Armchair Analyst Rules & FAQ
Are you the true college football expert? Do you know the professional football better than friends or colleagues? Don’t PASS on the braggin’ rights to win the Armchair Analyst Survivor Pool - 2018 season.
The concept of our game may be new to some people. Or, maybe you’ve played with friends before. Regardless, here’s our Rules & Regulations.
Armchair Analyst FAQ
What is Armchair Analyst?
Armchair Analyst is a professional and college football survivor pool game designed for you to play with friends, family, random members, or internet communities that you may belong to. Of your group, will you be the last man standing at the end of the season having selected correctly each week?
We decided to call the site Armchair Analyst as a play on the term Armchair Expert which is a person who claims to be an expert on something – even knowing that it’s not their profession. We’re sure you’ve heard it in football or other sports as something like an ‘Armchair Quarterback.’ All we’re doing here is making picks on whom we think will win football games!
How does the picking system work?
You join 'pools' which are separated into professional or college teams. Each week you must pick a single team that you think will win its’ game. Once you pick a team, you cannot pick that team the rest of the season. Pick wisely! Look at the entire season! If the team you pick wins, you move on to the next week. If the team you pick loses, you are out of that Pool for the season. (There is a lot of strategy in this game! But then, you know college football better than everyone, right?)
After a certain number of weeks, you will be required to pick two teams to win. (Yes, we do have to make the game just a little bit harder!) If either one of the teams you select loses, you are out of that pool!
Tentatively you should assume two team picking will start after week 12 in the professional football and week 10 in college. We may adjust this based on the overall population of players eliminated across all pool.
I get eliminated if I pick wrong. Can I join multiple Pools to stay alive longer?
Absolutely. We encourage you to join a number of Pools to spread out your picks and stay alive longer. But, once the season starts, Pool joining ends.
Currently you can join 32 pool. This would allow you to pick roughly one different team in each Pool for every week of the season. Don’t just join one pool. Get different groups of friends together, name your pool, and start picking!
You can view all pools or create a pool to manage yourself.
Can I get back into a pool if I've been eliminated?
You cannot.
We've tried some features previously such selling mulligans to help fund the site. However at this time we've decided to do away with any kind of do-over functionalities. Perhaps we'll add more in the future.
Can I limit my pool(s) membership to only people I know?
Absolutely. When you go to create a pool select the password join option and set a password. Then share the link to your Pool with friends and tell them the password.
Please keep in mind that passwords for your Pool are meant to be shared. Don’t create a password that will compromise your security elsewhere online.
You can also limit the maximum number of players participating in your pool. However, you must allow at minimum of five players to join.
What professional and college football teams can I pick from?
All professional teams can be picked from at any time.
For college teams, you can pick from any team ranked in the top 25 in any given week. Our sources for top 25 can be found below in the rules section title: College Football Picking
The top right corner shows my real name. Can people see that?
No. Your name is not exposed to the public and never will be. It is transmitted to us via your third party service login and helps us internally monitor user activity across the site. It will only be seen by you and our site staff.
You can set a username for yourself on your user dashboard. People will be able to see your username. Select your username wisely as it will be viewed by the public at-large.
Armchair Analyst Rules
Membership
Membership is open to anyone with a valid Twitter, Facebook, or Google account. Some of your personal information is transferred to Armchair Analyst when you sign up for an account. This information is limited to the name provided on any one of your respective accounts, the website of the account you signed in on, and the email address you have tied to that account.
We will not ask for any other information or distribute information. Information gathered is solely for internal management identification purposes.
Attempting to bypass or abuse these login identification systems will result in termination from our service.
Professional Football Picking
Picking of professional football teams allows for all teams to be eligible at all times. Teams on a bye week will be marked as ineligible by the staff.
You cannot pick a team you have previously picked in a prior week.
After a certain point in time, users will be required to pick two teams should they make it that far into the season. The default for two team picking to kick in is after week 12 but the staff at Armchair Analyst reserves the right to modify this at any point in time as they see fit to balance the system and picking difficulty.
Attempting to submit duplicate picks, picking a team on a bye week, or any other attempt to circumvent the picking system will result in your termination from the service.
College Football Picking
Only teams ranked in the top 25 are eligible for picking on any given week. Teams not in the top 25 and on bye weeks will be marked as ineligible.
The top 25 rankings are drawn from the College Football Playoff rankings. If the College Football Playoff rankings are not available the AP Poll will be used. In the event the AP Poll is not available the USA Today Amway Coaches Poll will be used. If none of those polls are available no rankings will be provided for teams.
If ranking or eligibility of a team changes after the rankings are input into our system prior picks for that team will be preserved.
In the event of a Tuesday or Wednesday night college football game with one team ranked in the top 25 said team may possibly be excluded from picking eligibility in favor of another team recieving votes that is playing between Thursday and Saturday. This is to prevent short weeks/picking spans between the end of one week and another.
You cannot pick a team you have previously picked in a prior week.
After a certain point in time users will be required to pick two teams should they make it that far into the season. The default for two team picking to kick in is after week 10 but the staff at Armchair Analyst reserve the right to modify this at any point in time as they see fit to balance the system and picking difficulty.
Attempting to submit duplicate picks, picking a team on a bye week, or any other attempt to circumvent the picking system will result in your termination from the service.
College football picking and pool creation will not lock until the Thursday before Labor Day Weekend if their is a ranked game scheduled. The NCAA allows early, or "Week 0" games to be scheduled. However this cuts down on the available time to register for pools and is largely disjointed from when the majority of teams begin play for the year. As a result any ranked teams playing in "Week 0" will be excluded from picking in week one.
Postponed Games
If a game is canceled within 24 hours of pick locking or after picks have locked that team will be awarded a bye within the system.
Byes will be counted as correct picks for players. Postponed games are not within their control so they will face no penalty for their postponement.
Teams with games postponed before picks are locked will be changed to ineligible so no more users can pick them. Users who have already picked those teams will still carry their submitted picks. However if their picks are updated they will not then be able to switch back to a team that has been made ineligible due to postponement.
Tie Games
In the event of a tie game (only possible in professional football) those who picked the teams that tied will be allowed to move onto pick the next week.
Pick Locking
The ability to submit picks will lock approximately one hour before game time for the first game of the week.
For example if there is a professional football game on Thursday night at 6:30 pm eastern time then picks for professional football teams will be cutoff at roughly 5:30 pm eastern time.
Picks for college football teams will lock one hour before the first eligible team plays. For example if there are Thursday night football games but no top 25 team is playing until Saturday at noon then picks will not be locked until approximately 11am on Saturday.
Tiebreakers and Did Not Finish Pools
At this point in time there is no offical support for tiebreaking.
In the event more than one player in your Pool makes it to the end of the season they will all be considered champions.
If on your own accord you would like to make pact between your Pools players that is fine with us but we will not offically sponsor, support, or assist with facilitating the outcome of your tiebreaking methodology.
In the likely event that a Pool has no players make it to the end of the season the last user standing will be considered the winner. Said player will be allowed to pick until they are eliminated in order to see how long they can keep their streak alive.
In the event two or more players remain and are all eliminated in the same week but the season has not been completed all of those remaining players will be considered winners/champions of their Pool based on the aforementioned tiebreaker rules.
Pool Membership
Users are allowed to join up to 32 pools. This number can be adjusted by the Armchair Analyst staff at any time for any reason.
If you are at the limit and the number is adjusted down you will now be forced from any pools. You will just not be allowed to join more.
Attempting to circumvent the picking limit will result in termination from the service.
Pools can be created by any user any time before the first game of the season in respective pools. Pool creation will be disabled after the first game of the season.
Pool names must not contain any profanity, homophobia, sexually explicit, or otherwise derogatory terms and statements. You will be terminated from the service for violating this rule.
Usernames
Usernames are displayed to the public. Choose them wisely and don't expose any information you don't want the world to see.
You may change your username once every 24 hours if you so wish.
Usernames must not contain any profanity, homophobia, sexually explicit, or otherwise derogatory terms and statements. You will be terminated from the service for violating this rule.
Violation or attempts to circumvent these rules will result in your termination from the service.
Content Uploads
Pools owners shall not upload offensive imagery as their pool photo. This includes but is not limited to profanity, sexually explicit material, graphic violence, racism, or homophobia.
Violation in this policy will result in your image being removed, or termination from the platform. It is at the discretion of the administrators.
Anything Else
Armchair Analyst is a free service that is provided as is with no warranty or guarantee of service. The site ownership, staff, and administration reserve the right to modify the service, its rules, or operating standards at any time without reason or warning. This includes the termination of users, pools, and all other site functionalities.
I've still got questions. Can I contact you?
Sure! We're happy to help and answer any questions you might have.
Shoot us an email at: contact[at]armchairanalyst.net
Join our Discord Server and talk with us.
Shoot us a message on Twitter.