NSD Guessing Game

[Tennessee Jack]

Who is interested in a contest to predict who inks with the Vols?

Feel free to post suggestions and critiques.

I'll start with some ideas---

1) do not start posting your list. submit a list via PM only after we've established ground rules.

2) establish a deadline for predictions. maybe Feb 1st or as late as Feb 3rd?

3) develop points system. establish points based on number of accurate guesses or perhaps include "wild cards" meaning if you pick a long shot and he signs, you get bonus points. or maybe you get extra points if the recruit has a higher star rating.

4) one possible scenario: many expect a class between 22-26 with 17 currently committed. maybe take 10 guesses and the highest number correct wins. it would be possible for a tie, though, so we'd need a tie breaker. two people could pick a different 10 and still get 7 right as an example.

5) anyone who wanted to try to win a year's worth of bragging rights would have to submit their list of picks by the deadline via private message.

Summary: so we need to establish the number you can have in your pool. we need to figure out if anyone's interested in possible bonus points or wildcards. we need to establish tie breakers. we need to establish a deadline.

we obviously need to see if this can even be organized and managed before signing day.

has anyone done anything like this in the past? I wanted to make sure I wasn't upsetting anyone's pre-existing plans.

[Ericvol2096]

I think everyone should have a list of 20. and a point system could be developed off of the spreadsheet that was posted by Rogers.

1 point if they are a solid UT commit
2 points if they are soft UT commit
3 points if they aren't commited anywhere
4 points if they are a soft commit somewhere else
and 5 points if they are a solid commit to another school???

Good idea???

[Ericvol2096]

You now that I think about it looking at my list here, it will be hard to pick 20 and not get most of them pretty close to right.

I think you should have to pick the exact class. And you should recieve negative points if you put a player down that commits somewhere else!?
maybe??

[Tennessee Jack]

I'm not crazy about 20 or solid commitments. I would consider 15 as a ceiling for volume. If 20 people played and we moved the list from 15 to 20 picks, that adds 100 extra names to read.

The other ideas are a good start to the discussion. I'm for simplifying the process if possible.

I don't work with spreadsheets often, so if someone had software to organize these lists to make judging the final picks easier, I'd nominate them to be the official vote counter.

[Ericvol2096]

I would do it, I have tons of time on my hands and I love stuff liket this.

My only problem with only picking 10 commitments is it would be easy to get 10 out of 10 by just naming our already solid commits like

Gordon, Thigpen, Walls, sykes, rogers, Mitchell-Thorton, Askew, Green, Hollins, and Jeffery.

See I would get everyone right thats why I think it should be about picking the whole class, or only the people that aren't committed at this point right now.

[Tennessee Jack]

If you have software to dump the names into a file and instantly convert the files, I don't care how many names are picked.

I think we just pick guys who are uncommited or soft verbals-- it simplifies the list and the shorter the list, the more participation we'd have. If we only pick undecided's, then we should make the pool smaller. So if there's 5-10 more guys to ink LOI's, then make the pool smaller.

I like the idea of a wildcard pick---like final Jeopardy. You could wager how much you're willing to gamble on your wildcard pick. Like say you use a 5* running back as your wildcard, you could risk increasing/decreasing your total point tally by a percentage of your total points.

So if you picked "John Smith" 5* RB out of Anonymous High, you could wager 25% of your total accumulated points---which would make or break someone with a low score. You'd have risk vs. reward to spice up things.

[OHvol40]

you could add extra points for correctly predicting if a prospect goes to another school. Instead of making UT predictions only, you could predict all of them. Don't do a graduated point system. Just make it one point for a correct pick, no matter where it is. That way you can just go down the list and tally the points. That way it really pays off to have been following these guys closely. That way there would also be more parody.

[Ericvol2096]

Originally Posted by OHvol40

you could add extra points for correctly predicting if a prospect goes to another school. Instead of making UT predictions only, you could predict all of them. Don't do a graduated point system. Just make it one point for a correct pick, no matter where it is. That way you can just go down the list and tally the points. That way it really pays off to have been following these guys closely. That way there would also be more parody.

ooooooooh good idea but we would need one general list that everyone went off of.

That's why I think it would be cool to use Rogers speadsheet, cause that is about 50 players all with some interest in TN.

[Tennessee Jack]

we could do two polls as a tribute to the busted BCS.

it'd be like the AP vs the Coaches' poll---we could have split champions based on two different systems.

that way, we double our winners list and if someone ever wins both polls, they'll have supreme bragging rights as a unanimous champion.

[Ericvol2096]

haha.


I think we should just keep it simple

ANd have a prospect list of about 50 guys and everyone pick what school they sign with and you get one point for ever prospect you get right and winner take all. Tiebreaker could be if you correctly pick the number of TN recruits that sign.

[PredUTor J]

Why don't you provide a list of 20-25 guys that everyone is scratching their heads over right now.

Each person can predict their possible destination and whoever is closest is the winner.

[Tennessee Jack]

I really don't like the idea of trying to weigh the pro's & con's of a guy choosing between LSU and Bama. That's something that would fry my brain while I tried to comprehend and evaluate such a decision.

I think the simplest thing is to create a pool of 10-15 players, with the goal of all our remaining unsigned players/soft verbals being named in that 15.

What about a dozen? You get 12 names and if 8 hit you're a pretty surefire pick to be the winner. The smaller the pool, the more people have to pick & choose their picks.

We could have a poll of the least likely player to sign with UT and if someone correctly picked wildcards they'd get the tiebreaker nod.

[PredUTor J]

1) Bryce Brown
2) Trent Richardson
3) Reuben Randle
4) Marlon Brown
5) Orson Charles
6) Pat Patterson
7) Greg Reid
8) Sam Montgomery
9) Marcus Hall
10) Craig Drummond
11) Pete White
12) Randall Carroll
13) Janzen Jackson
14) Tana Patrick
15) Je'Ron Stokes
16) Brandon Moore
17) Alshon Jeffrey
18) Mike Edwards
19) Kendall Kelly
20) Morgan Moses


Here is a list of top prospects that are currently undecided.

[PredUTor J]

Just have everyone pick where each guy will go, from a list of 20.

If you want to do a bonus, we could have everyone guess how many players will commit to Tennessee.

[Tennessee Jack]

I have an idea that would make this much simpler. We run it like a lottery were the winner has to come forward to be crowned.

You view how many picks you got right and you say "I got 7 right" and then that serves as a measuring stick. That way no one has to review and evaluate 50 submissions. The winner will still have to PM their list by the deadline and the person who receives them will only need to verify their number if someone makes a claim of a winning submission. It cuts down on much of the work.

Basically all votes go into a hat and no one views the submissions unless someone realizes he had several correct picks and wants to question if their submission was the top score.