Protect Your Unit Week 4 Picks Thread

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

Last week, I mentioned a pre-season list of odds I received on who would be the first head coach fired in 2019. Well, this week I got an updated list:

• Willie Taggart, Florida State: +400 (was +1900)
• Randy Edsall, UConn: +600 (was +800)
• Charlie Strong, USF: +700 (no odds)
• Jeremy Pruitt, Tennessee: +800 (no odds)
• Chris Ash, Rutgers: +1200 (was +1500)
• Lovie Smith, Illinois: +1400 (was +1900)
• Brent Brennan, San Jose State: +1800 (was +1200)
• Steve Addazio, Boston College: +2000 (was +9000)
• Justin Fuente, Virginia Tech: +2500 (was +3500)
• Clay Helton, USC: +3200 (was +600)
• Chip Kelly, UCLA: +4000 (was +15000)
• Chad Morris, Arkansas: +6000 (was +4000)
• Gus Malzahn, Auburn: +15000 (was +18000)
• Kalani Sitake, BYU: +50000 (was +7500)

Yes, Willie Taggart now leads the pack, and our current coach Charlie Strong has made a bold leap to third-most likely to get the axe. And those are the odds to get the axe first, mind you. Chad Morris now intrigues me at +6000; Arkansas has not been good, and isn’t shy about firing coaches. That’s how we got Stan Heath. I still like Kalani Sitake to go, but wins over Tennessee and USC probably bought him enough time to not be first. By the way, USC is between athletic directors, which explains why Helton is suddenly a much longer shot. The house is not above offering sucker bets.

This illustrates how the value of your preseason Futures bets can change. You still keep the same payout, of course, but the odds changing can mean you’re now locked into a better or worse bet than before. For example, BullsOnParade96 took Oregon at +800 to make the 4-team FBS playoff. They’re now +2000, suggesting their actual likelihood of doing so is a lot lower, and making that +800 bet a liability. On the other hand, E-Dogg42’s bet on Ohio State to also make the playoff has moved from +300 to +133. It is now considered more likely to happen than it was before, but he still gets the +300 payout. Other pre-season futures bets increased or decreased in likelihood as events played out.

Oh, and I’m definitely including First Coach Fired in the futures bets next season. It’s too much fun not to.

But, I’m burying the lede on this one. We had our first Thursday Night game this week; Tulane played Houston. I don’t have any words for this, just watch how it ended:

Mind you, Houston once had a 28-7 lead. And this game got a lot of action - over $850, including parlays that included it. And almost all of that fake money was on Houston. The only player to get the game right was Gibbsak, who has it in a further parlay. Anthonyvito and mmmmsnouts got the winner right, but lost on the over-under. Leader BullsOnParade96 dropped $200 on this game, reducing his huge lead to a little over $200 over second-place speruche.

In other news, the Gambletron 2000 is open for business, and players are taking advantage! There are three bets so far this week, and we had nine last week:

The Gambletron offers a randomly selected team, in a game not involving USF/UF/FSU/Central Florida, which you can bet for -102 instead of the usual -110. The game offered changes every two hours or so. This simulates real sports books’ practice of offering lower vigorish (house fees) on certain games, to drive more action on them. As you can see, anthonyvito won $98.04 on a $100 bet instead of the usual $90.91, so there’s an edge in it for you.

Everyone’s picks as of about 8 AM this morning:

As always, use this space to discuss your selections, lobby for awards, predict fired coaches, talk about the games, and anything else related to this weekend’s college football schedule!