2022 Jeopardy! National College Championship Semi-Final Preview

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Current Champion

Matthew Riggle, career statistics:
47 correct, 6 incorrect
1/1 on rebound attempts (on 4 rebound opportunities)
41.23% in first on buzzer (47/114)
3/3 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $7,600)
1/2 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $21,300

To win:
3 games: 68.027%
4: 46.277%
5: 31.481%
6: 21.415%
7: 14.568%
Avg. streak: 4.128 games.
(Next game: September 14)
(Click Here for Methodology)

Upcoming Encore Presentations

August 12: S42 E98 (January 21, 2026)
August 13: S42 E99 (January 22, 2026)
August 14: S42 E100 (January 23, 2026)
August 15-16: S41 E141 (March 24, 2025)
August 17: S42 E101 (January 26, 2026)
August 18: S42 E105 (January 30, 2026)
August 19: S42 E102 (January 27, 2026)
August 20: S42 E103 (January 28, 2026)
August 21: S42 E104 (January 29, 2026)
August 22-23: S41 E142 (March 25, 2025)
August 24: S42 E106 (February 2, 2026)
August 25: S42 E107 (February 3, 2026)
August 26: S42 E108 (February 4, 2026)
August 27: S42 E109 (February 5, 2026)
August 28: S42 E110 (February 6, 2026)
August 29-30: S41 E143 (March 26, 2025)
(Source: Bell Fibe TV program guide)

All Time Winnings

All Time Jeopardy! Winnings, Regular Play Only:

1. Ken Jennings $2,520,700
2. James Holzhauer $2,462,216
3. Matt Amodio $1,518,601
4. Amy Schneider $1,382,800
5. Jamie Ding $882,605
6. Cris Pannullo $748,286
7. Mattea Roach $560,983
8. Jason Zuffranieri $532,496
9. Scott Riccardi $455,000
10. David Madden $430,400
11. Julia Collins $428,100
12. Matt Jackson $411,612
13. Austin Rogers $411,000
14. Ray Lalonde $386,400
15. Harrison Whitaker $373,999
16. Adriana Harmeyer $349,600
17. Caleb Groen $346,968
18. Adam Remsen $306,415
19. Ryan Long $299,400
20. Arthur Chu $297,200

All Time Jeopardy! Winnings, Including Tournaments (and Consolation Prizes):

1. Brad Rutter $4,968,436
2. Ken Jennings $4,372,700
3. James Holzhauer $3,614,216
4. Matt Amodio $1,964,601
5. Amy Schneider $1,864,800
6. Yogesh Raut $1,098,403
7. Mattea Roach $897,983
8. Jamie Ding $885,605
9. David Madden $785,733
10. Victoria Groce $773,801
11. Cris Pannullo $754,286
12. Roger Craig $706,200
13. Larissa Kelly $671,930
14. Matt Jackson $623,612
15. Jason Zuffranieri $549,496
16. Andrew He $534,365
17. Scott Riccardi $533,000
18. Jerome Vered $499,102
19. Julia Collins $495,767
20. Austin Rogers $493,000
21. Ben Ingram $449,201
22. Paolo Pasco $448,717
23. Adriana Harmeyer $446,600
24. Buzzy Cohen $441,603
25. Juveria Zaheer $441,000

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The 2022 Jeopardy! National College Championship is working slightly differently from past Jeopardy! tournaments. 36 quarter-finalists have all played. We’re now down to 12 semifinalists playing over the next four games.

How were the contestants seeded for the semifinals?

I believe that it was quarter-finalist Jeric Brual who mentioned this on Reddit, but he said that the contestants were seeded based on their quarterfinal scores going into Final Jeopardy, and, judging by the pairings, this appears to be correct.

Pot A: Raymond Goslow (25,200), Emmey Harris (21,000), Lauren Rodriguez (20,300), Jaskaran Singh (19,900)

Pot B: Nam Vu (17,000), Joey Kornman (16,400), Kristin Donegan (15,200), Stephen Privat (14,300)

Pot C: Isaac Applebaum (13,800), Neha Seshadri (8,600), Liz Feltner (8,400), Megan Sullivan (5,400)

One contestant from each pot was placed in each semifinal.

Here are the four semifinals:

Semifinal #1: Nam Vu (Georgetown), Neha Seshadri (Harvard), Raymond Goslow (Kennesaw State)

Semifinal #2: Lauren Rodriguez (Pomona), Isaac Applebaum (Stanford), Stephen Privat (LSU)

Semifinal #3: Kristin Donegan (Carnegie Mellon), Liz Feltner (Northeastern), Emmey Harris (Minnesota)

Semifinal #4: Joey Kornman (Brandeis), Jaskaran Singh (Texas), Megan Sullivan (Virginia).

The non-winning semifinal contestants receive $20,000, and the semifinal winner with the lowest score (not making the finals and qualifying for the Second Chance Tournament) will receive $35,000.

How will this affect strategy?

The major strategic consideration: Just winning your game won’t be enough to qualify for the final. Your score needs to be in the top 3 in order to qualify.

So, what score will advance?

Much like the wild cards for past tournaments, we can look at past data to predict what scores have a good chance of advancing. I used the following methodology to construct my JNCC wild card model:

1. Look back at the semifinal games for the 30 previous College Championships and get both the scores going into Final Jeopardy and the outcome distribution in Final Jeopardy (RRR/RRW/etc).
2. Find the average ($12,694) and standard deviation ($6,494) in the scores, as well as enumerate the specific distribution of the possible Final Jeopardy! outcomes.

3. From this, randomly generate thousands of game outcomes using the previous data, assuming that every contestant feels the need to maximize their score by betting everything in Final Jeopardy, and record the winning score for each game.

   • Is this the best way of going about it? It’s certainly possible that the contestants aren’t going to bet everything. But I also think it’s best to prepare for the “worst case scenario”, and to me, that “worst case scenario” is “everybody else doubles their score”.
4. The average winning final score turned out to be approximately $27,200, and the standard deviation turned out to be approximately $15,200.

Here’s the graphical version, for each score between $0 and $50,000:

Is it viable to stand pat and hope for one of the other games to be a Triple Stumper?

The simple answer: Do you like coin flips that are slightly weighted against you?

The complicated answer: 12 of the 86 past College Championship semifinal games (with 3 players) have had Triple Stumper Final Jeopardy clues. Taking that 13.95% chance into account gives you a 54.82% chance of there being 0 Triple Stumpers (thus, a 45.18% chance of there being at least 1). There’s also a 9.62% chance of there being at least 2 Triple Stumpers. If you like those odds, then go for it!

So, there you have it. It’s certainly going to be an interesting couple of days—and at least with the Second Chance Tournament, there isn’t going to be a contestant seeing their Jeopardy! journey end with 2 wins and 0 losses. Enjoy the semi-finals!

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