I’m two weeks late in mentioning this, as I wasn’t exactly thinking about my prediction contests in the aftermath of the USC-UCLA game (I was mostly thinking "DAMMIT"), and since then I’ve been wrapped up in finals and such… but, better late than never: Josh Rubin won my USC prediction contest!

This is especially significant because Josh, a high-school friend of mine, has been a long-suffering participant in my various contests. He has participated in all but one of my 20 men’s and women’s NCAA pools since 1996, but has never won, a dubious distinction he shares with only one other person (fellow NHS classmate Kevin Hauschulz). And last year, Josh almost won my bowl pick ‘em contest — causing him to prematurely declare, “IT’S ABOUT FRIGGIN’ TIME!” — but he ultimately finished second because, in the last two bowls of the season, he needed either Florida State or USC to win, and instead Penn State and Texas won. (Speaking of the bowl contest, stay tuned, I’ll be announcing a new one later this evening.)

But this time around, Josh, a Maryland grad, won because he predicted the stunning upset that almost no one else did: UCLA over USC. Here are the final standings of the contest. Josh is one of ten contestants who finished with a 10-2 “prediction record” — meaning he correctly predicted the outcome of 10 out of 12 Trojan games — but he wins the tiebreaker because he correctly predicted USC’s final record, also 10-2, whereas all of the other contestants with 10-2 prediction records thought USC would go undefeated. Their two errors were the Oregon State and UCLA games; Josh’s two errors were the Oregon State and Notre Dame games. He wrongly thought the Trojans would lose to the Irish, but is one of only four contestants to correctly predict the loss to UCLA.

The other contestants with 10-2 records, in order of tiebreakers, are: David K., lex icon, C. Bassett, Mike Wiser, Vicki from NJ, Andrew Long, gahrie, Rebecca Loy and Scientizzle. If USC had scored on the drive that ended in an Eric McNeal interception, David K. would have won. Contrary to previous statements which were based on an apparent math error by yours truly, David would have been victorious if USC had won by 16 points or less; lex icon would have finished tied with David for the victory if the Trojans had won by exactly 17 points; and C. Bassett would have won the contest if the Trojans had beaten the Bruins by 18 points or more.

Anyway, congratulations on finally winning something, Josh! :)

As noted previously, Gahrie won the Notre Dame prediction contest. Here are the final standings of that one. Gahrie went 12-0, correctly predicting both of the Irish’s losses. In addition, his point differential was a mere 99, meaning he was an average of 8.25 points off per game in predicting Notre Dame’s margin of victory or defeat. That’s better than anyone else has done in either of my prediction contests the last two years. (Kevin Mickey, despite a 7-4 prediction record, had just a 96-point differential in last year’s ND contest, but that was in an 11-game season, so the per-game average is 8.73.)