin of victory.
Here are this year’s complete final standings (also viewable here, or here if you log in):
The scoring system in LRT Bowl Pick ’em has changed over the years, but Loyette’s margin is the most dominant by any measure.
In the previous three bowl seasons, the Pick ’em contest used the same scoring system as this year: 4 points for the title game, 3 for the other BCS bowls, 2 for major non-BCS bowls, and 1 for minor bowls, with a maximum possible total of 60 points. Prior winners’ margins of victory under that scheme were 2 points (Randy Styles in 2010-11), 2 points (@Nyghtewynd in 2011-12) and 0 points + tiebreaker (Ryan Morgan in 2012-13).
In the two years before that, the contest used simple, unweighted win-loss records. The margins of victory were 0 games + tiebreaker (Amy Booth in 2008-09) and 1 game (Doug Mataconis in 2009-10).
The 2007-08 contest used a similar format to the current and more recent contests, but with different point weights per bowl (5 per BCS bowl, including the title game; 3 per non-BCS New Year’s Day game; 2 per game from Dec. 29-31; 1 per game before that), adding up to a total of 70 points. Seth Carmack won by 1 point.
The 2006-07 contest’s scoring system was almost identical to 2007-08’s, but the championship game was worth 8 points, and the total available number of points was 75. Ben Sloniker won by 1 point.
Finally (or rather firstly), the 2005-06 contest also used weighted points (on a 1-2-3-5 basis), but there were fewer bowls back then (only 28, versus 32 the following year, and 35 currently), and I didn’t assign multiple points to as many of them, so the maximum was just 50 points. Brian Dupuis won by 1 point.
In summary, Bowl Pick ’em champions have won by a margin equivalent to a single “minor” bowl game 4 times (2005-06, 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2009-10); by a margin equivalent to two “minor” bowl games 2 times (2010-11 and 2011-12); and by virtue of a tiebreaker 2 times (2008-09 and 2012-13). Loyette’s margin is equivalent to six minor bowl games.