Week 1- BL Memorial Pick’Em

[Argonut]

I haven’t heard a peep out of anyone that wants to run the Pick’Em and I have things to do on Monday, so I’m kicking off the Blazer Lady Memorial Pick’Em today.

Reference the ‘2024 GSC Pic’Em’ thread on GSC forum for the format and rules and the ‘2024 Early Schedule Difficulty’ thread on General Discussion forum for deep dive into early schedule point values meaning and research results.

As mentioned in ‘2024 GSC Pic’Em’ thread I have added a significant inter conference game in each of first three weeks. For this week it is Ferris State at Pitt. State. That means the opening week pits teams from 9 conferences and/or levels, including the 2023 NAIA Champion Keiser.

The number in parentheses is the team’s early schedule difficulty value for first three games. A lower number means an easier start and a higher number means a harder start. The 2024 cumulative average for D2 is 11.43, Harding was an 8 last year and no team above 13 has won the D2 title in the last 7 years. Go to the thread in the General Discussion if you want more details, especially the Mudstomping metric and the typical profile of a D2 Champion since the 2000 season.

Please post your picks (winner and margin of victory) on this thread before the opening kickoff in the Delta State game on Thursday, August 29 at 6 pm (CST).

As always, please feel free to correct me if you see a miscalculation and good luck. Please remember there are 10 MOV bonus points to anyone that picks the winner of all the games in a particular week. I bow down to anyone who does that this week.

The games for Week 1

(12) Delta State at Mars Hill (15)
(NAIA) St. Andrews at Erskine (9)
(13) Miles at West Alabama (12)
(12) Albany State at Valdosta State (10)
(10) Mississippi College at Shorter (4)
(13) McKendree at West Florida (12)
(NAIA) Keiser at North Greenville (10)

(12) Ferris State at Pittsburg State (13)

[Argonut]

Delta State by 10.

Erskine by 30.

West Alabama by 10.

Valdosta State by 20.

Mississippi College by 17.

West Florida by 40.

North Greenville by 7.

Pittsburgh State by 3.

[Gliac_fan10]

Delta State at Mars Hill - by 21
St. Andrews at Erskine - by 28
Miles at West Alabama - by 17
Albany State at Valdosta State - by 24
Mississippi College at Shorter - by 14
McKendree at West Florida - by 31
Keiser at North Greenville - by 10

Ferris State at Pittsburg State - by 7

[Argonut]

This will be easy to calculate with just me and GLIAC fan10 competing. I’m surprised by the armchair crickets. There’s only three days left until kickoff- tik, tok, tik, tok everyone.

[OLD CAT]

Ds by 10
esk by 14
miles by 3
asu by 3
mc by 27
wf by 28
ng by 10

[Eagle74]

Delta State by 14
Erskine by 35
West Alabama by 21
Valdosta State by 17
Mississippi College by 10
West Florida by 38
NGU by 24

Pittsburg State by 13

[FormerCrusader#84]

Delta State by 13
Erskine by 24
West Alabama by 10
Valdosta State by 14
Mississippi College by 10
West Florida by 30
North Greenville by 13

Pittsburg State by 3



Argonut - Thank you for keeping the pick'em going.

[Argonut]

If you don’t play the first week you will be too far behind to catch those that do play. Two days till kickoff and counting down to two minute warning everyone.

[CalifOKRA]

Delta State by 17

Erskine by 17

West Alabama by 14

Valdosta State by 28

Mississippi College by 13

West Florida by 38

North Greenville by 3

Ferris State by 7

[SQZ72]

Delta State atMars Hill - by 10
St. Andrews at Erskine - by 27
Miles at West Alabama - by 6
Albany State at Valdosta State - by 7
Mississippi College at Shorter - by 10
McKendree at West Florida - by 28
Keiser at North Greenville - by 3

Ferris State at Pittsburg State - by 3

[Fuller_MC]

Delta State by 21
Erskine by 7
West Alabama by 10
Valdosta State by 14
Mississippi College by 7
West Florida by 24
North Greenville by 7
Pittsburg State by 10

[Mouth of the South]

Delta State at Mars Hill - by 21
St. Andrews at Erskine - by 14
Miles at West Alabama - by 7
Albany State at Valdosta State - by 21
Mississippi College at Shorter - by 7
McKendree at West Florida - by 24
Keiser at North Greenville - by 14

Ferris State at Pittsburg State - by 7

[Argonut]

36 hours to kickoff on Thursday night tomorrow. Get your Delta State pick posted if you want it to count. You’ve been notified and warned, so get picking. Where are the Blazer fans- BL would be disappointed in you.

[ctrabs74]

Delta State by 21
Erskine by 10
West Alabama by 17
Valdosta State by 13
Mississippi College by 24
West Florida by 21
North Greenville by 27

Ferris State by 3

[Argonut]

This is for any fan sitting on the cyberspace sideline wondering whether or not to play in the pick'em. You have to play to get better at this and you might as well jump into the deep end of the pool and start swimming. Here are some tips for pick'em swimming.

1. The goal of the game is picking the most winners and you can just pick winners without dealing with the margin of victory. MOV is just for tiebreaking if the top two pickers pick the same number of winners. If you pick more winners than anyone else you are the champion and MOV is irrelevant.

2. Look at what other pickers are picking to get a sense of who the favorites are and which games are 50/50.

3. If you think it is a close game just pick one team to win by 3, that way you may still pick up MOV points if it goes the other way and it is a close score.

4. Pick a team to win by 3, 7 or 10 if you think it is a close game.

5. Pick a team to win by 14, 17, 20 if you think one team is stronger than the other.

6. Pick a team to win by 30 if you think it is a blowout.

7. Home field advantage is worth 3-6 points between evenly matched teams.

8. Blowouts usually occur in the first three weeks when D2 teams play NAIA, D3 and FCS teams.