Thursday (Dec 27) was quite eventful, especially in the halfway point (20th) game between Baylor & Vanderbilt.
-- + + + -- Going into the day, the Bonus Question leaders appeared (to me, unofficially) to be Army-592, Utah State-556 (in the very first bowl game) and Wake Forest-529. In Thursday's romp over Temple, which didn't show up in the 2nd half, Duke gained 563 yards, to oust Wake. Then in the 20th game nightcap, Baylor and Vandy slugged it out and both moved into the Bonus money: Baylor took the lead with 668, and with the Commodores' 573 they both pushed Duke and Utah State out of contention. Most contestants have picked teams competing in bowls not yet played. Only BlueRaider95 (17th in the posted standings, which are through game 17) picked one of the current Top 3 (Army-Show).
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The top of the Pickem standings tightened up a bit, too. Leaders autiger and WKUFan518 each got only one of Thurday's three games correct, while 3rd place Motley Blazer continued his strong showing by picking two winners. I think their current scored will be 3,186, 3,162 & 3,139. Only 47 points separate these Top 3 ... down from 116 at the beginning.
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I think crafdog will move back into 4th place (up from 7th, but he started the contest in 4th) after scoring all three Thursday winners, including a perfect hit on the Baylor winning margin. He should be 117 points out of first now, up from 161 when the Bowl round began. Others on the first page of the leaderboard getting 50 points for having the Baptist Bears to win by 7 are 15th-place goliath74 and 16th-place AEOS. -- + + + --
Good luck to all as we go down the backstretch!



Posted: 12/28/2018 11:23:18 AM

Today (Saturday) is a big day for the Bonus Question hopes of 4 of the Leaderboard's Top 5. Missouri, the choice of the Top 2 (#1 autiger/Place & #2 WKUFan518/Show) faces Oklahoma State in the Liberty Bowl ... and Alabama, picked by #4 blazer9911/Show and #5 UM Ftball Tiger/Place, plays Oklahoma in the National Semifinals. Farther down the leaderboard, #14 TribeNiner/Place and #15 goliath74/Win will make big moves toward the top if the Sooners have a huge offensive explosion. And #12 sabrebills04 has Clemson/Show, which faces Notre Dame in the other National Semifinal game. Of course, the semifinal winners will have a second chance in the National championship game. But will these clashes of college football titans feature the deficient defensive performances needed to rack up huge offensive yardage totals? - - + + + - - The Bonus bar is quite high. The current leaders are (my unofficial tally): 1-Baylor (668); 2-Army (592) and 3-Auburn (586).



Posted: 12/29/2018 9:09:57 AM