OK, I'm currently going back to confirm all the winners from last season and make sure all prizes get paid tomorrow -- those set to receive Amazon gift cards will get a DM from me by the end of the night confirming what email address you want it sent to, and everyone who is getting comped months tacked onto subscriptions will also get notified when they are processed .
We are absolutely doing Guess the Score again. @dbcraig has generously offered to run the standings again (and will be getting rewarded for doing so), and as I noted a couple days ago I'm appointing Jeff McCulloch as our Quality Control Analyst for Guess the Score. Like all QC analyst jobs in college football, it's a largely thankless but vital role to the organization. Jeff will double check the results each week and remind me consistently until I process all prizes immediately each week. Like any strong organization, we did a serious self scout this offseason and among the areas we identified as needing significant improvement was obviously the internal execution of Guess the Score.
We're also making it even bigger! We'll use the same prize structure as last year (again, with prompt distribution to winners), but we're also going to do some season-long predictions for stat leaders. Whoever gets closest through all games (postseason included) will win for those -- (like Caleb Williams passing yards, MarShawn Lloyd rushing yards, etc., etc.) I will post those in their own threads tomorrow.
But let's review the rules for Guess the Score and start throwing in those SJSU predictions!!!
Weekly contest
Whoever is closest to the final score each week gets two free months tacked on their subscription. If anybody hits the score exactly, we throw in a $50 Amazon gift card. (Limited to the first two people who submit a correct guess in the weekly thread).
So how is "closest to the final score" calculated? Very simple -- total of how many points off you are from both teams' score. For example, if you guess 31-14 USC over SJSU and the actual score is 24-10, then you were 7 off on USC and 4 off on SJSU, which equals 11. Your score is 11 for that week. Like golf, lowest number wins. Whoever is closest, wins the week. There have been complaints in the past that people who pick the wrong winner aren't penalized. As I've always rebutted, they absolutely are, because that means they were further off on each score. To use another example, if someone picks USC 45-41 over Utah and someone picks Utah to win 45-41 and let's say the actual score is USC 48-40, then although they picked the same game score they end up with very different results -- a score of 4 for the person who correctly picked USC and a score of 12 for the person who incorrectly picked Utah. If there are any further questions as to the scoring system, though, I will happily explain further.
Season contest
Same scoring system but averaged out over the course of the season. Let's say your weekly scores were 20-24-21-23, then obviously your score for the standings is 22 (the average of those four). Except there's a wrinkle, everyone gets to write off two weeks of the season. So that will either be two weeks you forgot to submit a guess or your two worst scores. If you play every week, your two worst scores drop from your average. If you miss more than two weeks, you're no longer eligible for the season prize, but you can still compete for the weekly contest.
We won't drop off the two worst scores until after four weeks of games, so I would encourage not reading much into the standings until that time.
Prizes for season contest:
First place -- $100 Amazon gift card, 6 free months subscription
Second place -- $50 Amazon gift card, 4 free months subscription
Third-fifth places -- 4 free months subscription
Let's get it going!!!
We are absolutely doing Guess the Score again. @dbcraig has generously offered to run the standings again (and will be getting rewarded for doing so), and as I noted a couple days ago I'm appointing Jeff McCulloch as our Quality Control Analyst for Guess the Score. Like all QC analyst jobs in college football, it's a largely thankless but vital role to the organization. Jeff will double check the results each week and remind me consistently until I process all prizes immediately each week. Like any strong organization, we did a serious self scout this offseason and among the areas we identified as needing significant improvement was obviously the internal execution of Guess the Score.
We're also making it even bigger! We'll use the same prize structure as last year (again, with prompt distribution to winners), but we're also going to do some season-long predictions for stat leaders. Whoever gets closest through all games (postseason included) will win for those -- (like Caleb Williams passing yards, MarShawn Lloyd rushing yards, etc., etc.) I will post those in their own threads tomorrow.
But let's review the rules for Guess the Score and start throwing in those SJSU predictions!!!
Weekly contest
Whoever is closest to the final score each week gets two free months tacked on their subscription. If anybody hits the score exactly, we throw in a $50 Amazon gift card. (Limited to the first two people who submit a correct guess in the weekly thread).
So how is "closest to the final score" calculated? Very simple -- total of how many points off you are from both teams' score. For example, if you guess 31-14 USC over SJSU and the actual score is 24-10, then you were 7 off on USC and 4 off on SJSU, which equals 11. Your score is 11 for that week. Like golf, lowest number wins. Whoever is closest, wins the week. There have been complaints in the past that people who pick the wrong winner aren't penalized. As I've always rebutted, they absolutely are, because that means they were further off on each score. To use another example, if someone picks USC 45-41 over Utah and someone picks Utah to win 45-41 and let's say the actual score is USC 48-40, then although they picked the same game score they end up with very different results -- a score of 4 for the person who correctly picked USC and a score of 12 for the person who incorrectly picked Utah. If there are any further questions as to the scoring system, though, I will happily explain further.
Season contest
Same scoring system but averaged out over the course of the season. Let's say your weekly scores were 20-24-21-23, then obviously your score for the standings is 22 (the average of those four). Except there's a wrinkle, everyone gets to write off two weeks of the season. So that will either be two weeks you forgot to submit a guess or your two worst scores. If you play every week, your two worst scores drop from your average. If you miss more than two weeks, you're no longer eligible for the season prize, but you can still compete for the weekly contest.
We won't drop off the two worst scores until after four weeks of games, so I would encourage not reading much into the standings until that time.
Prizes for season contest:
First place -- $100 Amazon gift card, 6 free months subscription
Second place -- $50 Amazon gift card, 4 free months subscription
Third-fifth places -- 4 free months subscription
Let's get it going!!!
