The college football season is ready to kick off locally starting Sept. 1 as Utah faces Utah State, BYU travels to UTEP and Weber State meets SUSC in Cedar City. That means it's time for the Deseret News' annual "Grid Picks Contest." This year, a lucky contestant could win $25,000 along with weekly cash prizes and T-shirts from the Deseret News.
An added twist to make the weekly contest even more exciting is a Celebrity Grid Picks Contest between the sports writers of the Deseret News and sports broadcasters of KSL-Radio (AM-1160).Starting Aug. 28, Lee Benson, sports editor and Doug Robinson, sports writer of the Deseret News will meet head on with Chris Tunis and Jim Braden of KSL 1160 each Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. to review the week's games, provide tips to listeners and make their own selections. After 11 weeks, the losing team media will have to do the other team's job for a day.
That could put Lee Benson and Doug Robinson on the air at KSL 1160 for a day or Chris Tunis and Jim Braden writing sports columns for the Deseret News.
Additionaly, the radio show will feature a call-in portion from that week's winnner as he or she tells how they did it.
The weekly game is open to all Deseret News readers and has been a part of the annual college football season for many years as thousands have participated in the score prediction contest.
The contest starts Tuesday, Aug. 28 and will appear weekly through Nov. 6. Each week a selection of 12 college football games to be played the following Saturday will appear. Participants simply have to mark which teams will win and mail or bring their entries to the Deseret News offices prior to 5:00 p.m. the Friday before the weekly Saturday games. One entry per person per week is accepted. Facsimilies that are hand done are accepted but any machine-reproduced facsimilie or photo copy is disqualified.
The top weekly winner will win $100 with the next 10 winners receiving a Deseret News "sports page T-shirt."
"We have been getting nearly 1,200 entries per week but this year we'll maybe get double that number because of the $25,000 grand prize and KSL's involvement," said Deseret News Marketing Director Stephen G. Handy.
To be eligible for the $25,000 grand prize, a person must have been one of the weekly winners.
The eleven weekly winners will then predict the score of the BYU-Utah game on Nov. 17.
A list of complete rules will accopany the contest entry blank each Tuesday.