Tuesday, December 05, 2017

2017-18 College Bowl Pool Sheets

Ok, everybody! You've all mostly been patient. I apologize that it took me a couple of extra days this year. I've been quite busy with the _real_ job. This season's college football bowl pool files are now ready!

Some noteworthy items:

  • Since we again aren't waiting until after the Army-Navy game, and we don't know Army and Navy's final records, I've simply listed what each of those two teams may have for final records. That's simpler than leaving those cells unprotected, allowing you to edit them, and then dealing with the possibility that you do that AFTER picks are entered and thereby cause the picks for those game to no longer match.
  • The bowl line-up is different then last year. We're down one bowl! No more Poinsettia Bowl. :: Sniff ::
  • Also, three other bowls got a rename: The Miami Beach Bowl is now the Frisco Bowl. The St. Petersburg Bowl is now the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl. O_o And the Russell Athletic Bowl is now the Camping World Bowl.
  • There aren't currently betting lines set on the two games involving Army and Navy, so I just added the spreads for those already available -- check Vegas Insider or similar sites. I did, though, use the first team as the "favorite" for those two games, so that I could do some testing with the "Odds of Winning" functionality, which doesn't work unless favorites are set. This is interesting to know, so that if you find a game has no favorite, at least pick one of the teams and either leave the Spread blank or set it to zero.
  • My wife, son, and I haven't had a chance to make our picks yet, so for those of you who like to use our picks as benchmarks of sorts, you'll have to wait until I update that later.
  • Finally, I did choose to keep the FCS-level Celebration Bowl as part of the line-up. Feel free to have your participants make picks for that game or not, as you like. It ends up being an exciting game, at least.
Without further ado...the files:
For those unfamiliar with the two-file system, the idea is that pool managers can distribute the simple, single person Entry Form version to those in their pool to make their picks and assign confidence points. The participants them email back that file, and the manager can simply copy, paste special... values those picks and points into the Summary file, which is where they manage everything.

As always, the file is protected, but not with a password, so feel free to unprotect the workbook and then unhide some of the sheets running this stuff behind the scenes to see how it works. And if you add some cool hacks/additions, pass them along, so we can all enjoy them.

Final, as also always happens each year, several folks, as they were pinging, pestering, checking-in with me offered to pay me or donate to me for the sheets. This, like the NFL pick 'em sheet and the new NCAA football pick 'em sheet I do, I do for free as a labor of love. That said, if you are so compelled, feel free to PayPal me whatever you like:

$5.00     $10.00     $25.00     $50.00

Really you just have to change that dollar amount in the URL -- https://paypal.me/excelgeek/5.

Enjoy, everyone!

16 comments:

Dallas said...

Thank you so much for this! You do some awesome work and this file is a huge help. You're a massive time saver and I will always keep up with your work now. Thanks again!

Anonymous said...

Hello, Geek!

Just sent you some money, and I have a question. Our school Sunshine Club assigns 1 point per game, and there are 41 games. So why does SUM(N4:N45) total 42?

Probably me being brain dead, but I am stumped.

Thanks, and good luck with your picks.

Laurie

Excel_Geek said...

@Netlaur, great question! Here's why: Because last year there were 42 bowl games (This year there is no Poinsettia Bowl.) and I would have had to make some major changes to fully remove a bowl PLUS I can imagine there being a new bowl next year and I'd have to them make major changes to add a bowl right back, so I decided simply to hide one of the rows. If you look, you'll see that row 24 is hidden. Now, I bet when you added your points to all of your picks, you simply copied and pasted them down for the whole range, so you actually pasted a 1 into that hidden row 24. That's why you're getting a total of 42 instead of 41. If you would select L23:L25 and delete the values, then type into each cell a 1, you'd be back to a total of 41.

Anonymous said...

Bless you!

I noticed the hidden columns but not the hidden row. I will adjust accordingly!

Thanks, Geek!

Play on!

Laurie

N. Johnson said...

First off, thanks a ton. I have been using your sheets for everything for the last few years. I am pretty broke with Christmas coming up, but on Jan 1 when I get my new years paycheck, I will send you some $ for your hard work.

A few questions, do we have to assign points for games? If we just wanted to base the total off of your record, is there an easy way to set that up with the tie breaker being closest to the total score of the championship game without going over? The basis of your point system is that we assign points to the games we are more sure about? So if we know that OSU will beat VT we assign that the most points and get those points if we are correct?

Anonymous said...

One more thing....

Can't I just Unhide Row 24 and delete out all the "1's" and then rehide that row? Will that cause any problems?

Thanks!

Excel_Geek said...

@N. Johnson, yes the "confidences points" system i've implemented is just as you say: if you are more sure or confident of the outcome, you wager more points on it. You could also just assign confidence points of 1 to all games to achieve what you want, except, of course, the tie-breaker element, which would have to be something you either manage separately or build it into the spreadsheet.

Excel_Geek said...

@Netlaur, Sure. That should work.

reinekemomof5 said...

I love this workbook! Thank you so much for all your hard work! Is there a way to add 10 more participants to make it 50 rather than 40?

Excel_Geek said...

@Reinekemomof5, Thanks! Unfortunately, the way I designed this spreadsheet isn't very conducive to adding more participants. that is, it's possible, it's just not very easy. Maybe you can simply track the last ten in a separate copy of the spreadsheet? I realize that's not ideal.

John said...

Hey Excel Geek! Just wondering if you might check out my site howtoexcel.org and consider adding it to your list of "Other Excel+VBA Sites"? Many thanks!

Excel_Geek said...

@John RE: howtoexcel.org... great site! You're added!

josh T said...

Hello Excel Geek

will you be doing your football pick'em sheets this year

Unknown said...

Good evening,

Are you creating another Pickem league this year?

TreDog said...

Hey, Excel Geek. Are you working on new file for this year's bowl games? By the way, how is your friend, Hot Rod, doing? I saw the GoFundMe page hadn't been updated in a long time, but the last update on there was that he was coming home. Hope everything worked out, and keep up the great work on the blog!

Excel_Geek said...

@Trey, yes, sir. I've already posted it. Go to the main page of the blog to find the latest. Hot Rod's doing well. Heart function isn't 100%, but he's home and living life. thanks for asking.