Pick'ems 2022

#2Gopher

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Time to discuss Pick'ems 2022! Last year as you may recall NextYear_76 took top honors followed by MirandaB in 2nd. 3rd Place honors belonged to Triple D with Some Guy right behind Triple D. MGGopher was 5th with swelna nipping on MGGopher's heels in 6th. Then of course a boatload of people including me behind them.

Since then, last fall, I heard from a couple of you. More importantly perhaps are my more recent conversations with GopherHole Staff. First GopherHole Staff is more than happy to support Pick'ems for this fall. They have graciously donated three gift certificates to Gold Country in the amounts of $75.00 to the 1st place winner, $50.00 to the 2nd place winner and then $25.00 to Gold Country for the 3rd place winner. The last I look; this is more than what the national champion team at the end of the year get in certificates to Gold Country!

One of the concerns that people have is that people tend to drop off as the season goes along. The theme I keep hearing is to keep it simple. The more time one has to spend researching teams etc., perhaps the more disinterest occurs among potential players.

The issue of course is directed at the number of games I was asking people to pick from. We started at a lower number, and then I increased it as the season went along. My intent was an attempt to make it more difficult. Two things happened. One is that the leaders stayed bunched up, while at the same time there was a drop off of people participating in Pick'ems. While I personally was happy to see a group bunch up as that made it interesting. I wasn't happy to see the drop off. That wasn't the intent of Pick'ems.

Two suggestions, and of course I'm open to comments, suggestions etc.

1) All submissions would be sent to me PM. Simply post on the thread that you have participated and perhaps make a comment accordingly. This seemed to have worked well at the end of the year when we were coming to the conclusion of the year.

2) The theme keeping it simple perhaps not only works in life, but also perhaps here for Pick'ems. It has been suggested that I reduce the number of games down to 3 or 4. The idea would have the Gopher game of course, a top national game, and also perhaps another Big 10 game or national game depending upon the schedule for the week.

When you think about it, when someone misses a week, you fall behind somewhere between 9 and 12 wins. That is a tough hill to climb. Unfortunately, that also quickly leads to more drop offs.

At first when I heard this, I thought no way. We can't reduce the number of games that far. However, the more I think about it, the more I've warmed up to the idea mainly due to the reason that someone may fall behind quickly if you miss a week as mentioned above.

In conclusion we have three issues to agree upon where we do have plenty of time to hash this over.

1) The season would start with the Gophers playing New Mexico with other games starting later that weekend.
2) What is your reaction for sending all picks for the purposes of privacy etc.? Either you can trust me with my picks, or you may offer suggestions.
3) Give it some deep thought as to the idea of reducing the number of picks to 3-4 games a week. Games of course would be hopefully tougher to choose winners from. The idea is to make it less work to research a number of games, prevent drop offs so quickly, and if you missed a week, you wouldn't fall behind so quickly.

Commissioner #2Gopher
 

Time to discuss Pick'ems 2022! Last year as you may recall NextYear_76 took top honors followed by MirandaB in 2nd. 3rd Place honors belonged to Triple D with Some Guy right behind Triple D. MGGopher was 5th with swelna nipping on MGGopher's heels in 6th. Then of course a boatload of people including me behind them.

Since then, last fall, I heard from a couple of you. More importantly perhaps are my more recent conversations with GopherHole Staff. First GopherHole Staff is more than happy to support Pick'ems for this fall. They have graciously donated three gift certificates to Gold Country in the amounts of $75.00 to the 1st place winner, $50.00 to the 2nd place winner and then $25.00 to Gold Country for the 3rd place winner. The last I look; this is more than what the national champion team at the end of the year get in certificates to Gold Country!

One of the concerns that people have is that people tend to drop off as the season goes along. The theme I keep hearing is to keep it simple. The more time one has to spend researching teams etc., perhaps the more disinterest occurs among potential players.

The issue of course is directed at the number of games I was asking people to pick from. We started at a lower number, and then I increased it as the season went along. My intent was an attempt to make it more difficult. Two things happened. One is that the leaders stayed bunched up, while at the same time there was a drop off of people participating in Pick'ems. While I personally was happy to see a group bunch up as that made it interesting. I wasn't happy to see the drop off. That wasn't the intent of Pick'ems.

Two suggestions, and of course I'm open to comments, suggestions etc.

1) All submissions would be sent to me PM. Simply post on the thread that you have participated and perhaps make a comment accordingly. This seemed to have worked well at the end of the year when we were coming to the conclusion of the year.

2) The theme keeping it simple perhaps not only works in life, but also perhaps here for Pick'ems. It has been suggested that I reduce the number of games down to 3 or 4. The idea would have the Gopher game of course, a top national game, and also perhaps another Big 10 game or national game depending upon the schedule for the week.

When you think about it, when someone misses a week, you fall behind somewhere between 9 and 12 wins. That is a tough hill to climb. Unfortunately, that also quickly leads to more drop offs.

At first when I heard this, I thought no way. We can't reduce the number of games that far. However, the more I think about it, the more I've warmed up to the idea mainly due to the reason that someone may fall behind quickly if you miss a week as mentioned above.

In conclusion we have three issues to agree upon where we do have plenty of time to hash this over.

1) The season would start with the Gophers playing New Mexico with other games starting later that weekend.
2) What is your reaction for sending all picks for the purposes of privacy etc.? Either you can trust me with my picks, or you may offer suggestions.
3) Give it some deep thought as to the idea of reducing the number of picks to 3-4 games a week. Games of course would be hopefully tougher to choose winners from. The idea is to make it less work to research a number of games, prevent drop offs so quickly, and if you missed a week, you wouldn't fall behind so quickly.

Commissioner #2Gopher
Keep it simple. Keeps people engaged for the year and feeling like not necessarily a mountain to climb if you miss a week, but really more that it makes it easier for you when submitting rather than having to look up random team information. I'd keep it to national headline games and B10 as you suggest as those are the games we're all most likely to know about. Submitting to you seems totally fine. If you're worried about people being close/tied, make the "number of Gopher points scored" something you submit weekly as a bonus for tiebreaker purposes.
 

Trying to save some work for you...
Has anyone tried the cbs sports app pick em? Would that work for what is trying to be done here?

Or at least to minimize data entry you could create a Google form. I have done that for office bowl game pick ems. (But sorry not offering my services...)
 

I'd be curious to hear from those who post here regularly, but don't participate in Pick'ems. Any particular reason why they don't participate?
 

I'd be curious to hear from those who post here regularly, but don't participate in Pick'ems. Any particular reason why they don't participate?
I can't handle the pressure.


In all seriousness....it basically comes down to it being just one more thing to remember to do.
 


Trying to save some work for you...
Has anyone tried the cbs sports app pick em? Would that work for what is trying to be done here?

Or at least to minimize data entry you could create a Google form. I have done that for office bowl game pick ems. (But sorry not offering my services...)
CBS app works great. Sends you a reminder and also gives you data.
 

I'd be curious to hear from those who post here regularly, but don't participate in Pick'ems. Any particular reason why they don't participate?
If I don’t get that reminder in my email I tend to forget about it.
 

I'd be curious to hear from those who post here regularly, but don't participate in Pick'ems. Any particular reason why they don't participate?
I had honestly never really noticed it, I've done college and NFL pick'em through CBS and ESPN in the past and the weekly reminder is nice. I'll be in for this fall though. I think anywhere from 3-6 games is probably pretty good. I kinda like the idea of spreading it around a little bit though maybe a Gopher game and then a game from each of the bigger conferences ACC, Big 12, Pac, and SEC? In the non-con it would just be the more intriguing/spotlight games like week 1 Ohio State/Notre Dame, Georgia/Oregon, etc.
 

Maybe keep a consistent number of games each week and assign “confidence points” for each game. More unlikely to get a tie that way.
 



For a former football pool I was in, we would pick the winners of 12 games and assign points to each game. So the game I was most confident in would get 12 points, down to the least confident getting 1 point. It helped keep people spread out. I'd prefer to pick all B1G games and maybe Vikings. Thanks for doing this!
 

Use a form so people can just click on their picks. Between 6 to 10 games each week. Whatever the number, keep it the same. Throw out one weeks results(lowest score). That way if someone forgets once they wouldn’t be too negatively impacted.
 

I’m a big fan of removing everyone’s worst week. For many people, that will be a week that they missed. That gives everyone one mulligan.

I also really like confidence points, but I don’t want to volunteer you for more math if you’re not into that kind of thing.
 

First of all, hats off to thee, @#2Gopher for keeping this going and wanting to maximize participation! Really appreciate it! Lots of good ideas in this thread that I'll echo, but here's my thoughts:
  • Love the idea of throwing out a week
  • Definitely recommend using a Google Form (or similar) or an app to manage scoring
  • For me, the more games to pick each week the better as I think you get a better measure of knowledge/skill that way. If you throw out everyone's lowest week, that will hopefully keep people engaged for a longer period of time. You'll inevitably have folks drop off as they fall further and further behind, but that's probably unavoidable...
  • ...unless we have some kind of weekly or quarterly prizes (which I'm not advocating -- just mentioning)
 



I am a new member and would like to participate! How do I do it?!
 

I agree with the throwing out one's lowest week. Think 10 games a week would be manageable for most folks. I've done this for a small set of work/family folks and have gone from 10 or so games back in the early 2000's to 25 to 30 the last few years. It can be tough to get even my family and friends to get their picks in!
 

I'd be curious to hear from those who post here regularly, but don't participate in Pick'ems. Any particular reason why they don't participate?
I think it's a great idea, but too quickly it becomes one more thing for me to do, and remember to do. Plus, I am not a good soothsayer.
 

I am a new member and would like to participate! How do I do it?!
Nothing special to do. Just keep your eyes on the board as we get closer to the first week. You'll see a post like this called "Week 1 Pick 'Em" or similar. Anybody can play and it's free. Just click in there and follow the instructions. Good luck!
 




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