I’m nervous as hell about this weekend, Peter.
The air is thin up here at the top.
"What it takes to get to the top of Mt. Everest is much as what it takes to win this
National Championship Yappi Challenge. Primarily the mental strength to keep pushing through, the hardships, the setbacks, the obstacles, the pressure. That's the biggest challenge on Everest." -- Lou Kasichke, who survived the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster.
"The wonderful story that Lou Kasichke brought, for us, was that he made great decisions on that mountain. It takes great resolve, great determination, and great courage, because you know that there's going to be adversity in the process of achieving." -- Lloyd Carr, 1997.
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So that game I was thinking of was Margaretta possibly upending Hopewell-Loudon (a 16 over a 1) in D6:R22. Margaretta had three two-way starters, in the skill positions, out in the regular-season game where HL scored 17 unanswered second half points to win 17-6, from what I read. I was pretty tempted to pull it on Margaretta, but the trade-off possibility didn't make sense -- wasn't the most promising "go against the grain" pick.
HL 43-6 was the score. Well,
Bob's Your Uncle 
Tying back to the above, it's marathon and not a race. And, when you're really competitive, I've come to find it's futile to get defensive, sad or pissy about games having bad breaks. An example of that being S. Gallia and Eastern in week 9 -- I picked SG because I thought they were better, only to find out they weren't better when it came to protecting the ball and ended up losing as a result. I could've let that simmer longer than it should have, but on the other hand I also should've wised up to Fairmont('s offense) generally being challenging for a team like Springfield that same week... as well as put 2+2 together that "hey, Liberty has been warming up the entire time at 110% effort for the 35 minutes I've been here pregame, while Orange is in the locker room while the Senior Night festivities are happening at midfield."
That's not to say your my only competition; many great players closing in toward the top. We've got history, though, on the R25 ATS from last year.
This week's going to be painful.
I'm going Full Tilt on this week. Either it rewards me, or I'm toast. Got ten 'upset' picks rolling... hoping to get 7/10 of them to hit. All various degrees of confidence, I'll add. Of those 10, three are kinda long odds -- hoping I can get 2/3 of those to hit.
Being at the top ain't easy... constantly trying to figure out what pathway makes the most sense. Is the goal to be the first to 400 correct picks, or does it make more sense to index the amount of 'upsets' to pick be less than the margin of games ahead of second place? Same means to the same end? My mind tells me "no", so may as well just dance and come what may!
Good luck, Peter, and to everyone else fighting for the top! I'd definitely be taking The Field against me. In football, it's the right attitude to think "they have to beat us"... but in this case, it's a matter of me having to beat everyone else. Including Peter!
