Wild First Day Edition

People that have played in my polls before know that I love upsets.  It should surprise no one that I thought today's games were great.  I find it really boring when the favorites keep churning out win after win.  To that end, today was fantastic.  4 of the 6 games were won by the team that was not favored to win.  The average number of wins was 2.67 out of 6.  That's astonishingly low, especially considering that the favorites won the first 2 games of the day.  What makes it more fun is that no one went winless, but no one went perfect.  Here's the distribution of wins on the day:

1: 8

2: 20

3: 18

4: 7

5: 5

That makes for some interesting rankings at the end of Day #1.  Here are the rankings based only on points won:

1. Clucko the Chicken: 105 (-78)

2. Becky H.: 101 (-29)

3. Brad R.: 99 (-46)

4. Tim N.: 99 (-66)

5. Ally H.: 90 (-9)

6. Michelle L. #2: 87 (-62)

7. Michelle L. #1: 81 (-65)

8. Jay H. #3: 79 (-37)

9. Matt N.: 74 (-51)

10. Sally R.: 74 (-61)

11. Klei - Consensus: 74 (-89)

12. Klei R.: 73 (-105)

13. Jay H. #1: 71 (-34)

14. Dylan B.: 68 (-73)

15. Joel S. #3: 68 (-114)

16. Roth W.: 67 (-94)

17. Grant F.: 65 (-32)

18. Ashley D.: 63 (-55)

19. Sanjay T.: 61 (-102)

20. Ryan W.: 60 (-14)

21. Mike S. #2: 59 (-76)

22. Hutch H.: 58 (-49)

22. Hal #2: 58 (-49)

24. Jim W.: 58 (-63)

25. Dustin B.: 57 (-7)

26. Hal #1: 57 (-56)

27. Pete J. #1: 57 (-108)

27. Pete J. #2: 57 (-108)

29. Brent S.: 56 (-82)

30. Joel S. #4: 53 (-13)

31. Mike W.: 46 (-39)

32. Mike S. #1: 46 (-68)

33. Damien R. #1: 43 (-64)

34. Adam E.: 40 (-64)

35. Damien R. #2: 39 (-78)

36. Kevin W.: 39 (-91)

37. Dan Du.: 38 (-82)

38. Myles G.: 30 (-33)

39. Mindi W.: 26 (-105)

40. Brent E. #1: 23 (-101)

41. Brent E. #3: 22 (-103)

42. Joel S. #5: 19 (-2)

43. Brent E. #2: 17 (-89)

44. Joel S. #2: 16 (-35)

45. Ben S. #3: 14 (-49)

46. Brett W.: 13 (-20)

47. Scott H. #1: 12 (-9)

48. Marc R.: 12 (-74)

49. Nichole W.: 9 (-21)

50. Ben S. #1: 7 (-52)

51. Scott H. #2: 6 (-29)

52. Ben S. #2: 6 (-59)

53. Dan Dz.: 5 (-16)

54. Jay H. #2: 4 (-73)

55. Joel S. #1: 3 (-18)

55. Nikolajs B.: 3 (-18)

57. Bartosz R. #1: 3 (-86)

58. Bartosz R. #2: 3 (-87)

...and the rankings based on net points (this is the one I feel is a better measure of sheet strength)

1. Ally H.: 81

2. Becky H.: 72

3. Brad R.: 53

4. Dustin B.: 50

5. Ryan W.: 46

6. Jay H. #3: 42

7. Joel S. #4: 40

8. Jay H. #1: 37

9. Tim N.: 33

9. Grant F.: 33

11. Clucko the Chicken: 27

12. Michelle L. #2: 25

13. Matt N.: 23

14. Joel S. #5: 17

15. Michelle L. #1: 16

16. Sally R.: 13

17. Hutch H.: 9

17. Hal #2: 9

19. Ashley D.: 8

20. Mike W.: 7

21. Scott H. #1: 3

22. Hal #1: 1

23. Myles G.: -3

24. Dylan B.: -5

24. Jim W.: -5

26. Brett W.: -7

27. Dan Dz.: -11

28. Nichole W.: -12

29. Klei - Consensus: -15

29. Joel S. #1: -15

29. Nikolajs B.: -15

32. Mike S. #2: -17

33. Joel S. #2: -19

34. Damien R. #1: -21

35. Mike S. #1: -22

36. Scott H. #2: -23

37. Adam E.: -24

38. Brent S.: -26

39. Roth W.: -27

40. Klei R.: -32

41. Ben S. #3: -35

42. Damien R. #2: -39

43. Sanjay T.: -41

44. Dan Du.: -44

45. Ben S. #1: -45

46. Joel S. #3: -46

47. Pete J. #1: -51

47. Pete J. #2: -51

49. Kevin W.: -52

50. Ben S. #2: -53

51. Marc R.: -62

52. Jay H. #2: -69

53. Brent E. #2: -72

54. Brent E. #1: -78

55. Mindi W.: -79

56. Brent E. #3: -81

57. Bartosz R. #1: -83

58. Bartosz R. #2: -84

Before anyone gets too down because a college-picking chicken is leading in points, I want to put some things into perspective.  One, it's a chicken.  Two, in order to get that many points, it risked the most points of anyone.  It is currently 11th in net points, and it's used 21.53% of all the points available.

That's another good thing to consider.  The average sheet has wagered 12.30% of their points (104.57 points on average).  That means that there a LOT of points left out there to win.  Some people may need to win a few more games than they originally anticipated because of how they did today, but I doubt anyone is really out of this thing yet.

Another thing to consider is that none of the games that were played today were even in the top half of games in term of points wagered.  Based on points wagered, Colorado State cost the most people the most points (862 points lost), followed by Oregon (852 points), Western Kentucky (805 points) and Arkansas State (645 points).

The teams that won their sheets the most points were Troy (923 points) and North Carolina A&T (826 points).

Overall, people's records on Top 10 picks so far are: 35-38 (47.9%).  That's a pretty terrible number.  Last year, our number was 346-214 (61.79%).  Obviously, there's more time and most of the top 10 games haven't been played.  It's not a great start though.  I remember a few years ago, the winner was someone who wound up being the only person to pick a team that everyone was absolutely sure would win.  She wound up making up about 70 points on the field with that one game.  We have some games coming up that might fit that description.

So, that's it for Day 1.  We are off until Tuesday.  I'll put something out Monday night in preparation for that game.  We are one game a day for a little while, which I always like.  Days like today are kind of fun, but they turn into a lot of work for me, and not a lot of down time.  One game a day is more my speed - at least in the Bowl Pool.

Good luck to everyone!!!!