In Week 10 coin flip, RoxAnn Rodney-Isbrecht takes Armchair QB victory

The tenth week of the Tri-City Record’s annual Armchair Quarterback competition has been contested, as our pigskin diehards attempted to pick the winner of two local high school games, five collegiate games and three professional games. In terms of final records, our panelists always strive to put on a winning performance, which they hope will lead to more green checkmarks (wins) than red crosses (losses) on their weekly examinations. When all was said and done, our expert pickers finished with no less than two losses, but the good news is that five of our six diehards finished above water with a winning record. Our contest has been a slugfest so far, but everyone still has a chance for glory!

In our local high school football games, both Coloma and Watervliet’s seasons have ended; but nine teams from Berrien and Van Buren counties made the playoffs this year. After the first round of districts, that number is now down to six, as Berrien Springs, Buchanan, Lawton, Niles, Paw Paw and Stevensville Lakeshore have moved on to play in the district finals this weekend.

In collegiate action, Michigan State, Notre Dame and Western Michigan continued their seasons last week, while Michigan had their “bye” week. When the games went final, the results were mixed, with two of our local teams earning victories. #14 Notre Dame (7-2) hosted one of their rivals in the Pittsburgh Panthers and came away with a dominant victory, 52-7, while Western Michigan (3-6) traveled down Interstate 94 to Ypsilanti and defeated Eastern Michigan, 45-21. Meanwhile, Michigan State (2-6) made a road trek to Minnesota to take on the Gophers, and came away with their sixth straight loss, 27-12.

Finally, in professional action, we saw the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions play week eight of their seasons. Starting with the Sunday contest, the Bears (2-6) traveled to the west coast to take on the Los Angeles Chargers in a second-straight AFC West / NFC North showdown, looking for another win. Unfortunately, they returned home with a 30-13 loss. Meanwhile, on Monday night, in electric Ford Field, the Lions (6-2) hosted the Las Vegas Raiders, who Chicago had defeated in the “Windy City” the week prior. Detroit outgained Las Vegas by more than 300 yards and came away with a 26-14 victory, which seemed quite low scoring for the total yard discrepancy!

When the final whistle blew and all the scores were verified, the best marks of the week stood at 8-2 overall. That record belonged to our two top gurus in the overall standings, as RoxAnn Rodney-Isbrecht and Rodney Lynch were our standouts during this stretch and will be one of two ties that we must break this week. If you wonder what the difference between them was, it was nothing, as they both lost the exact same games.

Because we have a tie in the weekly standings, that means we had to go to the dreaded tiebreaker scenario to determine our weekly champion and runner-up. Our tiebreaker matchup, which featured Eastern Michigan versus Western Michigan, finished with a total of 66 points. Based on their highly educated guesses, both of our panelists decided that they would pick the exact same total of 45 total points. So, because of that, we had to go an extra step and decide the result on a coin flip. Our coin flips go by first name in alphabetical order, so that meant that Rodney was heads and RoxAnn was tails. The flip landed on tails, giving RoxAnn the weekly victory over Rodney, who will be frustrated with a runner-up result.

If you thought one tie was crazy enough, there was a second one in the same week! This time, a 7-3 record sent Greg Krell, Bill Whitney and Maureen Ovington into a three-way showdown to decide third, fourth and fifth place honors this week. There were some differences, though; while two panelists (Greg and Bill) lost a high school game and two college games, the other (Maureen) lost two college games and a professional game.

Because of the tie we had to go to the dreaded tiebreaker scenario for a second time, to determine positions third through fifth. Based on their highly educated guesses, all three panelists were in the ballpark of the actual result. However, it was determined that Maureen, thanks to her prediction of 52 total points, will take home the final step of the podium in third place, followed by Greg (who predicted 47 total points) in fourth place and Bill (who predicted 44 total points) will take home fifth place.

Unfortunately we must have a “cellar dweller” who will take home a sixth-place finish. That badge of honor this week will belong to Mike Banic, who found himself at the bottom of the standings with a 5-5 record in our ten-game slate. It’s the ultimate from ‘first-to-worst’ story, as he claimed the best mark last week, only to fall to the bottom of the pile this week. That’s okay – I expect him to bounce back quite quickly!

In case you are new to our newspaper or need a refresher on how this competition works, let’s take a moment to bring you up-to-speed. Each fall, our newspaper enlists the assistance of six local football fanatics, who should be deemed “superfans” really. Each week, the six-person panel is given a list of pre-selected games from the local high school, collegiate and professional ranks, and is given the daunting task of selecting the winners of each game.

Weekly records are kept from the beginning of the high school season through Super Bowl Sunday, with each week’s edition of the paper reporting on the progress of each participant. At the conclusion of the football season, the panelist who has the best overall record will earn the right to wear the 2023-24 Tri-City Record Armchair Quarterback hat and claim bragging rights until the next season begins.

In the event there are multiple AQBs that have the same weekly or season-long record, their place in the weekly or overall standings will be determined by a weekly tiebreaker game. In addition to trying to pick the winners of each week’s slew of games, they will also predict a total score from a specially selected game, one that usually stands out on a local or national level. The quarterback that predicts closest to the actual number of points scored by both teams will receive the higher position in the standings.

In the season-long race for the hat, there have been weekly changes in overall positioning almost each week that this competition has been contested. Streaks are meant to be broken and this week, we finally were able to shatter this streak – to a certain extent. Our top four panelists remain the same, while the only movement was to a tie-for-fifth place.

In terms of the overall classification, RoxAnn continues to keep a tight grasp on the lead in the race for top honors, with her overall record sitting at 70-30 through our first 100 games. Rodney remains in the runner-up spot, sitting three games back of the lead, as his overall record now stands at 67-33. After a solid week of picks, Greg stays in third place, with his overall record standing at 65-35. The final three positions in our race feature Bill in fourth place, with an overall record of 62-38, while Maureen and Mike are now deadlocked in a tie-for-fifth place, with both panelists featuring overall records of 60-40. The margin between the top and bottom of the standings is within reason, at ten games, and we still expect many twists and turns coming up that will have implications!

The season continues this week with the district round of the playoffs in high school football being contested across the state, along with week ten of the college football season and week nine of the professional football season. Be sure to check back each week as our panel of ardent, loyal pigskin pickers weave their way through the football season. Now, here are your week eleven games that our qualified panelists were tasked with picking:

Paw Paw at Niles (Fri)

Buchanan at Constantine (Sat)

Air Force vs. Army (Sat)

(in Denver, Colorado)

Boise State at Fresno State (Sat)

Nebraska at Michigan State (Sat)

Notre Dame at Clemson (Sat)

Purdue at Michigan (Sat)

Buffalo Bills at

Cincinnati Bengals (Sun) *

Chicago Bears at

New Orleans Saints (Sun)

Washington Commanders at

New England Patriots (Sun)

* tiebreaker