Daily Blog • Tuesday, January 10th

 

Every year people ask me who my favorite team is. It is the team I pick #1. Last year I rooted AGAINST Alabama almost every week as my magazine was about the only one out there not to pick them to win (or even play in) the title game. This year I picked them #1 and it was not easy but I will admit I rooted for the Tide each week and they held LSU to under 100 yards (4 to 1 yardage edge) last night in a dominating 21-0 national title win!!!

The Daily blog will be undergoing some changes in the next couple of days now that the college football season is complete. Tomorrow's blog will give you some bowl notes on 15 bowl games with also some top bowl performances from a stats perspective in Friday’s blog. Later on this week you will get my forecasts for the NFL Divisional games played that day including my computer's projected box score of the games.

Starting next week I will be going to a Monday, Wednesday and weekend blog format until magazine season is over in late spring/early summer. In early February, my projection of what the Preseason AP top 10 will be for 2012 and that will be coming after January 15th when juniors have to declare or not declare for the NFL Draft. I also will be updating you with 2012 NFL Draft and 2012 Frosh Recruiting updates.

Bowl Confidence Contest

The 2011 Bowl Confidence Contest was a huge success with more than 3000 entries! Congratulations to Rick Nicholas the winner of the 2012 Bowl Confidence Contest!! Jim finished with an amazing 562 points won to just 68 points lost (29-6) and will take home the grand prize of $250 and a complete set of 2012 Preview magazines. Mike Steele finished in 2nd with 558 points (27-8) and will get $100 and a set of 2012 previews. Salvador Valle finished in 3rd (won tiebreaker) with 55 points (28-7) and will get $50 and set of previews.

I do want to personally thank the good people specifically Todd DeVries and David Pollock at Sportsfan.com who helped put our contest together this year. I encourage anyone of you who is looking to do a college football bowl contest or March Madness pool to give them a try. I look forward to next years contest and promise it will be even bigger and better than this years!

Thanks again to the 3000 people that have entered. If you have any questions concerning your points or do not see your name in the Top and think it should be please email Brandon@philsteele.com.

Here are the final leaderboards.

Top 10 Bowl Confidence Contest

Rank
Picksheet W L % Poins Conf % Tie Margin Station/Host Name
1
Montani 29 6 82.9% 562 89.2% 47 26 WVSP-Tony Mercurio
2
ironman 27 8 77.1% 558 88.6% 47 26 STO-Bruce Drennan
3
sav2119 28 7 80.0% 555 88.1% 38 17 New York Post
4
shawndoggy 27 8 77.1% 555 88.1% 26 5 WVSP-Tony Mercurio
5
jmannoel 28 7 80.0% 553 87.8% 38 17 WVSP-Tony Mercurio
6
Dawgman 25 10 71.4% 539 85.6% 32 11
7
mrharness45 25 10 71.4% 533 84.6% 103 82
8
ace1317 28 7 80.0% 532 84.4% 34 13
9
Jcamp048 26 9 74.3% 532 84.4% 35 14 WVSP-Tony Mercurio
10
Rice Capital Cajun 27 8 77.1% 531 84.3% 29 8