Football contests (BTO and "Survival")--read here

[Doc]

Plan is to have 2 games this season. BTO is the same BTO as its always been (see below). We will also be adding a survival contest that we tried for basketball and it worked well. This thread it designed to introduce the games, lay down the rules and answer any questions.

BTO (aka Beat the Odds): Each week there will be 5 listed games. These games will be selected by me and will be games of interest. That means if UK is playing, UK will be one of the games. The other games will likely be the national game of interest (say USC vs Notre Dame) or a big SEC matchup (AL vs FL) or a rivalry (Auburn vs Alabama) etc.... So 5 games will be listed. Additionally there will be a point spread. This could be a vegas line, could be Sagarin or it could be a Doc made it up line, but there will be a line. You must pick the winner of EACH game (all five games) with the spread added to the underdog. So if I have Western KY (4.5) @ Kentucky listed that means if you believe UK wins by 5 or more then pick UK, if you believe UK loses or wins by 4 or less then you pick Western. Simply list the five teams you want as your picks. Additionally there is a tie-breaker which is typically stat based, such as rushing yards for UK. List your guestimate.
It's that simple...... except you can elect to involve a double shock/ten foot pole (DS/TFP) option. This allows you to NOT PICK one game (type "TPF" instead of the winning team), however that can not be the UK game, (this would be your "TEN FOOT POLE" pick because you are not touching it with a ten foot pole) and then DOUBLE SHOCK (DS) another game (place D/S after the team from one of the 4 other games you are sure is going to win) such that this game counts double (hence bringing you back to 5 games). You get 1 pt for picking the right winner (or two if you DS correctly). Most points wins. Tie breaker is nothing more than how I list. I keep weekly and season totals. Any person getting ZERO points for a week (missing all 5 games, or four if you TFP/DS) will be awarded a "Golden Sombrero" and will be allowed (or required) to place said golden sombrero in your avatar or signature for the remainder of the year. At the end of the season I will tally up your scores, drop the 4 lowest (a missed week counts as a "0" so missing a week or two won't disqualify you from being the season champ) and award a season champ.

Elimination (or Survival) game: This is a new one so pay attention here. Each week you pick ONE SEC team to win. Its that simple. There are no points, no spreads. Just pick the winner. HOWEVER in the following weeks you can not re-use a team. So if you pick FL to win in week 1 then you can not use FL in week 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 etc. If you pick Alabama in week 2 you can not use FL or Bama in weeks 3 or 4 or 5 or 6. Note that you are not required to pick intraconference games so you can pick UK to beat Western, but you can't pick Western to beat UK as your pick must be an SEC school. If the team you pick loses then you get a strike. Two strikes and you are out of the game. This game requires you to play from week one (and if you miss a week you get an automatic strike) or take a strike. The last person standing wins. As we get later in the year I might modify the game a bit to get to a single overall winner but fear not, after about 5 weeks it gets hard and by week 10 I don't expect too many to be surviving. We may do a redux midway thru the year if we get lots of folks flunking out early.

So now is the time to ask question or suggest game modifications.

[kingcat]

Looking forward to it Doc.

[Darrell KSR]

Looking forward to it Doc.

Ditto.

Sent using Forum Runner

[truecatsfan]

Loved the basketball one, this one will be a little harder.

[Catfan73]

I've got pencil and eraser ready....

[Doc]

You know, I should save this OP and re-use it next year.

[Doc]

Or I could have cut and pasted the BTO from last year. That would be the one pinned on the top of the page.


For those familiar with the game, no changes. For those not familiar, here are the rules:

Each week I will select FIVE games that I find of interest. I will then create a line each game, this line is my line and not associated with any betting service. The team with the number behind it will be the underdog. You basically add those points to that team after the game. Example: Team A (5.5) @ Team B. If the final score is Team A 10, Team B 13, the adjusted scoare would be Team A 15.5, Team B 13. So while team B won the game, Team A would be the correct BTO pick. Make sense?

Now some wrinkles. There will be a tiebreaker. This is used only to determine the weekly order of the winners. This is usually stat based.
There is an OPTIONAL ten foot pole/double shock (tfp/ds) play. If there is one game you don't want to play you can "tfp" it but you must double shock other game. The "tfp" pick won't be counted but the "ds" game counts twice, hence you still have 5 possible correct picks. If you tfp, you MUST ds one game. Also you can not "tfp" a UK game. Your score will be determined by the number of games you select correct so a 5 is a perfect score.
When making your picks, PLEASE list the teams as I state them. Example: if Mississippi St vs GA is listed, put Mississippi St or GA. Bulldogs doesn't work! Plus I tend to grade by looking at the first initial of your pick so if you change it, sometimes it hangs me up.
I will tabulate each week but also keep a running total of the season. At the end of the year I will announce an overall winner. However I will drop your 3 lowest weeks so if you forget to play a week or two, it won't hurt you as that "0" will be one dropped. Also a bad week won't hurt as it gets dropped. If you play every week, your 3 lowest scores are dropped. If you 13 of 14 weeks, your lowest 2 get dropped plus the week you did not play. If you miss 4 weeks, you only get 3 drops so one week will be a zero.
Anybody who misses all the games in any given week (goes 0-5 or 0-4 with a DS) will be honored with a "golden sombrero" and you are expected to put it in either your avatar or signature. You are also granted admittance into the "golden sombrero club".

As a wrinkle, the yearly winner will be allowed to designate the signature or avatar for any other regular player of their choice who must keep that signature / avatar for 4 weeks. Regular players is defined as a person who has played at least 10 weeks.

Example of a weekly post (I'm using the final week of last years)

TN @ UK (5.5)
Arkansas (9.5) @ LSU
Alabama @ Auburn (7.5)
Ohio St (8.5) @ Michigan
Ga @ Ga Tech (pick' em)
Tie breaker - total points in the UK/TN game.

My picks would be listed as
UK
LSU
tfp
Michigan
Ga (DS)
20



you make your picks based on those lines. UK must win or lose by 5 pts or less. The actual score was 7-10 for UK. Add 5.5 to UK so the adjusted score was UK 15.5 to UT 7. Correct pick UK
Game two, the actual score was 41-17 for LSU. Adjusted score would have been 41-28.5. Correct pick would be LSU
Game three, the actual score was 42-14 for AL. Adjusted score would have been 42-21.5. Correct pick AL
Game four, the actual score was 34-40 Michigan. Adjusted score would have been 42.5-40 Ohio St so the correct pick was tOSU despite them not winning.
Game five, the actual score was 31-17 for GA. Adjusted score was have been 31-17 for GA. Correct pick GA.
Tie breaker was 17 (10+7)

based on the example picks I would have recieved a 4 pts (I went 3-1 but got the DS correct so that game counted double).

Understand?

[Darrell KSR]

Or I could have cut and pasted the BTO from last year. That would be the one pinned on the top of the page.

Or that ;).

[MickintheHam]

Survival is just one more way for me to embarrass myself. I have to question my judgement!

[Doc]

Btt

[Scout714]

Getting in late but I would have taken Tenn................ Scouts Honor