A&P | by Jay

John Updike passed away early this year, and I thought of his short story, A&P, and stole it for the title of this post. There's absolutely nothing else connecting the two other than those two letters. I don't know if it works, but as Sammy says, it seems to me that once you begin a gesture it's fatal not to go through with it.

The preseason AP Poll came out this morning and it's pretty close to the Coaches', with the top seven teams perfectly identical. In fact, both polls include 24 of the same teams in their top 24, and in roughly the same order. (The Coaches picked Oregon State #25, while the AP has Kansas in the last slot). The Irish are #23 in both.

Hot on the heels of the first AP Poll, as usual, is our annual Pick Six contest. By now you know the drill: we divide the top 25 into five groups of 5; you pick one from each group, plus one team from the pool of the unranked. The goal is to predict which teams out of each group will be the highest ranked at the end of the season.

Sporadically during the season, we'll re-rank the field according to weekly AP poll. The #1 team gets 25 points, #2 gets 24, and so on to the 25th team, who gets 1 point. Your point total is the sum points of the six teams you picked at the beginning of the season. Make sense? Good. (For an example, see the link to last year's score sheet, here.) Typically, the winners have coasted to victory on the shoulders of that "unranked" selection (see Utah, last year) so consider your choice for that slot wisely!

And the best thing about the contest? It don't cost nuthin', and you may end up winning something like this.

Enter the 2009 Pick Six

Go ahead and plug in your picks, and after a few days we'll get the score sheet going. Thanks for playing!

P.S. If you are "Beekfather", please email us! We need to send you your prize for winning last year's contest.