There are two winners each year in Duck Poll: Duck Bowl Champion, which is the person who accrues the most weekly wins; and Most Accurate Predictor (aka MAP) which is the person with the lowest score at the end of the season. Two physical trophies have been awarded, one to Duck Bowl Champion and one to Most Accurate Predictor the past seasons.
Rule changes for 2020 (the truncated season and moving forward):
Due to a few late posting situations, we are changing the posting deadline to 12 hours before kickoff so we do not have to chase scores up to game time. My suggestion is send in scores once you get the 24 hour reminder on Friday, especially if you sleep in (especially on earlier games), and have a moment to reflect. I will post scores once they are all in but definitely by 12 hours before game-time when your posting clock runs out. It will give you the day to check Facebook or the website to make sure the post accurately reflects your score. The 12 hour time frame gives headroom for error and ability to fix that error prior to kickoff. It will be up to you to catch any error on my side. I have 20 scores to receive, record and post. You have but 1 to check.
So, 12 hours before kickoff to get scores in, is the new rule to get scores to me. Earlier is ALWAYS better.
Here are the rules.
Score formulation – Like golf, lowest score wins. We utilize the KISS (keep it simple stupid) method. Your total points off the actual score for the Ducks and their opponent from your predicted score is your total. Let’s say your prediction was Ducks 14 ~ USC 7. The actual score turns out to be Ducks 21 ~ USC 14. You are 7 points off of each score, your score is 14. That is IF you picked the correct team as the winner. If you DID NOT choose the correct team to win, we add 2 points to your score. In the above scenario, if you picked USC to win, but Oregon won, we would add 2 points to your score. More on that below in “winning side or losing side”
For Most number 1s (weekly Winners) In the event of a tie in most number 1s or weekly winners, the player with the lowest most accurate predictor score is the tiebreaker.
For the Most Accurate Predictor number the running total of overall point over/under runs are tallied and at seasons end, the lowest point total is the outright winner. In the event of a tie in Most accurate Predictor, the tiebreaker, conversely, reverts to most number 1s or most weekly winners.
Forgetting to post or late entries of scores – simple, a 0-0 score will remain (no penalty score). Hope for a very low scoring game. It will only be an advantage to you, if it becomes a 7-3 game (anyone can overcome -10). 41-21 you will go into the hole 62 points and kiss most accurate predictor goodbye unless you have a phenomenal year. Don’t make it hard on yourself.
In the event of duplicate scores – live or die with the consequences of the good or bad call. It used to be duplicate scores could not happen here. Not anymore. Our thought is, great minds think a like.
Score submission – Scores need to be submitted 12 hours prior to kickoff game day in one of two outlets. 1) Text or 2) Email (you should know them by now or simply return the 24 hour reminder). We are no longer posting our OFFICIAL scores on facebook. (feel free to talk about, post anything including scores, if you want…it is not official until I get a text or email. Because you posted it on FaceBook means nothing to me…it means YOU’RE THINKING ABOUT IT BUT NOT COMMITTED). About Emails, please keep in mind, this is timestamp on receipt not on send because this is all we can track and all electronic corresponence is sent to space (lag time). Polls open on Sunday morning after the weekend game, so you have a 6 full days to formulate a score the following week and send it to us. Waiting till the last second makes no sense and holds up the posting process on this end. Please be mindful of this.
Help us streamline DuckPoll by posting your scores as early as possible.
Additional thoughts -Check your score on facebook or this website – I made a mistake last year. It happens. Keep me honest by making sure I transpose your scores correctly. In the future we will look towards enter our scores online at this website, it takes my mistakes out of the equation. The automated end game of this site is to keep this mistake free but only a handful of DuckPollers are ready for this now and the infrastructure is not ready yet.
For any other questions, address them to duckpoll@comcast.net or ask in a post on this site. I’ll revise these rules in more detail as needed.
Thank you,
Larry and Danny
