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College Football is almost here!

Admin — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:05:00 GMT

It's almost that time again! I know you can already feel it in your bones, because I can. We are quickly approaching football season. Last year Play Pick'em.com sent the winner of our College Football Pick'em to the BCS National Championship Game. We'd like to do the same thing this year, but we need your help. There are two ways you can help. First, tell all your friends to sign up for our free site at http://playpickem.com. Second, and this one is important, we need funds. National Championship tickets aren't cheap. In fact a pair will run around $1,400 or more. So in order for us to be able to afford them again this year we're going to need you to help us out. You can do so by purchasing products from the Play Pick'em Store, or our sponsors. Or just toss us a donation through the secure online system of PayPal. Basically we've run out of money, and if we can't get the funds we can't get the tickets. So instead of settling for a crappy prize, or no prize at all, I thought I'd appeal to our members for help. The more money we bring in the better the prizes will be. And I would love to offer Rose, Sugar or Orange Bowl tickets for second and third place. Thanks for playing and for helping us out so that we can continue to offer the best College Football Pick'em prizes on the net.

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Thank you,

Admin

Is Boise State going to get screwed?

Baronthedog — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 01:08:00 GMT

We might as well keep the conference shakeup speculation going. After all everyone is doing it So since the remaining Big 12 (neo-Big10) teams have decided to give the Pac-10 the finger, rumor has it that our friends on the left coast are going after Utah. Makes sense. It's actually a great idea for both the conference and the team (something that could not be said about all of the Big 12 teams considering the migration westward). And since the Big 12 doesn't want to have to spend all that money making up new T-shirts I suspect they will reach out to someone for two additional teams.

Lets be honest the teams that make the most sense, besides Utah, are BYU and TCU (unless they could somehow convince Iowa to jump off of the rust belt bandwagon and on to a winning team). But if TCU and BYU leave for the Big 12 and Utah leaves for the Pac-10, that leaves Boise State, who just accepted the invite to the MWC stuck in a crappier conference than the one it left. Yep, the Broncos could take one right up their blue behind. But not only would that suck for Boise, but it would also suck for the MWC. With the addition of Boise the MWC was really turning itself into a legit conference. In my opinion they would be just as good as many of the so-called BCS Conferences. And for me that's a lot of fun...watching a so-called mid-major conference prove itself to be as good, if not better than the big boys.

Oh, well, enough about that. Can you guys believe that Bill and Sookie might be splitting up? Now that's a realignment worth discussing.

Conference shakeup

Admin — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 13:12:00 GMT

After the Nebraska Cornhuskers accepted an offer to join the Big Ten, the other conferences are being shaken up as well. Pac-10 officials are meeting with Big 12 targets as the SEC covets Texas, OU for expansion. And of course the prediction I've been making for a while, Boise St. accepts an invitation to join the Mountain West. And the coveted Texas is looking at 'all options'. And rumors abound that Florida State may be in the mix for the SEC. Well these are certainly interesting times for college football fans.

No Baseball Pick'em this year

Admin — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:34:00 GMT

Due to a lack of interest in Baseball Pick'em and a lack of funds to afford the prizes we have decided not to hold Basball Pick'em this year. If you would like to have Baseball Pick'em in the future, please invite your friends to join, shop in the Play Pick'em store, or donate.

We will be starting again with Football Pick'em in the Fall. I hope you will all join us then.

I apologize to all of you who wanted to play Baseball Pick'em again this season. We did have a good time last year, but it simply is not cost effective given the lack of interest we have had in it.

Thank you,
Admin

Is the NCAA insuring its own demise?

Baronthedog — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:56:00 GMT

The NCAA has been picking fights, justifiably or not, with some of the nation's top athletic schools, and could be insuring their own demise. The NCAA is not mandatory. It is a voluntary association formed back in the early days of football to prevent Congress from stepping in to regulate that new and dangerous sport following several deaths of players. Since then it has grown into a behemoth unchecked by anyone else, a kingdom unto itself.

Certainly schools have stood up to the NCAA's dictatorial decrees in the past and won. For example, a few years ago the NCAA attempted to outlaw the use of Native American mascots (at least in the post season), but Florida State and Utah successfully appealed and were allowed to keep their mascots primarily based on support by the tribes themselves.

Recently the NCAA has targeted some of the biggest athletic programs in the country, Texas, USC, Florida State, Tennessee and Maryland. Two of the five have won football national championships in the last decade. Three of the five have played for national championships in the last decade. Four of the five have won national championships in the last twelve years. Four of the five are among the top 20 grossing athletic schools in the country, and all five are among the top 40 grossing athletic programs in the country (it should be obvious to everyone here that Maryland is the outlier in the above categories).

While USC and Tennessee are being investigated for institutional NCAA violations the problems with Texas, Florida State and Maryland are not so clear cut.   Texas and Maryland are simply getting screwed with a new NCAA rule that prevents their coaches in waiting (essentially very high paid ASSISTANTS) from recruiting as assistants but allows them the limited recruiting of head coaches. These are the only two teams in the country affected by this ridiculous rule (though if it were instituted last year Florida State and Kentucky would have also been affected). Basically this rule singles out two schools for a complete and total non-issue.

Florida State is also being treated unfairly, though admittedly violations were committed and therefore they are not getting the total and complete screwing facing Texas and Maryland. Florida State has been forced to vacate a large number of its wins from every athletic program including 14 wins achieved by Bobby Bowden, the legendary college football coach who won two national titles, and 13 ACC titles before retiring last month. These wins are being vacated because a large number of student athletes cheat on a music history exam, of all things.  But the cheating was not institutional, in other words the neither the university, nor the coaches had anything to do with it. Plus the students were punished internally. This is very important because, unfortunately students, whether athletes or not, sometimes cheat on tests. They should and were punished by the university for this. However, for the NCAA to punish the university, coaches and other athletes for something the university, coaches, and other athletes had nothing to do with is absurd. It is the equivalent of vacating the wins of a school if one of their players was caught drinking underage at a private party unbeknownst to the school or the coaches.

That brings us to USC and Tennessee. Both have been accused of institutional violations, meaning either the university or the coaches were involved in the violation. In USC's case, the violation was Reggie Bush being paid by aspiring sports marketers, a violation of rules because that would make him a professional athlete. If the coaches or school knew about this, and it is unclear that they did, then this would be an institutional violation that could vacate several wins including a  national title as well as a Heisman Trophy. If the violation was not institutional, meaning none of the coaches, nor the university knew of this, then see my argument regarding FSU above. Tennessee is being investigated for using hot co-eds to try and lure recruits to play at Tennessee. The worst part for Tennessee, is that the coaches accused of doing this all now work for USC.

But even if USC and Tennessee did commit institutional violations, has the NCAA still moved well beyond it's intended purpose? The purpose, as I stated above, was to preempt Congress from regulating football when had become so dangerous that players were getting killed during the game. Now the NCAA's reach extends well beyond protecting players lives, to telling schools how many recruiting trips an assistant coach can take, to forbidding players from making any money at all (or even driving a guy's Hummer) even from people completely unaffiliated with the school, preventing the school from using pretty girls from selling the school to possible recruits, and punishing schools and teams for things neither their administration, coaches, or boosters even knew was happening.

So what if these schools decided to just leave the NCAA instead of putting up with it? Kevin Sherrington of the Dallas News recently asked that question about Texas, the nations top grossing athletic program. And Andy Staples at Sports Illustrated recently proposed that the top 64 grossing athletic programs bail of the NCAA and form their own less troublesome association he seriocomically calls the Collegiate Athletic Select Hegemony (CASH). Staples proposes four 16 team conferences, the SEC, ACC, Big-16 and Pac-16. This he claims would have the added benefit of preventing the BCS from being investigated for anti-trust violations as well as keeping the Big-16 and Pac-16 winners playing in the Rose Bowl. Though he doesn't mention it in the article, it could also give us a much desired playoff. The first round would be the conference championships. The second round could be the Pac-16 winner vs. the Big-16 winner in the Rose Bowl and the SEC winner vs. the ACC winner in the Sugar Bowl, with another bowl hosting the winners of those two games for the National Title. The other 60 teams could all play in one of the 31 bowls (with one bowl being left out entirely, probably the one at Boise since Boise will not make the CASH anyway). Meanwhile all of the other teams can stay at the NCAA creating two competing associations and therefore eliminating any anti-trust issues.

Will this happen? Probably not, but if the NCAA keep pushing some of the top programs who knows.  As Sherrington opined, "It’d only take a few select schools to bolt before others, fearing they’d be left behind in the new order, would follow." I think that heavy hitters like Texas, USC, FSU, Tennessee, and even Maryland would qualify for the "select schools" that would make that possible. So keep pushing NCAA, because even when your sanctions, rules and orders are justified, you could be insuring your own demise.

NCAA attempting to take all of the fun out of football

Baronthedog — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:52:00 GMT

In its quest to make football completely boring the NCAA is proposing a rule that would take away a touchdown if you taunt the oppossing team while running the ball down the field. Yeah, I get the sportsmanship issues, but c'mon, let the kids have a little fun. They already get penalized for it. But to wipe out the TD? Thats just crazy! Its a game people, not a court case.

NCAA proposal: Taunt opponent, lose touchdown

Predictions for Next Weeks Coaching Carousel

Baronthedog — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:07:00 GMT

Wow, the coaching Carousel has certainly gone into high gear this off-season. It seems every day there is more news about another mercenary and/or abusive coach getting the axe or changing jobs. So here are my predictions for next week in this continually unfolding saga.

1. Urban Meyer decides that his family and health really are more important than football and completely resigns from Florida.
2. Florida offers the HC job to Lane Kiffin, who after less than a week as head coach of USC, decides to use the offer to get more money from the Trojans.
3. Bobby Petrino takes the HC job at Tennessee.
4. USC finally realizes that their relationship with Lane is a recipe for NCAA probation and decides not to offer him more money, and instead hire Bobby Petrino from Tennessee (Tennessee students riot).
5. Arkansas hires Phil Fulmer.
6. While Lane was negotiating with USC, Urban has a change of heart and decides football really is more improtant than is family or health and takes back the job at Florida.
7. Pete Carroll moves to Seattle only to realize its really freakin' cold up there and asks for his old job back at USC.
8. USC takes Carroll back and fires Petrino.
9. USF hires Bobby Petrino.
10. Arkansas fires Phil Fulmer, despite his 1998 national championship, and rehires Bobby Petrino.
11. Tommy Tuberville stays at Texas Tech despite being accidentally locked in a closet with Adam James.
12. Tennessee rehires Lane.
13. Urban decides that his family and health really are more important than football and resigns from Florida.
14. Florida hires Mike Leach who is quickly fired for locking Dunlap in a closet to keep him from going to the NFL draft.
15. Florida offers to hire Lane, and Lane holds a press conference to tell the students that Florida is the ONLY job he would have left Tennessee for.
16. Tennessee students riot, capture Lane and burn him at the stake.
17. Urban decides football really is more important than his family or his health and takes back the job at Florida.
18. USF hires Phil Fulmer.
19. Lane survives the roasting and stays at Tennesee.
20. And the world is ok once again...until the next week when the Seattle Seahawks offer the HC job to the now less metro-sexual looking Lane Kiffin.

Florida-Urban Meyer
Tennessee-A not-so-pretty Lane Kiffin
USC-Pete Carroll
Arkansas-Bobby Petrino
Texas Tech-Tommy Tuberville
USF-Phil Fulmer
Seattle-Brian Kelly?

Help Support Play Pick'em!

Admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:46:00 GMT

We get emails all the time with helpful suggestions on how to improve the game. We try to incorporate the suggestions when possible. For example, last year we received numerous requests for an "export" feature so that players would not have to pick multiple time in order to play in the public league and various private leagues. We added that to the site for football season this year, and believe that it truly has improved the playing experience. We hope to improve the site even more in the future and look forward to more suggestions on how to do that.

For those of you who have played with us before, you realize that out prizes have gotten considerably better. We went from giving away a Nintendo Wii, to giving away two tickets to the BCS Championship game as well as weekly prizes (something we never did before). We hope to get better and better prizes in the future.

There are a lot of things we'd like to do with this site to make it the ultimate sports pick'em experience. But all of this takes money. It is our goal to keep this site completely free, but we will not be able to continue improving the site and offering great prizes without your help.

You can help support us by shopping in the Play Pick'em Store, a secure online store powered by Amazon.com. Or by patronizing the ads we have on our site such as

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Thank you all for playing, I hope it has been fun, and keep letting us know ways we can improve the site.

Chris

Alabama jumps Florida to No. 1 in AP poll

Admin — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:21:00 GMT

Urban Meyer and the Florida Gators hoped to become the third team in history to start at No. 1 in the AP poll, go undefeated, never lose the No. 1 spot and win the National Championship. The only two teams that have done so were Florida State in 1999 and USC in 2004. But after it took a last second field goal to beat Arkansas at home 23-20 yesterday, the Gators dropped to No. 2 in the AP poll, jumped by undefeated Alabama. Alabama shut down South Carolina in a 20-6 victory.

BLOG.PLAYPICKEM.COM

College Football is almost here!

Is Boise State going to get screwed?

Conference shakeup

No Baseball Pick'em this year

Is the NCAA insuring its own demise?

NCAA attempting to take all of the fun out of football

Top Stories, January 28,2010

Top Stories, January 18, 2010

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Predictions for Next Weeks Coaching Carousel

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Alabama jumps Florida to No. 1 in AP poll