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As the weekend winds down to completion, we finally have the clarity to know that there will be three interested parties when the Tide and Tigers lace 'em up next Monday night. Highonlife, fengsuede, and 1Believer all finished with 52 wins, as 1Believer came flying out of nowhere in the final couple of days to tie up the other two who had been on top much of the contest. Since all three have selected Alabama, we go to the second tie-breaker, which will be total points scored. More to come on that next week. Also a shout-out to MatthewVogt, who followed up on his win last year with a great finish one off the lead this year. Well done.
At the other end of the spectrum, Gregg and trripleplay finished in a tie 32 wins apiece (against 48 losses). Because trrip selected OU to win the National title (and Gregg selected Alabama), we will reverse the tie-breaker and concede the "victory" to trrip. Forever may you reign in the bottom of the barrel.
On the season, the contest overcame a sketchy start to really put up some impressive numbers. Yes, those numbers were buffeted by not one but two pushes (which go as all wins in our contest), but considering the final record was 4,079-3,681 (for a winning percentage of 52.56%), even making those pushes as 50/50's would have still put us far ahead of .500. All time, the contest now sits at 51.33% with just under 2,000 picks to the good to our name. I'd have to do some research, but I think we are on a nice run of consecutive seasons above .500.
Personally, I am pleased to say all three in my household who participated came in over .500, with the Tailgate Princess beating Mom and Dad in her first season of picks (she finished 47-33)
For a look at the datasheet, click HERE. On the link you can find your picks on the first tab (Form Responses 1). After each pick, I will color them up red/green to denote the winner. On the results tab you can find much of the behind-the-scenes data, but I would also invite you to the bottom of the page to see the yearly and all-time numbers, as well as the per-game percentages. Finally, on the Records tab can you find the Leaderboard.. Hopefully in the coming weeks I can figure out how to get the all-time (individual) records updated to include last year and this year.
One final update to come