Introduction

        First of all, welcome to The Evil Commish.  Even though this is my first post, The Evil Commish got its start almost nine years ago back in the fall of 2002.  It wasn't called The Evil Commish back then and it wasn't even a blog.  What it was was a friendly football competition amongst old friends.  The idea was simple.  There was a small group of friends who mostly thought that their knowledge of predicting wins and losses in college football was superior to the others.  In the fall of '02, I challenged us to put it to the test.  What I devised was a simple competition in which I would post games each week and tally the scores.  Whoever had the most points at the end of the season won.  

        It turns out it wasn't that simple.  Shouldn't upsets count more than picking favorites?  How much do we penalize a member who didn't get their picks in during the week?  From that humble beginning evolved what became a very advanced competition.  As of the 2010 football season, the competition which had become known as Pick 'Em, contained sixteen members divided into two conferences and four separate divisions.  It featured a playoff, a Halloween special full of tricks and treats, a Heisman winner, and eight different bowl games ranked from the most prestigious Championship game to the lowest Bowl played between the two worst conference players.  That bowl was known as The Toilet Bowl.  About half way through, I gave up my "Commisioner's" seat to fellow charter member, Dan Kratt.  Dan is the one who coined the phrase, The Evil Commish and it was Dan who added a bunch of new ideas to the competition for the purpose of adding some fun to a competition that was starting to get old.  With the Commissioner duties behind me, I decided to focus on the part of the competition that had been a side hobby since the Competition's inception; that being writing my college football articles.  A couple of years ago, it was recommended by some of the fellow members that I should do it in blog form, (more than likely because they could stop having my articles fill up their inboxes and because they would be easier to ignore).  It's taken me this long to finally start it up.

         My goal is that I will write a weekly article every Tuesday during the season with the articles done a little more infrequently during the offseason, (of course, during this offseason I probably would have had plenty to keep the blog going weekly from all the scandals).  To start off, I am going to publish some of the original articles from some of the past seasons.

          Last, it may be that you have read this introduction and you are curious about playing Pick 'Em.  Well, I'm not surprised.  It's an extremely fun competition that is utterly unique from all the college football competitions.  It fills in a lot of reality gaps that fantasy football just can't seem to cover.  It is Dan's and my intention to try and roll Pick 'Em out within a season or two for public use.  Until then, we can probably set anyone up who is interested in leagues of either eight or sixteen.  Just drop me a line and we will see what we can do.  We college football fans are a passionate lot so whether you agree or disagree with the articles, if it gets you thinking and pumped up, it's at least served some purpose.  Hope you enjoy the articles.

Regards,
Paul Kemp