Thursday, December 5, 2013

Local grant writer comes closest to picking final Iron Bowl score

If you read last week’s edition of The Courant you may have read the front-page story in which local football fans predicted the outcome of this year’s Iron Bowl, which Auburn won in dramatic fashion, 34-28, Saturday at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn.

In all, 116 football fans turned in their game predictions with 91 picking Alabama and 24 picking the underdog Tigers. As it turned out, none of our prognosticators correctly picked the final score, but several came very close. Local grant writer Cara Stallman, who lives in Spanish Fort but works for the City of Evergreen and the Conecuh County Commission, came the closest, predicting that Auburn would win, 35-28.

Others who came close included Hillcrest High School girls basketball coach Natalie Nelson, 35-33; Hillcrest senior athlete Trae Lewis, 35-31; former Evergreen High School football star Wayne Caylor, 31-30; Conecuh County Board of Education member Willene Whatley, 31-28; retired Auburn journalism professor Ed Williams, 31-27; and Hillcrest head football coach and athletics director Larry Boykin, 30-27.

----- 0 -----

The 14th week of our local ESPN College Football Pick ‘Em contest has come and gone, and here’s how the Top 10 standings looked after the final game on Saturday.

Hunter Norris remained in first place for the sixth straight week, and Jeremy Matheny remained in second place for the second week in a row. Ricky Taylor remained in third place for the third straight week, and Aaron Albritton remained in fourth place for second week in a row. I remained in fifth place, and Mike Dailey remained in sixth place for the second straight week.

Steve Stacey was still in seventh place, and Sharon Peacock was in eighth place. Chris Garner came out of nowhere to jump into ninth place, and Terry Peacock dropped from ninth place to tenth place.

This coming Saturday will be the final week of the season for this year’s local contest, so this week’s slate of games will be for all the marbles. Hunter Norris has been going strong for over a month and a half now, and it’s his game to lose at this point. If he remains on track, he’ll take home this year’s crown, but if he slips someone else will rise out of the ranks to take top honors.

----- 0 -----

Week 14 of the NFL regular season schedule kicks off today (Thursday) with a game between the Houston Texans and the Jacksonville Jaguars. That game will kick off at 7:25 p.m. at Everbank Field. Fourteen games will follow on Sunday, and the Monday night game will feature the Dallas Cowboys and the Chicago Bears.

Today, I like Houston over Jacksonville. On Sunday, I like Kansas City over Washington, Baltimore over Minnesota, New England over Cleveland, the New York Jets over Oakland, Cincinnati over Indianapolis, New Orleans over Carolina, Philadelphia over Detroit, Pittsburgh over Miami, Tampa Bay over Buffalo, Denver over Tennessee, Arizona over St. Louis, San Diego over the New York Giants, San Francisco over Seattle and Green Bay over Atlanta. In the Monday night game, I like Dallas over Chicago. Last week: 12-4. So far this season: 129-63.

No comments:

Post a Comment