As you could see from our WKU game recap, the Bulldogs didn’t exactly inspire us to put in much work after their game on Saturday.
Luckily, I was driving and listening to Freeway Dave Nitz on the radio instead of watching that monstrosity of a game. Even more luckily, I was in the middle of nowhere so I lost cell service and missed the last 5 or so minutes of the last quarter. In a way, it was joyful to not hear about how Tech flailed around and didn’t do anything in the fourth quarter. In other ways, it was bad because I like Dave Nitz and his voice probably would have soothed my pain a bit.
Anyway, this is a gtpdd Contest recap. Let’s get to it!
This week was baaaaaaaaad. The winning score was SEVEN points. In week one, seven points would’ve landed you in second-to-last place out of 39 entrants. So yeah, it was a bad week.
Before we talk about that, let’s take a look at the Championship of the inaugural gtpdd Contest playoffs!
Question 1: How many yards will WKU gain?
- Dom: 320✅
- Daniel: 370
- Correct: 288
Question 2: How many points will be scored in the 3rd Quarter?
- Dom: 17
- Daniel: 12✅
- Correct: 3
Question 3: How many yards will the 29th play from scrimmage gain?
- Dom: 3
- Daniel: 4✅
- Correct: 12 (Steven Duncan ran for 12 yards)
Question 4: How many Tackles for Loss will occur in the game?
- Dom: 8
- Daniel: 13✅
- Correct: 16
Question 5: How many yards will the longest play in the game be?
- Dom: 38✅
- Daniel: 69
- Correct: 45
Question 6: Predict the total number of turnovers in the game.
- Dom: 3
- Daniel: 3
- Correct: 2
Question 7: What will Tech’s 3rd down conversion percentage be in the game?
- Dom: 58%
- Daniel: 45%✅
- Correct: 21%
Question 8: How many players will receive a pass?
- Dom: 11
- Daniel: 12✅
- Correct: 12
Question 9: What will WKU’s highest chance to win the game be, according to FPI?
- Dom: 40✅
- Daniel: 30
- Correct: 100
Question 10: How many yards will the average accepted penalty be?
- Dom: 6.2
- Daniel: 8✅
- Correct: 10.6
Question 11: Predict WKU’s average yards per rush.
- Dom: 3.9✅
- Daniel: 4
- Correct: 3.8
So there you have it, Daniel wins the gtpdd Playoff Championship by a score of 6.5 to 4.5 over Dom Brown. It was a gutsy effort by both competitors! They are both still in the running for the overall points total, which we’ll get into below.
Week 12 Contest Recap
Now, for a quick overview of the week 12 contest, which again, was bad.
Questions 1 and 2: You know what, nevermind, we’re skipping these.
Question 3: Predict how far, in miles, the first player to score’s hometown is from Ruston, LA.
Answer: Lucky Jackson hails from Lexington, KY, which is 596 miles away from Ruston as the crow flies. Here’s a map depicting the three players to score points (#21 Stephen, #9 Wild Card, and #15 Jonathan Ruppel). Everyone else predicted too close to Ruston to be correct.
Question 4: How many rushing yards will Tech have in the game?
Answer: 61. Yikessssssss. Two players came close enough to score: #24 Holden Aultman (4 points, he picked 70 yards) and #11 Germdawg, who guessed 105 and scored a point.
Question 5: True or False, Ferguson will have at least one sack.
Answer: False. He had a half sack. Here’s a list of everyone who got this one right:
- no one. No one got it right.
Question 6: How many players will have a net positive impact on their team’s offensive output in the game?
Answer: 20 players contributed positive yardage to their respective team. One player, a particularly handsome and intelligent young fellow who is incredibly talented and amazing got this exactly correct. His name is #7 Contest Czar. Only 5 players didn’t score anything at all on this one. This question is where most players got the majority of their points this week.
Bonus: The average American consumes 3,000 calories at Thanksgiving dinner. In a totally real equation that I’m not making up right now; offensive football players burn calories at a rate of 10 per passing yard and 5 per rushing yard. Which offense will burn more calories during the game?
Answer: Tech burned more calories (3495) than WKU (1900). Take that, Hilltoppers! Everyone picked Tech because it turns out that this question was super imbalanced and bad. Oh well.
TIEBREAKER!
We had a tie between #7 Contest Czar and #24 Holden Aultman with a huge seven points each. The tiebreaker was to predict the announced attendance. I said there would be 14,021 and Holden said 13,000. The actual announced attendance? 11,459. Again, YIKES. I erroneously crowned myself the winner of this week on Twitter, but obviously Holden got closer. Luckily, I hadn’t messed with the sticker yet, so it’s all good. I’ll just cry over here.
Bowl Week!
Now, on to the next and final installment of the 2018 gtpdd Contest! The Bulldogs are going to Hawaii for the Hawaii Bowl against Hawaii in Honolulu, Hawaii on December 22nd (in Hawaii). That means we’ve got one more game to determine the overall points winner!
The bowl game also means MORE POINTS are up for grabs! That’s right, because I make the rules and the contests, I decided that this week’s contest shall be worth 35 points instead of the normal 25. That means pretty much everyone in the top 10 or 15 has a chance to win the overall points trophy. And trust me, you want to win this trophy.
I’ll post the Hawaii Bowl Contest on Monday, December 17th.
The 2018 gtpdd Championship Trophy
For more on the magnificent trophy, I asked gtpdd’s official Trophy Master™ Kyle Kight a few questions.
Why did you decide to change the design of last year’s trophy?
Design changes for the 2018 trophy mostly came from the limitations of my 3D printer. While the 2017 trophy was quirky and topical, it had quite a few features that weren’t really feasible for an FDM printer to achieve. For the 2018 design I had a few things in mind; I wanted the design to be easily iterated but also maintain that gtpdd charm we all know and love (whatever the hell that is).
What went into the design?
I was able to find a very good model of the CFP trophy to use as a starting point. I knew I wanted to continue the use of the crowd favorite DQ Ice Cream Cone (Skip wouldn’t have allowed it any other way, tbh), so that was just a simple cut and paste from last year’s model. I liked the embedded State T from last year and I was more than happy to not model it again (although I already have quite the collection of Tech logos designed). The rest was adding text to the base and sending it to the printer. This year I spent maybe 2 hours 3D modelling, versus the 8 hours that went into last year’s design.
What’s your printer setup, for all of our nerd readers?
I have a Monoprice Maker Select v2.1 with an alot of mods. Pretty much everything that’s gray is an upgrade I printed. A lot of the resolution in a print comes from the frame rigidity. A wobbley printer prints a wobbley part. The remaining upgrades are just quality of life improvements along the lines of noise reduction, thermal management, and speed control.
Who do you want to win the trophy?
#TeamNotDaniel
As always, check the Standings Page to see where you’re at. Here are the current standings: