With the college football season (finally) kicking off next week, it's time to announce the sixth annual ATQ Jersey Contest. Each week, I will select a group of games and you will pick the winner against the spread. Gamedaydepot.com will again be sponsoring the contest and will provide weekly prizes to the highest score along with a prize to the user with the second-highest cumulative point total at the end of the contest. The grand prize for the highest cumulative total will receive an Oregon Ducks jersey of their choosing. Previous winners include: Bakkala (2011), PhantomF4 (2010 - after a tiebreaker), axemen23 (2009), buffduck (2008) and jteubs (2007 - after a tiebreaker).
There are a few notable changes to the contest this year, which I will highlight after the jump. The complete, official rules can be found here: 2012 ATQ Jersey Contest Rules.
The biggest change to the contest this year is that we will be using a third-party site to manage the contest. With the number of participants increasing every year of the contest, it has become too cumbersome to manage by hand. This year, we will use Fun Office Pools, which is used by other SBN sites for their pick'em contest. You will need to register with the site and join the ATQ pool (password is GoDucks). It appears that one drawback of the site is that I may not have direct access to the email address that you register with the site. As a result, please register using a nickname that is similar to your SBN login. If I am unable to determine your identity I will not be able to contact your regarding any prizes you might win. Alternatively, you can post your registered login as a comment to this thread.
To make the contest more interesting this year, all games will be picked against the spread and assigned confidence points. For the confidence points, the confidence you assign to a game will correspond to the number of points you would win for picking the winner (i.e., larger confidence values should be placed on games you are most confident about).
The use of a third party site also offers some additional benefits. Picks are now due before the start of each game or noon on Saturday (whichever is earlier). This means that I can now include an occasional Friday evening game. Each week will include at least five games to pick, but I reserve the right to include as many games as I find interesting. I will select the games for each by Sunday at midnight. I will post the games and a reminder on Monday morning here at ATQ.
Finally, you may only enter one pick'em contest across all SBN sites that are sponsored by Gameday Depot. Entering multiple contests will disqualify from all prizes.
Good luck this year!