Contest Time! College Bowl Pick 'Em #11

Pick the games for free and win some cool prizes! 

For the eleventh straight year, I am running a free contest with prizes headed to the best prognosticators of (mostly) meaningless college football games. Past winners include Adam from Thoughts on Sox (2009-10), Mark from Stats on the Back (2010-11), AJ from The Lost Collector (2011-12), Royal Dan (2013), The Prowling Cat (2014), Jeff from One Man's Junk (Wax) (2015), Matt of Bubba's Bangin' Batch of Baseball Bits (2016), MrHaverkamp (2017), Anaconda37 (2018) and last year's winner Trevor of Bump and Run.

If you want to skip all the blah blah blah and just get to the free stuff, go to the bottom of the post for the sign-up link and make sure you submit picks for every game. I switched things up a bit with the prizes this year. There's even a separate contest for the non-ESPN people which is as simple as predicting a score for a simple game!

If you've participated in the past, this should work more or less the same as previous years, but it will be hosted over on ESPN.com. I will be sending out invitations via ESPN's automated system if I happen to have your email address (which as mentioned previously, may not be the case.) If you don't get an email invite, follow the manual procedure at the bottom of this post (and if all else fails, send me an email and I will try to help you out.) For the rest of you, here are the rules and prize details:

• First place will receive: a 2020 Topps Series 1 blaster OR suitable equivalent (subject to availability)... as well as a small plastic pouch of cards from your favorite team/player(s)/etc.
• Second place will receive: a brand new pair of men's crew baseball themed socks from Sock It to Me, and a Priority Mail padded envelope full of cards from your favorite team/player(s)/etc. Sock It to Me is a local (to me) retailer and I happen to own a pair of these socks for myself and like them. You can check them out here if you're curious.
• Third place (new this year!) will receive: a brand new pair of men's crew baseball themed socks from Sock It to Me (see above for details). I will also probably toss in a few cards from whatever happens to be lying around on my desk.
• The Worst Place winner will receive: whatever I feel like sending you. This is probably also going to involve whatever happens to be lying around on my desk and probably (not?) an old pair of dirty socks?

Here are some rules you should really read (important stuff in bold):

• Participants must sign up through the official ESPN link. Unfortunately, this means that you must have an ESPN account. I know this is a deal breaker for some, but I am not fancy enough to figure out a good system on my own that wouldn't require more time than I allot to this project.
• Promote this contest! No, that doesn't mean you need to "follow" my blog, nor does it mean that you'll gain any competitive advantage by posting about this contest. I just want to see a lot of people participate, and will be willing to award more prizes if there are more participants.
• Points are scored according to the Confidence System. This basically means that while you are predicting which team wins which bowl game, you will also be responsible for ranking how confident you are in each pick. The higher you rank those games, the more points you'll get when they win and prove that you're totally right and deserve all the I-told-you-so's in the world.
• Email me your contest information after you sign up. You can't assume that I will automatically recognize your contest entry name. Since many of you have my email address but some of you don't, if you're in the latter you can also email me at [my blog name]@gmail.com. That's not my primary address but I will definitely see it.
• You can change your picks at any time, so long as your pick is made before the official start time (usually the TV broadcast time) of each game. This is what ESPN calls a "rolling lock" time.
• Don't be a jerk and lose on purpose just to try and claim a prize. There are many, many of us who are bad enough at picking these without extra help.

Click here to sign up, and click on the 'Play Now For Free' link! It's free! First timers are very welcome.

Group ID: 249897

Password: quackquackquack

DEADLINE: There's a deadline of Friday, December 20th at 5:00 PM PST (I think it was actually 11:00 AM, oops) to at least get your first pick in. That's the start time of the first bowl game.

But wait... there's more! Available to all entrants as well as non-entrants who don't want to use ESPN, there's a bonus contest:

Leave a comment here predicting the final score and winning team of the BELK BOWL before the Belking officially begins (the game is on the 31st) and win a retail fat pack of 2020 Topps Series 1. Whoever is closest gets it. Belk on, Belkers!