Protect Your Unit: Week 3 Picks Thread: Instant Karma's Not Gonna Get You

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

The two big stories in football this week have nothing to do with the games.

First, the NFL is still dealing with the fallout of the Ray Rice situation. After video of Rice's domestic violence incident surfaced, the public became outraged at the mere two-game suspension. Rice was later suspended indefinitely, but it became evident that the league office has long been aware of the footage, leading to a PR fiasco for the league. Some are even calling for commissioner Roger Goodell to resign. As usual, the most insightful comment was from SBNation's Spencer Hall:

To demand morality from the NFL is to ask ontological questions of an ATM. It has no ears, and only one response: please insert card.

The same criticism has been applied to the NCAA after this week's other piece of news: the lifting of sanctions against Penn State for the Jerry Sandusky scandal. What the NCAA should have been done to Penn State is a subject of no small debate, and there may not be any good answer. But the raucous celebrations in State College, complete with chants demanding the return of the Joe Paterno statue and the restoration of his 409 career wins, make me think the NCAA needn't have bothered.

Fittingly, Penn State faces Ray Rice's alma mater Rutgers this weekend, in Piscataway. Both teams are in a celebratory mood: the Nittany Lions are free from sanctions, while Rutgers - the school where all this happened -- is playing its first game as a member of the elite Big Ten Conference. Is this game even more off-putting than UCF-Penn State? I say yes.

And what might be even more off-putting, at least for Bulls fans, is Louisiana Tech's Thursday night blowout of North Texas. For the second straight week, the Fightin' Skip Holtzes crushed a pretty good G5 team. EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG.

With that in mind, let's see who everybody chose this week:

As always, this is not the deadline. You may log into protectyouru.net and place wagers on any game up until one hour before kickoff. If you'd like to play along, this is pretty much your last chance: email me to get a login.

So get yourself together, join the human race, and talk about your picks in the comments section. This is also our thread to talk about this weekend's games in general, or anything else that's on your mind. While you're here, enjoy a great rock song.