R U Ready For Some PickEm?

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ST_Lawson
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sealhall74 wrote:
ST_Lawson wrote:Quick question: are you allowing people to submit picks cross-conference? As in, can I (or any other Leatherneck fan) go in and set up picks for the OVC, Big Sky, etc.? Or do you prefer that we stick with our own conference (or just posting picks for one conference)?
I have no way to prevent that from happening and assume a few players will cross their own conference boundary (the links to the other conferences are right there on the main page). On the flip side, the rewards are not that great so I also believe not too many people will spend extra time picking teams they are totally unfamiliar with although they will get some familiarity with them as the season progresses. The system is programmed to always bring in the most competitive (from a Massey perspective) out-of-conference games each week. It could be two really good teams or two evenly matched lower position teams. I obviously can override that if necessary and could even add in some Power Conference games now and then if I want to. Once the conference games get started, the MVFC and OVC might only have 4 or 5 games to pick on so I need a good supply of other game to mix in.
Got it...you'd prefer people stick with their own conferences then. Thanks for setting this up. I consider myself fairly handy with Google Docs, but it looks like the stuff you can do pretty much blows away what I can put together. This is awesome that you're doing this.
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sealhall74
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The technical aspects of this are easy compared to the marketing part. Just spent the last four hours hitting a whole bunch of message boards. Big Sky was a breeze as almost all sites are the same phpBB setup under BigSkyFans.com. CAA is a total nightmare. I spent a half hour on Villanova's Rivals setup and still don't have the navigation figured out. I have registered for something there not exactly sure what it was. To post anything, I think I need a monthly subscription for $8.99. So far, Elon and Delaware have the only simple one I could figure out. When I am done with the CAA, I will be lucky if 10 people there become aware of it, let alone decide to play it. ;)

I do like that top level BigSkyFans setup. I wonder if we could get all of the MVFC board admins to agree to such a thing?

http://www.bigskyfans.com/
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ST_Lawson
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Have you posted it to AnyGivenSaturday? That's another place that might work.

I'll have to look into that (a MVFC "umbrella" site).
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sealhall74
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AnyGivenSaturday is a very nice site for FCS fans. They already have a Top 25 and even a separate MVFC thing going so will steer clear for now. Also there is a nice BigSkyChallenge in place on a separate site so I am competing with that and it has garnered a whole bunch of week 1 attention. I have to say the BigSky seems to be the best-organized "group" at the FCS level. They have the "umbrella" fan site, the BigSkyChallenge rewards its players with goodies from the BigSkyShop site, etc. What is really amazing to me at the FCS level in general is just how much variability in sports interest there seems to be. That applies to both the conferences and when comparing teams within the conferences. I suppose the only "secret ingredient" at the FCS level to keep fan interest high (and showing up to the games) is really no secret at all - you have to put up those Ws each and every week all the way to Frisco.
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sealhall74
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Google has a sankey chart so I think I will spend some time trying to add one to the pick help arsenal. If you have never seen one, here is an example related to college degree and career choice. Could be useful for all the new kids on WIU block this week:

http://benschmidt.org/jobs/

This example from Google is a little easier to follow:

https://developers.google.com/chart/int ... pleExample

If anyone has ideas how to make it useful predicting football games from raw stats, let me know.

ST, you may enjoy this one:

http://www.sankey-diagrams.com/
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sealhall74
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Looks like I get to kick in another $50 to the Flag project in the name of ST_Lawson. Congrats ST!
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WIU0812
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Good to hear! Congrats ST!
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ST_Lawson
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Awesome, thanks.
Scott Lawson - Board Admin
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ST_Lawson
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Submitted my picks for this week. This could be a tough one...there's a few of the non-conference matchups that look pretty evenly matched and could go either way. Also, EIU and SIU looks like it could be pretty close. Eastern is down a little from last year, Southern is up a little (as near as I can tell so far). Last year it was at Southern, and Eastern won in OT.

Also, I'd love to be proved wrong on my pick for us at Wisconsin. Let's just say, I picked "realistically", but my heart is hoping for a different result (even a much more favorable margin in a loss would still be nice).
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sealhall74
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I know I am ready for some college football, Pick'em or no Pick'em. The contest is pretty much the same as it was last year but I added a preseason poll sidebet pick for week 1. I also have some ideas for a couple of new sidebets involving fight songs but they are not quite finalized yet. If you have some ideas for keeping the contest fresh and challenging, I would love to hear them. As always, there is no fee to play. E-gift prizes for weekly and regular season winners. Also an FCS Playoff bracket pool and the more you play during the regular season, the bigger your potential payoff for it. There is a Guest login account you can use to take a test drive. Below is the link to get the ball rolling:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... l8/pubhtml

ST, is there a spot somewhere on the site for a link to this?
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