Protect Your Unit Week 12 Results Thread

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

Have you ever seen a team decline a penalty on a play where they gave up a touchdown? It happened in the Air Force-Wyoming game yesterday.

On a snow and ice-covered field, Wyoming rallied from a 27-14 deficit late to take a 28-27 lead. GibbsAK figured his Air Force +2.5 bet was still safe. After stopping Air Force on downs, the Cowboys couldn’t quite take a knee, so they called three simple running plays. On third down, the awesomely named Xazavian Valladay busted through the line and took it to the end zone with about 45 seconds left. A holding penalty negated it, but Air Force declined, figuring they were better off getting the ball back with some time left and a chance to tie.

That’s a brutal way to lose a bet. Fortunately, it was only five fake dollars. GibbsAK made fifty individual bets, of $5 fake dollars, each, all point spreads. He managed to bet on almost 75% of all games. Whatever channel you turned on, GibbsAK probably had a fake betting interest. That wins the Floyd’s Money Team Degenerate Bet of the Week award.

Other bad beats occurred in more conventional, but still painful, fashions. Seven of you had Boston College, who led most of the game. But Florida State rallied to win in the last minute, while cosplaying as San Diego State. That ruined parlays for E-dogg42 ($117) and gym399 ($80).

It didn’t affect any bets, but Colorado State had a game-winning Hail Mary pass negated by the receiver stepping out of bounds. Ouch.

And finally, we come to UndercoverBull. After winning his way back from oblivion last week, he staked his remaining $62.89 on an Army-Utah State parlay. Army came through, but Colorado State gave powerful Utah State a close game (nearly winning, as above), and he is now down to $0. He can get an extra $500 to play Weeks 14-15 by correctly picking an AAC game against the spread next week. Email me your choice or post it in this thread, or the Week 13 thread.

But hey, there were some winners this week:

That’s our fourth biggest win of the season (BullsOnParade96 has the top three). Despite losing $165 on other plays, ULhothot leaps all the way to second place in the official standings.

Look who also had a great week:

That’s a gain of $271.14, and moves our resident MAC specialist into the black for the season.

There were two other winning parlays:

For the second week in a row, carlzee managed to include a push in his parlay, reducing it from a 6-1 win to a 2.6-1 win. E-dogg42 also hit one, which gave him an $88 profit for the week, and kept him near the top.

Here are the standings:

The numbers and italics represent the bye week situation. Each player gets two bye weeks, and I granted Week 7 as a free week due to the weather situation. The players whose names are in italics have missed too many weeks, and are ineligible for the official championship, though they may keep playing if desired. A (1) or (2) indicates the number of bye weeks you have already taken (excluding Week 7). A name in regular text with nothing by it indicates a player who has played every week.

If you’ve played every week, you can sit out Weeks 13 and 14 if desired. If you’ve taken one bye, you may use another on Week 13 or 14, if desired. If you’ve taken two byes, you must play both Week 13 and 14 to remain an official contender. In all cases, you must play Week 15 (bowl season), as bye weeks may not be taken during bowl season. Please note that Week 14 is conference championship week, and thus has only sixteen games total.

Week 13 is rivalry week. In addition, a lot of games have something greater than pride riding on them.

First, these games are winner take all:

• Michigan at Ohio State: The winner is in the Big Ten Championship Game vs. Northwestern.
• Washington at Washington State: The winner is in the Pac-12 Championship Game vs. Utah.
• Oklahoma at West Virginia: The winner is in the Big XII Championship Game. The loser is out, unless Kansas beats Texas, in which case things get messy.
• Utah State at Boise State: The winner is in the Mountain West Championship Game vs. Fresno State.
• Troy at Appalachian State: The winner goes to the Sun Belt Championship Game vs. TBD (see below).
• Houston at Memphis: The winner is in the AAC Championship Game vs Central Florida. Memphis and Houston would be both 5-3 (possibly also with Tulane and/or SMU), but Memphis wins all possible tiebreakers if they beat Houston.

Next, teams that control their championship destiny with a win:

• Kansas at Texas: Texas is in the Big XII Championship Game if they win. They would play the Oklahoma-West Virginia winner.
• Marshall at Florida International: FIU is in the Conference USA Championship Game vs. UAB if they win. Marshall can claim a share of the division title if they win and MTSU also loses.
• Buffalo at Bowling Green: Buffalo is in the MAC Championship Game vs. Northern Illinois if they win.

The following games involve teams that need help, but are still alive:

• UAB at Middle Tennessee: MTSU is in the Conference USA Championship Game if they win and FIU loses. Also, UAB needs a win to be certain of hosting the championship game (though they probably still would).
• Ball State at Miami of Ohio and Akron at Ohio: Miami (Ohio) and Ohio can each win a share of the division title if they win and Buffalo loses. Miami also needs a win to reach 6-6, but the MAC already has too many bowl qualifiers.
• Louisiana-Lafayette at Louisiana-Monroe and Arkansas State-Texas State: ULL goes to the Sun Belt Championship Game if they win. ULM goes to the Sun Belt Championship Game if they win and Arkansas State loses to Texas State. Arkansas State goes if they win and ULM wins.
• Kansas State at Iowa State: This one’s really a stretch. If Oklahoma, Iowa State, Kansas and Oklahoma State all win, there would be a 3-way tie for second place among Texas, West Virginia and Iowa State. The teams went 1-1 against each other. The next tiebreaker is record against the best remaining team in the conference, top to bottom, with tiebreakers applied. In that scenario, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State would be fifth and sixth. All three teams beat Texas Tech, but Iowa State beat Oklahoma State while WVU and UT lost to them. That would put the Cyclones into the Big XII Championship. Alert Wide Right Natty Lite.

The following games are between 5-6 teams, meaning the winner gets a bowl game:

• Baylor at Texas Tech
• Tennessee at Vanderbilt
• Purdue at Indiana

In addition to SMU, Tulane, and Miami of Ohio, the following teams need one more win to attain bowl eligibility:

• Florida State hosts Florida. They need a win to keep their 36-year bowl game streak alive. Also, they need a win and a bowl game win to avoid their first losing season since 1976. (This ignores the forfeiture of all wins in 2007 for violating NCAA rules.)
• Wake Forest (at Duke)
• TCU (hosts Oklahoma State)
• Kansas State (at Iowa State)
• Maryland (at Penn State)
• Minnesota (at Wisconsin)
• Arizona (hosts Arizona State)
• Colorado (at California)
• Southern California (hosts Notre Dame)
• SMU (at Tulsa)
• Tulane (hosts Navy)
• Wyoming (at New Mexico)
• Southern Mississippi (at UTEP) note - would be 6-5 due to a cancelled game
• Florida Atlantic (hosts Charlotte)
• Coastal Carolina (at South Alabama)

There are already 71 eligible teams for 78 slots, and three more Power 5 schools are guaranteed to get eligible via head-to-head games, so there’s little room for late joiners. Especially the MAC and Sun Belt, which already have enough qualifiers for their contracted slots.

Two more teams are technically still alive:

• Akron (at Ohio; would also need to win at South Carolina next week)
• Virginia Tech (4-6) hosts Virginia. If they win; would need to schedule a 12th game to have a chance at bowl eligibility. There is a reported plan for Virginia Tech to host Marshall on December 1 if it comes to that.

I’m sure you’ve noticed by now I haven’t mentioned the War on I-4. By beating Cincinnati, UCF has already won the East Division, even if we beat them on Black Friday. Not that I don’t heartily recommend it, or that it wouldn’t be satisfying as all hell. The remaining AAC East games are East Carolina-Cincinnati and Temple-Connecticut; the AAC West games were mentioned above.

Due to the Black Friday game being Friday afternoon, I will post the weekly picks thread on Thursday (Thanksgiving) night, instead of the usual Friday noon launch time.