Bachelor to the Rapture March Madness

Ok, so it may not be March, but this tournament will definitely extend into (and past) March. I have referenced a thing called Bachelor to the Rapture a couple times before. Let me set the stage...when we came in as freshmen football guys, there were at least 8 upperclassmen that were either engaged or married on the team. One of those guys became a dad a couple games into the year too. Needless to say, you were in the minority if you were single. Fast forward 3 years. We are now seniors, and there is a whopping 1 guy on the team that is engaged (shout-out to super-super senior and 2 sport All-American Brian Lecheler!). In fact, we might be lucky if we have 8 guys enrolled in Relationships 201. So as you can tell, we are lacking a bit in the girl department compared to the guys that came before us.

A few years ago, Tim, Kendall, and some other guys realized our inadequate ability to reel in a female and brought about the concept of being a bachelor to the rapture. It has been a joke for a couple years now, about who is going to be the last man standing. Well, it's been long enough, and Tim and I decided this needs to be put into bracket format and played out. Being NCAA Division 3 athletes and devout followers of the NWC DOCC, we aren't allowed to place money on having the winning bracket. However, we can fill one out for fun (and for bragging rights).

Now, let me explain a little about how this was set up. We decided to extend the tourney a little more so we could get a more March Madness feel with the 4 brackets coming together. All of the guys on this bracket are returning players (with the exception of Evan Entler and James 'Changalang' Chang, who will not be joining us this season) who as of this post are yet to paint their name on the Rock. To get the general framework set, I selected (with Tim's approval) the top 4 (Big Stick Bauman, Timmy himself, our bride Josh Balzer, and Big Freeze Ryan Friesen). I also picked out the bottom 4 who are closest to getting engaged (Marshall Reppy puppy, Goose Swanson, Jordan Padgett, and Evan Voelker). The remaining players I put into excel and let it randomly rank each person. So if you don't know why someone is ranked 2 in their bracket, just know it was random selection.

So with that explained, I have included the bracket in a couple forms on here. By all means, we would LOVE for you to play along with us. Fill out a bracket and sit back and see how you do. This is going to be one long tourney (Tim and I have a 5 year roommate deal because neither one of us seem to be going anywhere fast), but it should be fun.

I already have my first round analysis completed, and I will be posting a matchup-by-matchup preview with my predictions soon....I want you guys to have a few days to read this and fill out your bracket before I post my predictions.

Anyways, have fun! This is a tournament where making it to the championship round isn't necessarily a good thing. Personally, I'm hoping to be a one-and-done.

Google Docs spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AlIvSEKNdA7ldGJnOFk2alpfUnJnSURuQ3lHRnJCZmc

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