Protect Your Unit, Week 9 Picks Thread: Bizarro World

(DISCLAIMER: This contest is for entertainment purposes only. No actual money is being wagered.)

Here's a fascinating statistic about realignment!

This week's game schedule includes seven conference games between teams that have never played before. Ever. Not even in a bowl game, or a non-conference game, or in the 1930s. But they're in the same conference now.

These games are: Vanderbilt-Texas A&M, Connecticut-Central Florida, Houston-Rutgers, UAB-UTSA, Louisiana Tech-FIU, South Alabama-Texas State, and Georgia State-Louisiana Monroe.

And that doesn't even include Temple-SMU (last played in 1946); Marshall-Middle Tennessee (only prior meetings were I-AA playoff games); and weirdo alignments in their second year, such as Western Michigan-UMass and West Virginia-Kansas State. And it'll happen to USF: the Bulls have never played Navy, Tulsa, SMU, or Tulane, despite having been in Conference USA with Tulane in 2003-04.

Perhaps for this reason, I found this week's set of games hard to get a line on. I like it when teams have a little defined history. Even though college teams churn their rosters every five years, certain matchups are known for their predictability (Tennessee-Kentucky) or lack of same (pretty much any two ACC teams). How do you compare Vanderbilt and Texas A&M? They have no history, and thanks to larger divisions and fewer cross-divisional games, they only have one common opponent this season (Ole Miss).

I didn't pick many games this week, but some of you did:

Here are this week's parlays (will be updated if new ones are submitted):

• diddybull32: $230 on Clemson -14 over Maryland, Ohio State -14.5 over Penn State, Central Florida -22.5 over Connecticut
• Leavitt Town: $100 on Boise State +7 over BYU, Texas Tech +7 over Oklahoma. Connecticut +23 over Central Florida
• RyanTSmith: $25 on Boise State +7 over BYU, Texas +1.5 over TCU, Connecticut +23 over Central Florida
• ulismyhothotsex: $30 on Vanderbilt-Texas A&M over 68.5, Nevada +5 over UNLV (added Sat.)
• AndrewPorter: $150 on Hawaii +2.5 over Colorado State, Buffalo -1 over Kent State, Bowling Green -4 over Toledo (added Sat.)

I note that diddybull and Leavitt Town chose different sides of the UConn-UCF game in their parlays, so one of them is going home empty-handed.

As always, this is not the deadline to submit your choices. You may pick any game up until one hour before kickoff via protectyouru.net.

And by the way, you can bet more than $250 a week if you have more than $1000 cash. The max is 25% of your stack or 250, whichever is higher. Lots of people have been staying right at 250 when they could bet more, so I want to make sure there's no misunderstanding the rules.

Use this thread to talk up your picks, and about this weekend's games in general.