Protect Your Unit Week 7 Results

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

The theme for this week was of course, upsets:

• Syracuse knocked off #2 Clemson at the Carrier Dome, 27-24. The Orange led the whole game, and clinched the upset on a gutsy 3rd-and-8 run by QB Eric Dungey, who I feel like has been at Syracuse since the Greg Robinson era.
• #5 Washington, after whining about lack of national exposure due to late start times, lost 13-7 to Arizona State. On the plus side, it was so late that nobody on the east coast saw it.
• #8 Washington State was crushed 37-3 by middling California.
• #10 Auburn lost to LSU.
• In a shocking upset, Rutgers won a Big Ten game.
• In a welcome development for USF, #19 San Diego State lost 31-14 to Boise. This gives the AAC the inside track for the Group of 5 bowl slot.
• West Virginia rallied in the fourth quarter to beat #24 Texas Tech, 46-35.
• Memphis beat #25 Navy, and took over their spot in the polls.
• Several Top 25 teams had near-misses: Miami, Oklahoma, Michigan State, Michigan, Wisconsin, and USC all held on to win their games.

Did anyone cash in on this chaos?

BrianMartin's spite bet on Boise State at +235 paid off 117.50 fake dollars. mcgies852 also won 102.95 from two bets on the smurf turfers. Arizona State was a popular bet, but only ULhothot took them to win outright, $10 at +800. It's nice to see one of his longshot bets come in for a change. Lrdnorman had Cal at +500. mmmmsnouts had Syracuse to cover, which they did easily. Several small bets on Auburn lost. Navy lost to Memphis, but they did cover the 3.5 point spread, so a lot of players still won on that game.

Another interesting game was Michigan-Indiana. As a group, we really nailed this game:

BrianMartin Michigan -5.5 points over Indiana 100.00
GaryStephen Michigan -6.5 points over Indiana 100.00
gym399 Michigan -7.0 points over Indiana 33.00
lrdnorman Michigan -7.0 points over Indiana 25.00
Gibbsak Michigan -7.0 points over Indiana 10.00
mcgies852 Indiana +7.5 points over Michigan 20.00
Gibbsak Indiana +8.0 points over Michigan 5.00

The point spread ranged from 5.5 to 8 over the week, and nobody was on the wrong side of it. Gibbsak went for a split, and got a win and push, which is pretty good.

For Randolph and Mortimer Spite Bet of the Week... wow, you guys must really hate C. to keep betting against them when they've been wrecking everything in sight all season. A 37-point spread wasn't enough, as they walloped East Carolina 63-21. I'll give the award to defdans and lrdnorman, for taking the Pirates against the point spread and actually taking them to win outright at +9000. I was reminded of the Futurama episode Raging Bender, where a $0 bet on Bender to beat Destructor paid $1000, but there were still very few takers.

That could easily be Floyd's Money Team Degenerate Bet of the Week as well, but I'll give it to HerdCountry941 for taking Marshall to beat Old Dominion outright, which they did easily. I also like to see plays on weeknight games, which a couple of you did. (By the way, anyone who had made a late bet on the postponed Akron-Western Michigan game would have been a shoo-in.)

Standings:

Powered by Boise State, BrianMartin has a big week, gaining 249.32 fake dollars and taking a large lead. Also having good weeks were myself (179.55), mcgies852 (152.05), and andrewpina (127.27).

Big national games this week are Michigan-Penn State and USC-Notre Dame. That's it, really. Tennessee-Alabama might be okay if you can muster some nostalgia, or if you just enjoy watching train wrecks. Syracuse-Miami and Oklahoma State-Texas might be interesting. There are five weeknight games, including #25 Memphis at Houston on Thursday.

Elsewhere in the AAC: USF is at Tulane, which is a story in itself. Amazingly, USF football has missed every possible opportunity to play Tulane until now. Tulane wasn't one of USF's several C-USA opponents during the independent, transitional years of 2000-2002; USF didn't draw Tulane as a C-USA opponent in 2003 or 2004; and also missed them as AAC divisional crossover opponent in 2015 and 2016. Hopefully our first trip to New Orleans will be nice and forgettable.

The aforementioned C. is at Navy, in what was a Top 25 matchup before Navy's loss to Memphis. It's still a huge game in the AAC.

Elsewhere, SMU is at Cincinnati. Tulsa and UConn, who each got upset wins last week, face off at Rentschler. In non-conference games, disappointing seasons collide as BYU travels to East Carolina. Finally, Temple is at 5-2 Army.