How Can Austin Persuade The ‘Big Brother’ Jury?

With only five houseguests left in the Big Brother house, it’s time to start considering what each of their chances are for winning the game. Because, after this Tuesday's episode, there will only be four houseguests left in the game. That means that they each have a one in four chance of taking home the $500,000 grand prize. I like the sound of those odds. The only thing that stands in their way (besides the other people in the house)? The jury. That panel of evicted houseguests who have been watching their progress since leaving the house and will decide which of the final two contenders takes home the grand prize. No pressure, right? But this is where it gets tricky. Because how can a houseguest like Austin, who has definitely made more than a few enemies to get where he is (i.e. in the final five), convince the jury to vote for him to win the entire thing?

In order to do that, first thing’s first: He has to make the jury believe that he deserves to win over the other houseguest sitting opposite him. So the biggest wild card in whether or not Austin can convince the jury to vote for him is who exactly he is sitting next to when it comes time for them to vote. If Austin is the lesser of two evils (like, say, if he’s sitting next to Vanessa, who has done her fair share of pissing people off), then he might be a shoe in for a victory. But, if he’s sitting next to John — someone with a lot of friends in the house and in the jury box — he might be in a tougher bind. Tougher still would be if he wound up in the final two with Liz, his girlfriend.

But let’s just say that he winds up sitting next to his equivalent. Or at least someone the jury members would be more likely to vote for than him. What can he do to sway their votes? Convince them that he played the best game, of course. And the fact that he wasn’t nominated for eviction until very recently might be the place to start. Obviously, his alliances were strong and his game play solid if he made it that long without being put up for eviction.

And then there’s the fact that he had a ton of friends in the game. Remember that week that he was HoH? He didn’t know who to evict because he was literally aligned with everybody. That might come back to help him in the end, especially if those are the people he is depending on to vote for him. He was loyal to James and Meg even though he had stronger alliances in the house. He kept his word and didn’t piss people off. Highlighting this to the jury members might be just the thing to convince them to vote for him. (As long as he doesn't mention Judas.)

Because the guy has made some really good decisions this season, beard bun aside. Hopefully the jury will be able to see past his showmancing ways and realize all of the ways that Austin has totally killed it this season.

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