PYU Week 8 Results: Success Is Built On Failure

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

In a week where USF finally ended its long losing streak to FCS teams, the defining moments were the first two in this video. And we all know what they are.

A botched field goal snap was about to be returned for a defensive touchdown, and USF was about to be behind early again. But special teamer Chris Carter made an exceptional effort to run the ball carrier down at the 5 yard line. This should have been a disaster for USF, but it turned into a positive when Mekhi Lapointe got an interception, negating the bad snap and giving USF some momentum.

Some other struggling teams didn’t manage their fate so well. You thought last week’s Wisconsin-Platteville ending was painful?

Colorado State turned a failure into a success into a failure. Their field goal team rushed out instead of letting their QB spike the ball after a first down was obtained. They had plenty of time. But they did a great job not panicking, and getting the right personnel on. A false start or illegal procedure would have ended the game, but they avoided this. Unfortunately, the kicker just missed kick.

And we haven’t even talked about Illinois-Penn State yet. Here’s the entire overtime session:

Both Illinois and Penn State both had so many chances to win, or lose this game. They were constantly done in by drops, overthrows, bad execution, and occasionally great defensive plays. This was one of the most infuriating endings I’ve ever seen. I can’t imagine rooting for one of these teams in that game.

Unsurprisingly, USF’s resounding win had an impact on this week’s PYU race. Let’s see which other games did:

That’s a lot of 50-unit or more wins. But here are the eight players who ended this week with a profit:

By late Saturday afternoon, only Briank19 and esmoore were on the positive side, and had used a lot of MAC and Mountain West games to get there. Of course, USF winning and easily covering against Temple made a lot of late winners, but once again there were a lot of Pac-12 parlays. bullsonparade96 continues to mix huge wins and huge losses to stay in the money lead:

And the points lead. bullsonparade96 has won the most units 4 out of 8 weeks, and finished with a loss in the other 4:

Both Defdans and undercoverbull are now out of units, and need to make the Last Chance Bet to continute playing. It is also possible (and actually likely) they will win some units from their preseason futures bets, which they could then use in Bowl Week if they want to. Defdans was supposed to do this last week when he was done to 0.81 units, but made a parlay bet instead. I’ll call it a 19-cent loan and let him make the Last Chance Bet this week if he wants to.

This week’s national attention is on the Big Ten Leaders/Legends/East/whatever it’s called now. Michigan-Michigan State is a battle of national unbeatens, while Ohio State is still unbeaten in Big Ten player, and plays Penn State. The latter game lost some luster when Penn State took its second conference, but they are still a good team that the other contenders must navigate.

The AAC has its own battle of unbeatens, and it doesn’t even involve Cincinnati. SMU is 7-0, 3-0 in conference, and plays on the road at Houston, who is 4-0 in the AAC and has only one non-conference loss to... Texas Tech. Well, that’s disappointing. Cincinnati is 3-0 in league play and travels to Tulane. USF-East Carolina is Thursday night; Navy-Tulsa is Friday night. Central Florida at Temple is the other league game. Memphis is off.