A former champion is making some early noise with a strong showing in week three of the Carder Motors Playoff Payoff Football Pick’em competition. In fact, he was one of two individuals that had a strong enough week that no tiebreakers were needed to determine a winner.

 

Bridgeport’s Kevin Carbacio was nearly perfect on the week. The former champion finished with a 31-2 mark to earn the victory. 

 

Thanks to his win, Carbacio can choose between a gift certificate from Buffalo Wild Wings and a small cheesecake from Almost Heave Desserts. Carbacio needs to email his choice to Hannah Edwards at hannah@connect-bridgeport.com who will get back with him on how to collect his prize.

 

The runner-up will have the prize not taken by Carbacio. And this week the person finishing a close second was Frank Blake. Blake went 30-3 to earn the award. Blake also needs to contact Edwards who will also work with him on acquiring his weekly prize.

 

After Carbacio and Blake, there was a dropoff as a seven-way tie for third place saw everyone go 27-6. Steven Hastings, Ben Queen, Justin Stevens, Craig Trippett, Jason McCall, Chris Johnson and Nicholas Balnionis all finished deadlocked at No. 3.

 

There was an 18-way tie for the No. 10 spot to round out the top 25 finishers for the week. The group of Mark Hoffman, Hyleigh Church, Tommy Stewart, Clayce Spurlock, James Burton II, Duke Ware, Jay Garrett, Gilbert Kelley, Ron Huffman, Jason Hartman, Adam Holbert, Doug Marquette, Chris Oliverio, Amber Gaines, Mike Nicewarner, David Francis, Mark Trippett, and Butch Elliott all finished 26-7 on the week.

 

Thanks to his huge week, Kevin Carbacio is also the overall leader. In fact, his five-game lead after three weeks is one of the biggest in the six-year history of the contest. Carbacio is currently 70-10 (87.5 percent) on the year.

 

However, there are others within striking range. Frank Blake and Jason McCall are both 65-15 (81.25 percent) and tied for second, while Mark Hoffman’s 64-14 (80 percent) mark has him in fourth. Chris Byrd, Doug Palmer, Rob Stallman, Mark Trippett, Chuck Miller, and Ryan Chandler round out the top five with a six-way tie for fifth tanks to their  63-17 (78.75 percent) mark.

 

At the No. 11 spot, there is another six-way tie. Jimmy Stutler, Doug Marquette, Adam Holbert, Chris Johnson, Clayce Spurlock, and Ron Huffman are all at 62-18 (77.5 percent). Yet another six-way tie is in play at No. 17 with Aaron Mann, Jeff Muller, Dustin Vincent, Hugh Gainer, Steven Hastings, and Bill Montgomery all at 61-19 (76.25 percent).

 

The big log jam comes at the No. 23 position and closes out the top 25 with a 16-way tie. Tyrone Lockett, Michael Ferrari, Nancy Romano, Michael Hustead, Patsy Sabatelli, Chris Oliverio, Maria Morrison, Jason Hartman, Dion Bright, Brian Martin, Jay Garrett, Gilbert Kelley, James Burton II, Craig Trippett, John Satterfield, and David LeMasters all stand at 60-20 (75 percent).

 

The prize packages are still being put together for the year. However, one of the top prizes include a $500 gift certificate from the Meadowbrook Mall. The top three pickers will be awarded prizes at the end of the contest, which goes well into December. The overall winner has their choice of the three prizes, while the second place winner will have their choice then of the final two remaining prizes.

 

So if you missed the first week of picks does that mean you can’t win in the overall prize selection? Here’s the good news.

 

What makes the Carder Motors Playoff Payoff competition unique is that once the contest is over you don’t necessarily know who the winner is even though you will see your weekly overall ranking and Connect-Bridgeport will post the weekly and overall top 25 throughout the contest. At the end of the year, everyone that competes has their two worst weeks dropped and then the winner is announced based on the highest winning percentage.

 

That means you can register now and it won’t impact you as those two weeks will be eliminated in the final totals. Even after that, you can still enter and win weekly prizes.

 

If you are a registered member of Connect-Bridgeport's Web site, all you have to do is make sure you're signed in and the click the Playoff Payoff icon on the home page that can be found by scrolling down to the left. If you're not registered, go to the top of the home page and register. It takes less than a minute.

 

Another unique aspect of the competition is that you can make changes to your picks leading up to games on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Individuals can make their picks for Friday’s games and can change them until 6 p.m. Friday. Games that are listed on Saturday and Sunday can be entered and changed as many times as necessary until 11 a.m. each day of the picks.

 

Unfortunately, there are occasional schedule changes - usually on the prep football side - that staff does not catch; usually games moved to Thursday or a time change bumped up. There are also occasional mistakes with the proper teams playing each other. As has been the case in the past, each person will either be given a win for those games when there are schedule changes we miss or a mistake on our end or a or they will simply not be counted for the weekly and final standings.

 

You must use your actual name to compete. Nicknames or aliases will not be recognized for weekly or overall prizes.