Streaking The Lawn ACC Pick'em Challenge!

With another football season starting up this week (this week!) for Virginia, it's time for another season of haphazardly guessing just what will happen in the ACC this year. Will it be Florida State, Clemson, or a dark horse that reigns supreme in the Atlantic Division? Will anyone from the Coastal Division step it up this year? Is anyone from the Coastal Division even playing football still? Your guess is as good as ours.

This year's pick'em challenge will be hosted on Yahoo! We're picking against the spread each week for each game involving an ACC team. What does "against the spread" mean? It means you're not just picking who wins straight up. You're taking the spread into account.

For example, early Vegas odds indicate that UCLA is favored by 17 points over Virginia. In other words, it's UCLA -17 vs. Virginia. If you pick UCLA, it means they need to win by more than 17 points in order for them to "cover" the spread. If UCLA wins, but only by 15 points, it means you did not pick correctly.

Another way to think about this is like a handicap. If it's UCLA -17, then it means you take the final score of the two teams, and you subtract 17 points from UCLA's total. If UCLA is still the winner, then you win, assuming you picked UCLA. If you subtract 17 points from UCLA's final score, and it results in Virginia being the winner, then you lose. You sometimes also see this written as Virginia +17, instead of UCLA -17. The minus sign means they're the favorite.

We're doing this with Yahoo! for the first time, so bear with us. It looks like Yahoo! will give you updates Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, before finalizing the spread for pick'em purposes on Thursday.

Ready to sign up? Go to Yahoo! and enter in the group ID 7558, with the password "tohomerandback" (the name of our emerging podcast). Full details are below. Good luck!