2013 College Football Pool – Week 4 Results

Okay, I knew that last week’s slate of games weren’t the best. I knew that there would be a lot of easy wins, and not too many toss-ups. So I figured there would be a few perfect weeks as a result. But fourteen perfect pickers? Uh, no. Didn’t see that coming. So let’s spend a little time digesting the results of our picking prowess, shall we? As far as I can see, since I started keeping records, this week set high-water marks for:

• Perfect weeks (the aforementioned 14; the previous high was nine in Week 1, 2012)
• Percentage of correct picks (442/456 – 96.930%; the previous best was 92.597% in Week 1, 2010)
• Percentage of possible points gained (98.794%; the previous best was 98.091% in Week 1, 2010)

Perhaps the most amazing stat was this: of all the people who picked, there were a total of 4,560 points that could be gained. The number of points we didn’t collect: 55. That is mind-boggling. I’ve missed 55 points by myself on some weeks. Suffice it to say that I’m not sure that we’ll see anything quite like that again anytime soon. So, great job, everyone!

So who’s ready for conference games? Well, such as they are, anyway. It’s still a little strange to look at games like Oklahoma State-West Virginia and Virginia-Pittsburgh and say, “Oh, yeah, that’s a conference game now.” But such is life in the new college football landscape. Rather than get into yet another one of my diatribes on how college football has become one big money grab, let’s take a look at some noteworthy facts about some of these early-season conference games:

• When Florida and Kentucky square off, the Gators will attempt to extend the longest current streak of wins against one opponent in an uninterrupted series. That streak currently stands at 26. It’s still seventeen years away from the all-time record of 43, set by Notre Dame against Navy between 1964-2006.
• The Virginia Tech-Georgia Tech game doesn’t seem like such a big deal on paper, but the winner of that game has won the ACC Coastal Division every year but one since the ACC split into two divisions in 2005. That year? Last year, when Georgia Tech lost 20-17 to Virginia Tech but won the division anyway thanks to North Carolina and Miami both being ineligible. Virginia Tech won their 700^th game in program history last week; Georgia Tech would match that total with a win this week.
• When Arizona visits Washington, it will mark the longest road trip two Pac-12 schools have between each other: 1,532 miles between Tuscon and Seattle (the shortest, of course, is the 14.1 miles between UCLA’s Rose Bowl and USC’s Coliseum). For perspective, when Oklahoma State visits Morgantown for their game against West Virginia, they would “only” have to travel 1,086 miles by road. The teams have only played each other 29 times in the past; they played for the first time in 1978. Not counting the new Pac-12 schools, it’s the least-played conference opponent for each school.

Congratulations go out to JagRag, who won the fourteen-way tie-breaker to claim the week 4 title, their second weekly title of the year so far! The other perfect pickers: DirtyDiaperSlinger, The Tradition, Allison, BEVO, aggiemom, Crimson Gator, Enfuego, bamaken, maestro, Liquid Heat, BrittaniaTex, Rocky Tide, and mhpugh! Congratulations to all of the perfect pickers!

Top ten after four weeks (dropping two lowest weeks):

There are only fifteen games this week, so it’s going to be really important to allocate your points wisely in order to do well! The first games are Saturday, September 28 @ Noon ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!