With about an hour left before the Dec. 18 New Mexico Bowl between BYU and UTEP, James Passannanti jumped on his home computer and - quickly - went to work.
He scrolled through the 35 bowl games, the winners already in his head, and clicked.
"I got 'em in with maybe a half-hour to spare," he said. "I just went down the list: boom, boom, boom. But it almost wasn't to be."
Passannanti picked 26 of the 35 bowl games correctly, finishing with 51 points. Because of it, the 35-year-old Tucson marketing research associate is the grand-prize winner of the Star's annual Holiday Bowl Challenge.
Passannanti finished first out of 539 local competitors - and ninth out of 31,499 national entrants. He wins a vintage fleece hooded sweatshirt featuring his favorite team, the UA.
"Why couldn't I have that kind of luck with the Mega Millions?" Passannanti said Wednesday with a laugh. "Apparently, I'm a genius with college football. Why can't I get lucky like that with the lottery?"
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Passannanti, a self-described "retired semiprofessional gambler," picked all five Bowl Championship Series games correctly, including Monday night's BCS National Championship Game victory by Auburn. He won with his fair share of underdogs, including Washington's upset of Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl.
Pressed to second-guess his nine losses, Passannanti admitted he let his heart get in the way of his head when it came to the Alamo Bowl. He chose underdog Arizona over Oklahoma State, but the Wildcats lost 36-10.
"I should have seen that one coming," he said.
Meanwhile, I was wrong from beginning to end - losing the first and last game, and plenty in between. I finished 90th locally, good enough for the 81st percentile, but not nearly enough to challenge Passannanti's near-perfection. I picked seven of the final eight bowl games correctly, but came up short in the BCS National Championship Game. Like most in the bowl challenge, I figured Oregon - a Pac-10 team - would outlast Auburn in Monday's final.
Passannanti was smarter. He picked the favored Tigers, and celebrated when they won on a last-second field goal. Passannanti also won a buddy's bowl pool.
"That was money," he said, "but not Mega Millions."
By the numbers
Figures from Ryan Finley's Holiday Bowl Challenge
26
Bowl games picked correctly by James Passannanti, this year's winner.
35
Bowl games played
536
Local competitors in this year's bowl challenge
31,499
National competitors in this year's bowl challenge
9th
Passannanti's national finish.
90th
Ryan's finish among local entrants
The HOLIDAY BOWL CHALLENGE winners
2011: James Passannanti
2010: John Geiger
2009: Randall Allen
2007: Jerry Kropp
NOTE: 46 contestants won the 2008 bowl challenge by answering all the questions correctly in a bowl quiz.
