Protect Your Unit Week 5 Results

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

Overall, a “meh” week in college football, with lots of teams off and few unexpected results. The big story is Clemson losing both its quarterbacks in one week, and nearly being upset by Syracuse. Otherwise, little of note. Ohio State won a close one over Penn State; Notre Dame handled Stanford; and the teams ranked 20-25 continued to suck, the only winner being Michigan State over Central Michigan.

There were some entertaining games, though:

• Hawaii and San Jose State played 5 overtimes, mostly because both their kickers were terrible. Both halves of the second and third overtime ended in missed field goals. San Jose State finally hit a 20-yarder, but Hawaii’s Ryan Meskell hit 35-yarders in the fourth and fifth overtimes to win it.
• Middle Tennessee skipped overtime entirely, and went for two to win at the end of regulation. It was a pretty amazing finish, so watch it here.
• Old Dominion and East Carolina played like they both bet on themselves to lose.

ECU, trailing by 1 because of a blocked extra point, punts on 4th and 1 with 2:30 to play. ODU returns the favor by calling two pass plays, one of which ended in a sack. ECU gets the ball back pretty much where they were, with a fresh set of downs, minus only 24 seconds and with one timeout left. Aided by pass interference, ECU moves the ball into field goal range. They throw a deep ball to nowhere, which is intercepted in bounds, but the ODU defensive back was bobbling it. ECU kicks the field goal (barely inside the left upright) with about 50 seconds to play. Despite only rushing four, Old Dominion’s QB is sacked for two huge losses, and the game ends on an intentional grounding call that eliminates 10 seconds from the clock.

Speaking of bad AAC East teams, we need to talk about Connecticut. An early line listed them as 25.5 point favorites against Cincinnati. This is obviously wrong, and I was about to cancel PYU wagers on it, but: it appears twice in the line history. By rule, I have to let these wagers stand. I’m currently working on a new mechanism to catch these screwy lines. So two players, BrianMartin and dsidwell31, get to cash in. They also win Floyd’s Money Team Degenerate Bet of the Week.

Apparently carlzee convinced some of our players that Northwestern wasn’t very good this year. The Wildcats responded by nearly beating Michigan, and covering easily. What’s interesting is that carl didn’t take his own advice:

That’s one way to win a betting competition, I guess. Since that’s going to generate some spite among other people, I’ll give it the Randolph & Mortimer Spite Bet of the Week award. Carl seems to generate spite wherever he goes.

Not a good week for parlays, though three did come in:

There were some near-misses. mcgies852 and lrdnorman both missed a $600 win, by 3.5 points in Boise State-Wyoming and 3 points in Old Dominion-East Carolina, respectively. AnthonyVito missed a two-way by a point and a half. Undercoverbull lost two different three-way parlays when an over bet didn’t come in; those games were Texas Tech-West Virginia and Pittsburgh-whoever they were playing.

On to the standings. NOTE: I originally miscalculated BullsOnParade’s total last week. It was over by $340 fake dollars. (I gave him credit for a 3-way parlay when it was only a 2-way.) The Week 4 thread has been corrected. The below standings also account for this difference.

Five players won more than $100 this week, including the two who got that dodgy Cincinnati line. Defdans hit on Florida beating Mississippi State outright ($75 fake dollars at +250 for $187.50). Snafu13 hit 7 of 9 bets, and nearly cashed on Syracuse’s near-upset of Clemson. mcgies852 profited 120.96, keyed by that big parlay win.

It’s October now, and most games are conference games. Texas-Oklahoma appears to carry the highest stakes. Clemson, now playing with a third-string QB, goes to Wake Forest. High-flying Kentucky faces a test at Texas A&M. Florida State-Miami is on. A trip to Virginia Tech could be a tough challenge for unbeaten Notre Dame.

In the AAC, Tulsa-Houston is on Thursday. Tulane-Cincinnati is a matchup of two improving teams. East Carolina-Temple will help sort the AAC East. UConn is at Memphis. SMU travels to Central Florida. Navy, not having a memorable season, goes to Air Force for a Commander-In-Chief Trophy game. USF, of course, plays UMass in a non-conference game.