Gordon Central 14, Calhoun 0 — And Nobody Threw a Pass

Somewhere in Gordon County that scoreboard would start an argument. Here it only means Gordon Central answered two more questions than Calhoun did.

The Football Quiz Game is new over at Dueling History, and it works like this: two teams, one field, seventy-five yards to the end zone. On every play the team with the ball picks its own risk — a fill-in-the-blank for twenty yards, or a multiple choice for ten. Answer it and the drive keeps rolling. Miss it and the ball goes over to the other side right where you left it.

There are no downs and there are no quarters. A team keeps the ball as long as it keeps answering, which means a class on a roll gets to stay on a roll, and a cold streak costs you the drive instead of four seconds on a clock.

The part that matters for teachers is the question bank. Nothing in the game is about football, and nothing in it is about history either unless you put history in it. You type in your two team names — use the real rivalry, it is worth it — and then you write your questions, or you load a bank somebody else already wrote. Banks save to a file you keep, so the set you build for Tuesday is still there in February, and you can hand it to the teacher down the hall. There is a small library of ready-made banks on the site, and the game will read any of them: math, science, English, vocabulary, review day before a test.

Spelling is forgiven on the fill-in-the-blanks, and so is capitalization. The game is trying to find out whether they know the answer, not whether they can type.

Set it up, name the teams, kick off.