Kyle Puckett (‘20) picked 12th-seeded Oregon State as his March Madness champion because the university has a Chipotle 92 feet away from their campus. 

This strategy put Puckett only one game behind the best bracket in the world. 

After the first round, Puckett’s bracket was tied for fourth place in the ESPN Bracket Challenge, a March Madness contest with over 14.5 million brackets. Before the tournament, Puckett had not watched a game of college basketball all season. 

“The entire rationale behind my bracket was based on when you typed in the school into Google Maps and then Chipotle,” Puckett said. “I would look at the walking distance, and whichever school had the shortest walking distance, I chose it.” 

When the closest Chipotle to both schools had the same walking distance, Puckett changed it to walking time and then to meters or, in rare cases, feet to determine a winner.

“My only losses in the 32 games were 15th-seeded Cleveland State not beating 2nd-seeded Houston, 3rd-seeded Texas not beating 14th-seeded Abilene Christian and VCU forfeiting due to coronavirus against Oregon,” Puckett said.

@kyle.puckett@chipotle We’re currently balling out? #marchmadness #chipotle #guacdance #espn #tournamentchallenge #EnvisionGreatness♬ original sound – Kyle Puckett

According to Puckett, the Chipotle bracket was not his most bizarre bracket. 

“My other bracket was called Mormon Mania and laid out how BYU could go all the way,” Puckett said. 

After Puckett’s bracket dropped from fourth in the rankings, he held the highest position as a freshman at Washington University at St. Louis until the final game of the Elite Eight. 

Puckett’s bracket not only earned him bragging rights, it earned him burritos. Chipotle took notice of Puckett’s bracket after he tagged their TikTok account in a video he made about his bracket. 

“Free burritos for a year if you get one team in the semifinals,” Chipotle’s comment said. 

After Michigan’s 51-49 upset loss to UCLA, free burritos had seemingly slipped through Puckett’s fingers as Michigan was the only team in his Final Four that made the Elite Eight. 

“Dang. We were rooting for you! We’ll get you the free burritos anyway. DM us,” the second Chipotle comment said. 

The “Chipotle Challengers” bracket has earned Puckett 52 free entrees at Chipotle in the next year.