Pick Six returns! Now on Mgoblog

Submitted by Jeff on

Although we may despise Notre Dame there have been some valuable contributions by Notre Dame football blogs.  One of the best was the Pick Six contest that the now defunct Notre Dame blog Blue-Gray Sky used to operate.  Before the season you pick 5 ranked teams and one unranked team that you think will end the season with the highest rankings after the bowls are done.

I enjoyed entering the contest when Blue-Gray Sky was still around so with Brian's approval we're bringing Pick Six to MGoBlog.

 

Here's how it works.
 
1. We divide the top 25 into 5 groups of 5 based on the preseason AP Poll: 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, etc. For this year's poll, the groups are:
  • A: Oklahoma, Alabama, Oregon, LSU, Boise State
  • B: Florida State, Stanford, Texas  A&M, Oklahoma State, Nebraska
  • C: Wisconsin, South Carolina, Virginia Tech, TCU, Arkansas
  • D: Notre Dame, Michigan State, Ohio State, Georgia, Mississippi State
  • E: Missouri, Florida, Auburn, West Virginia, Southern Cal
 
2. Before the season starts you pick one team from each group, plus one unranked team. You're trying to pick the teams you think will finish highest in the final AP poll (after the bowl games).
 
3. Each week we'll try to update and publish the standings in a spreadsheet so you can track the progress of your teams. You get 25 points for having the #1 team, 24 points for the #2 team, on down to 1 point for the #25 team. Unranked teams get zero points.
 
4. The winner is the person with the most points (i.e. the highest ranked teams) after the bowl season.
 
5. And the grand prize?  I will personally give the winner 10 meaningless upvotes.  Plus some guy named Brian will give you 3 MGoShirts from the MGoStore.  Places 2-5 all get a free shirt as well.
 
Throughout the season I will give semi-regular updates on the progress of the contest in the Diaries.
 
That's it for the Pick Six: short, sweet and simple. Polling closes on Wednesday August 31 at 12 pm (ET), so get your picks in now. Good luck!
 
 
I tried to embed the GoogleDocs form here, but it didn't work for me (and yes, I switched to plain text editor.  Does mgoblog accept <iframe> tags?).  Any help would be appreciated.  
 
For now, you have to visit the following link to enter.
 

Comments

rockydude

August 23rd, 2011 at 11:49 PM ^

This is a great contest. I know I am hoping for supremacy in the MGoBlogosphere. I'm willing to be that whoever wins this thing posts a pretty darn good score . . . . 

LSA Aught One

August 24th, 2011 at 10:03 AM ^

I did, too.  I've not had anything of substance to add to the conversation.

1.  Alabama

2.  Stanford

3.  Wisconsin

4.  Georgia

5.  Missouri

6.  Michigan

If I am not mistaken, this should prevent any head-to-heads among my picks.  That should help.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

August 24th, 2011 at 12:09 AM ^

Fuck it, I'm gonna take all the teams I hate, just to see what the football gods do with this.

  1. Alabama
  2. Florida State
  3. Virginia Tech
  4. Michigan State
  5. USC
  6. Boston College

OK, I don't hate Boston College.  I just felt like being contrary and think they'll have a good season.

justingoblue

August 24th, 2011 at 9:05 AM ^

Every year I do a "Fuck My March" bracket. Last year it set up poorly with WVU and OSU in the same regional, but it did get to a Final Four of OSU, Duke, ND and MSU. Thankfully it didn't play out that way (I also pick my teams losing in the first round, so that's part of it too).

This is Michigan

August 24th, 2011 at 12:31 AM ^

I hope you have some automated program that will let you update the scores at the end of each week because this seems like a lot of number crunching.

Obviously Excel would be plausible as I know it supports some lower level logic (IF THEN statements) but I am fairly certain it doesn't work well with strings (words-as in team names).

I might suggest getting an MgoNERD to write a program in Matlab that will allow you to only have to update the weekly rankings and press a button each week. The output would be the updated Pick Six user scores in an excel spreadsheet.

Let me know if this is something you might be interested in because it should be pretty easy to write up.

 

Jeff

August 24th, 2011 at 1:09 AM ^

Interesting idea.  I was just going to print out everyone's ballot and update the scores by hand every week.

In all seriousness, thanks for your offer but I have it taken care of in Excel.  It can be a little tough to learn some of their functions but you can do quite a lot with a low amount of work.  The key here is using a lookup table (which is why I made the unranked team a list instead of a text box -- so that everyone will have the same spelling).

OT but since you mention Matlab, I should take this opportunity to plug an open-source competitor called Sage.  It uses python as a base language, so programming in it is very easy.

G0B1U3

August 24th, 2011 at 3:05 AM ^

A) Alabama

B) Florida State (weak conference IMO, good shot to run the in-conference table)

C) South Carolina

D) Georgia

E) Southern Cal

Unranked: peer pressure= Michigan