Play OBNUG Bowl Pick 'Em, give an angel its wings

Bowl season is upon us, and with it the opportunity to make fools out of ourselves in picking bowl winners. Register now!

OBNUG Bowl Pick 'Em returns for its third annual attempt at finding the most knowledgeable/lucky college football fan out there. Is it you? Maybe. Is it me? No way, Jose. But win or lose, we always have fun. And we also have a reason to watch the GoDaddy.com Bowl.

Register your picks at the OBNUG Bowl Pick 'Em page, and join me after the jump for this year's prizes, rules, announcements, and more. Happy picking.

OBNUG Bowl Pick 'Em: The Where

As in years past, we are entrusting our fair Bowl Pick 'Em group to ESPN since they don't lock us into a maximum group size, make Nick wade through spreadsheets sorting out a winner, or generally suck wind.

Sign up to play.

To join the group, click the link above. You'll need an ESPN account to join, but they're free for everyone - kind of like WAC Offensive Player of the Year honors.

OBNUG Bowl Pick 'Em: The Rules

OBNUG Bowl Pick 'Em runs on confidence points - those dastardly equalizers of picking talent. You get to place a number of confidence points in each game based on how confident you are in your pick being correct. For example:

Kevan picks Fresno State to beat Northern Illinois and gives the game 34 confidence points. Drew picks Fresno State to beat Northern Illinois and gives the game 16 confidence points. If Fresno wins, Kevan leads Drew in the standings based on confidence points.

Note: This is a hypothetical situation because I am very bad at picking winners.

So what you could have by the time bowl season wraps is a first place entry with fewer overall wins (but more confidence points) than the second place entry.

Confusing? You can just skip confidence points entirely and let the default points rest with each game.

Other rules:

• Games are picked straight up, no point spreads.
• No copying off of me.
  

OBNUG Bowl Pick 'Em: The Prizes

Of course, the best part of Bowl Pick 'Em is the prizes. Or so I've heard. I haven't ever won one of these things.

This year's bounty includes the following:

• Boise State swag from GamedayDepot.com.
• A copy of the Sports Illustrated college football preview with the Broncos on the cover.
• A place in the OBNUG Wall of Heroes.

In addition, this year we will be handing out an award to the last-place finisher in Bowl Pick 'Em. Everyone who fills out their entire Pick 'Em entry is eligible, even those who purposefully try to tank the whole thing.

But wait, there's more. Get the group up over 100 participants, and I'll sweeten the prize pot even more. I'll keep you updated as bowl season draws nearer.

OBNUG Bowl Pick 'Em: Some Advice

1. Never trust a WAC team. I trusted WAC teams with the majority of my confidence points last season only to see Fresno State fail against Wyoming and Nevada poop the bed against SMU. Heed my example, friends.
2. Put your highest number of confidence points in Boise State. I do this every year.
   
3. The New Orleans Bowl is a trick question.
4. Don't forget that the Big East is terrible. Your Big East matchups include UCONN-Oklahoma, Pittsburgh-Kentucky, Louisville-Southern Miss, West Virginia-NC State, Syracuse-Kansas State, and South Florida-Clemson.
5. When in doubt, pick winners that make you happy. The ultimate goal of Bowl Pick 'Em is to have fun. And what fun is there in picking Ohio State to beat Arkansas? My point exactly.

But perhaps the No. 1 rule of advice I can give you is this: Never listen to anything that I say. I am really bad at Bowl Pick 'Em.