After 34 wonderful and wonderfully tedious bowl games, the winner of OBNUG's first annual Bowl Pick 'Em contest is none other than Mr. Slim Pickings himself, OBNUG's Nick. Take a bow, friend.

There were better records than my 20-14 mark. Our own OBNUG Intern managed a remarkable 25-9. Drew of Fight Fight BSU had a 22-12 showing. But in the end, the confidence points proved to be the deciding factor. After a year of picking WAC games, I figured I had a pretty good handle on what to expect. That turned out to be false. After watching Utah pull out two games they should have lost this year (Oregon State and TCU), I had figured they'd get blown out. Luckily, you all did, too. J. Mama was the highest finisher in our group to have enough cojones to pick the Utes. I'd also like to give a shout out to N. Banta for his remarkable run. It seemed like he was going to lead this thing from wire to wire. I guess you got Tebowed. It was his circumcision-like precision that sealed the deal.

Again, it has been a great year. We'll definitely be bringing this back again next year where I'll attempt to defend my title. We'll probably even have a March Madness contest, too, so that everyone can prove why we're football fans instead of basketball fans. In the meantime, I have a Wired magazine subscription to enjoy.
Florida's win sealed the pick 'em title for Nick, as he edged out Banta by four points in the final standings. For posterity's sake, the final five looked like this:

1. Nick's official picks


2. Banta


3. VandalLogoBelongsInCrack


4. OBNUG Intern


5. Brewster

Many thanks to everyone who entered, and many thanks to those of you who languished at the bottom of the standings so that everyone else around you could feel better (kudos, "Picks Be Nimble"). Now get to work on that March Madness research. We've got $10.00 magazine subscriptions to give away.

Final standings: OBNUG's Bowl Pick 'Em [ESPN.com]