It's Football Time!

It's that time of year again...when the season is starting to change (although living in Florida, the only real indication that Fall is coming is that Starbucks starts serving their Pumpkin Spice Latte) and faithful fans everywhere break out their alma mater gear every Saturday. It also brings the start of another annual tradition--the EDSA College Football Pool. Brad's office put together this friendly little competition years ago, and every week I look forward to B-Huff's e-mail with the week's spreads. I'm never very good--because I "bet with my heart" and tend to have an affection towards teams that suck and/or have people write their papers for them--but anyone will tell you that watching football (NFL or NCAA) is more interesting when you have a little $omething extra riding on the final outcome of the game.

This year, Brad and I decided that we would throw Ben into the pool--not literally...we don't particularly want to traumatize our child. Anyway, Ben gets his own picks this season. Now, I'm sure you're scratching your head about this one--the kid can't read, much less master an Excel spreadsheet, so how the heck is this gonna work? Fear not--have you forgotten the creativity of the Colletts?

Enter our own little version of the Mascot Challenge. (I'm actually kind of proud of this one.) I have printed out flashcards of the mascot for each school that the football pool will be featuring. Last night, we had our first pick session with Ben. And it went just swimmingly.

For each match-up, I held a mascot in each hand and told him what they were--c'mon, the Toledo Torpedos needed a little explanation. Then, he picked the one he thought would win/had the best costume. Since there are about 30 games that we pick, we were bound to get some funny moments out of this process...and here they are:

1 - Much to Brad's SEC-biased chagrin, Ben picked South Carolina...The Rooster won him over, and Granny and Carl will be proud.

2 - I really wanted this to be all about him, so I fought the urge to sway his vote...especially when it came to the choice between the Blue Devil and the Deamon Deacon...I can't believe he picked Dook.

3 - There were a few teams that were a sure bet with him: ECU Pirate, Western Kentucky's Big Red, USC's Trojan (he's got a sword!) and Syracuse's Orange Otto...who will be known as "Juice Man" from here on out.

4 - I was particularly concerned that Ben would pick against our beloved Vols this week...they're playing Oregon, and well, take a look at who Smokey was up against and tell me what Disney-loving kid is going to NOT pick this one...

Much to my surprise--and Brad's--Ben saw Smokey and said "I have that one! I pick Smokey!" I thought Brad would shed a tear of pride in that moment...

All in all, Ben picked a lot of underdogs this week. But, on any given Saturday in the land of collegiate pigskin, anything can happen...including a funny looking guy with a sword pulling the upset over a weird looking badger. We'll see...results will be in on Monday, so in the meantime...may the best costume win!