Step right up and make your picks for a chance to win some prizes by knowing which college football teams will beat other college football teams.
It's officially Contest Time here at Cards on Cards once again. This is the 14th year of the College Bowl Pick 'Em contest. Since some of last year's participants did express that they prefer the "confidence system", we're going back to that for the 2023-24 games. If you aren't familiar, this basically means that you'll need to pick the winner of each game and rank each pick in order of how confident you are on said pick. Read on for more details.
Our past winners include Adam from Thoughts on Sox (2009-10), Mark from Stats on the Back (2010-11), AJ from The Lost Collector (2011-12), Royal Dan (2012-13), The Prowling Cat (2013-14), Jeff from One Man's Junk (Wax) (2014-15), Matt of Bubba's Bangin' Batch of Baseball Bits (2015-16), MrHaverkamp (2016-17), Anaconda37 (2017-18), Trevor of Bump and Run (2018-19), GLM1 (2019-20), Johnny G (2021-22), and Nachos Grande (2022-23). We've still never had a repeat winner!
If you want to skip all the blah blah blah and just get to the free stuff, go to the bottom of the post for the sign-up link and make sure you submit picks for every game. There is a separate sub-contest for the non-ESPN people (or whoever!) which should only require a modicum of thought. If you don't have an ESPN account and don't want to give your personal information to Disney, there are burner email options out there (like Proton Mail)... just saying!
- First place will receive: a 2024 Topps Series 1 blaster box OR suitable equivalent (subject to availability)... as well as a small plastic pouch of cards from your favorite team/player(s)/etc.
- Second place will receive: a mystery unopened sports cards item and a bubble mailer containing cards from your favorite team/player(s)/etc. So mysterious!
- Third place will receive: a bubble mailer including cards from your favorite team/player(s)/etc. I will also probably toss in a few cards from whatever happens to be lying around on my desk.
- The Worst Place winner will receive: whatever I feel like sending you. This is probably also going to involve whatever happens to be lying around on my desk and hopefully nothing illegal.
Here are some rules you should really read (important stuff in bold):
- No ghosting! Almost every year, someone fails to claim their prize (the top prize, even). Please email or DM me your contest information after you sign up. You can't assume that I will automatically recognize your contest entry name. [Blogger profile / Bluesky profile]
- Participants must sign up through the official ESPN link.
- Promote this contest! This is not an actual requirement for entry, nor does it mean that you'll gain any competitive advantage by posting about this contest. I just want to see a lot of people participate.
- Points are scored according to the Confidence System. This basically means that while you are predicting which team wins which bowl game, you will also be responsible for ranking how confident you are in each pick. The higher you rank those games, the more points you'll get when they win and prove that you're totally right and deserve all the I-told-you-so's in the world. See ESPN for complete details.
- You can change your picks at any time, so long as your pick is made before the official start time (usually the TV broadcast time) of each game. This is what ESPN calls a "rolling lock" time.
- Don't be a jerk and lose on purpose just to try and claim a prize. There are many, many of us who are bad enough at picking these without extra help.
Click here to sign up, and click on the 'Join Group' link! It's free! First-timers are always welcome! Password: quackquackquack
DEADLINE: There's a deadline of Saturday, December 16th at 8:00 AM PST. That's the start time of the first bowl game.
But wait... there's more! Available to all entrants as well as non-entrants who don't want to use ESPN, there's a bonus contest:
Leave a comment here predicting the final score and winning team of the DUKE'S MAYO BOWL before the Mayonnaising officially begins (the game is on December 27th) and win a retail pack of new baseball cards. Whoever is closest gets it. Make sure you watch the end of the game because someone will be getting an actual mayonnaise bath!