SIDELINE SCENE: Weekly football contest returns

I learned three things from going through the submissions for this week’s football contest.

I learned the value of name recognition. I saw firsthand how popular this contest is. 

And, I learned how little faith Floridians have in the Dolphins.

But, let’s back up a second — this past edition of the paper marked our first week of the West Orange Times Football Contest. Located on page 5B in last week’s Sports section, where it is again today and will be throughout football season, was our weekly competition. 

We pick 10 games — five college football games, five NFL games — and you pick the winners. Whoever gets the most right, wins. We even have a nifty tiebreaker feature, which is having everyone guess the combined number of points from that week’s Monday Night Football game.

You mail it in (postmarked by Friday of that week) or drop it off at our office (720 S. Dillard Street, Winter Garden, FL, 34787) through the slot in the door by 10 a.m. on Saturday. 

At stake each week is a $50 cash prize and a $25 gift certificate from Subway.

For some of you, this is new and exciting information and, for others, it’s more of “tell me something I don’t know” situation — after all, this is the 26th Annual edition of the contest.

So, anyway, back to what I learned.

To start, I was pleasantly surprised with how many entries we received. I shouldn’t have been, as I’ve had people telling me since I started here in June how much people like the contest — and, really, what’s not to like about football and the potential of free food?

It’s the sports geek in me, but I got excited going through the entries and seeing how many games each entry got correct and identifying any interesting trends. Which reminds me — name recognition. Most of you have heard of Northwestern. It’s a school in the Big Ten and, most recently, its football players explored the idea of unionizing and it made national headlines. So, if you’re a casual sports follower, there’s some familiarity there.

Northern Illinois, on the other hand, plays in the Mid-American Conference and, outside of getting their butts kicked in the Orange Bowl a few years back by Florida State, may be an unknown to many of you — a fact illustrated by 78% of this week’s entries picking against the Huskies.

Of course, NIU has had a relatively impressive program over the past few years — and the Big Ten is increasingly pretty awful, even for a “Power 5” conference — and 78% of you chose wrong.

And then there was the Dolphins-Patriots games.

I’m sure plenty of the 65% of entries who picked against Miami were Dolphins fans. In fact, having “Dolphins fan” on your sports résumé probably entitles you to picking against Miami with confidence given, you know, the years of mediocrity. 

But, then the ‘Fins just had to go and beat New England, more worried about wins and losses and whatnot than your chances of winning last week’s contest and binging on Spicy Italian subs.

Oh, and a quick editor’s note, to everyone who picked Eastern Michigan over the Gators, you may have sacrificed a pick on an upset with little to no odds of happening, but each time I saw someone pick against UF, my heart was warmed just a bit.

Darrell Gotthard, of Winter Garden, was our first winner, his victory ensured by his uncanny prediction of 49 points in Monday’s game between the Lions and Giants, a 35-14 win for Detroit.

Congrats, Darrell, you got the tiebreaker right on the dot — you should probably play a lottery ticket this week.

Anyhow, if you didn’t play last week, we hope you’ll flip over to 5B and consider playing this week. Although I can’t win — a policy which may need some revision at some point, given my affinity for subs — I’ll be posting my own picks each Saturday morning at 11 a.m. via our social media accounts (Facebook: WOTO Sports; Twitter: @WOTO_Sports and @StevenR_WOTO).

The moral of the story, then, becomes this: Although you may not win our contest, you can still take some pride in getting more picks right than me.

Steven Ryzewski is the Sports Editor for the West Orange Times and can be reached via email at [email protected]. Follow Steven on Twitter at @StevenR_WOTO for updates from prep sporting events, insights and more.