Glennis Curry remains in first place in local ESPN College Football contest

Last Tuesday night after The Courant closed, a “Concerned Citizen of Conecuh County” slid an unsigned letter to the editor critical of Hillcrest High School athletics under the office door. We found the one-page letter when we arrived for work Wednesday of last week, which meant that it was too late to get the letter in that week’s paper even if it had been signed.

The Courant isn’t in the habit of publishing unsigned letters to the editor, and this letter didn’t include a phone number, which meant that we couldn’t contact that letter’s author. The Courant doesn’t print unsigned letters to the editor because the paper’s longstanding editorial policy has been that if you want us to publish a letter, especially one that’s controversial, you should also be willing to sign it to let readers know who wrote it.

In the end, if you wrote this letter and want The Courant to consider running it in the paper, drop by the office and sign it.

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The fourth week of our local ESPN College Football Pick ‘Em contest has come to an end, and the standings on Sunday morning showed that Glennis Curry remained in sole possession of first place for the third straight week.

Aaron Albritton remained in second place. Rod Sims, Barlow_91 and Mike Dailey were in a three-way tie for third place. (Barlow_91, if you’re reading this, please send me your real name.)

Mark Peacock jumped from 15th place to sixth place. Steve Stacey moved up to seventh place from 11th place. Sharon Peacock went from ninth place to eighth place. Ricky Powell remained in ninth place, and Hunter Norris dropped from sixth place to tenth place.

In the interest of full disclosure, your friendly neighborhood sports columnist is in 16th place.

If you’re playing this local contest and didn’t finish in the Top 10, don’t sweat it. This contest will run for 10 more weeks, and it’s a marathon not a sprint. You’ll find that the standings will change a lot over the next 2-1/2 months.

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In the SEC this week, there are four head-to-head games between conference teams and three other games involving conference teams facing opponents from outside the SEC.

No. 12 Georgia will play Tennessee in Athens Saturday at 11 a.m. (ESPN). Vandy will face Kentucky in Lexington Saturday at 11 a.m. (SECN). Arkansas will play No. 6 Texas A&M in Arlington Saturday at 2:30 p.m. (CBS), and Missouri will face Nov. 13 South Carolina in Columbia at 6 p.m. (ESPN).

No. 5 Auburn will play Louisiana Tech in Auburn Saturday at 3 p.m. (SECN), and No. 17 LSU will face New Mexico State in Baton Rouge at 6:30 p.m. (SECN). No. 10 Ole Miss will take on Memphis Saturday at 6:30 p.m. in Oxford (ESGP). Alabama, Florida and Mississippi State do not play this week.

For what it’s worth, here’s how I see each of those games playing out. I look for Auburn to wax La. Tech, for Georgia to beat Tennessee, for Kentucky to roll Vandy and for Texas A&M to beat Arkansas. I also like South Carolina over Missouri, LSU over New Mexico State and Ole Miss over Memphis.

Last week: 6-2. So far this season: 36-7.