Welcome to what is normally the most wonderful time of the year. When we have endless days of College Sports to watch and nothing else really to do besides drink coffee, beer, eat and grumble at the Amazon guy who is delivering shit non stop. Sadly with COVID we’re gonna have far fewer Bowl games but we do have a four game slate so lets gamble all our future Christmas’ away.
The conference championship games today are as follows:
Conference USA Championship Game @ Marshall
7:00 pm: UAB at Marshall (-5.5) with a low OU of 42
MAC Championship Game @ Ford Field in Detroit, MI
7:30 pm: Ball State vs Buffalo (-13.5) with a MAC friendly OU of 67.5
PAC-12 Championship Game @ USC
8:00 pm: Oregon at USC (-3) with a nice OU of 64
And then we have a random Big 10 game added to the slate to replace the canceled Purdue game.
7:30 pm: Nebraska (-6.5) at Rutgers with a moderate OU of 54
QUARTERBACKS
I think it’s a spot where we just game stack QB from one of the two higher projected games and move on. If you get creative you would take 1 QB from each game.
Kyle Vantrease – Buffalo – $6,300 & Drew Plitt – Ball State – $7,600
Statistically Vantrease has a great matchup in the passing game given that Ball State allowed 284 yards per game and a 66% completion percentage on the season while also giving up 57% touchdowns through the air. A lot of that is the MAC division they were in but we’re also drawing a way to maybe leverage off Patterson with a Vantrease-Nunn correlation. Or just play all three. But logically Drew Plitt with a better depth at WR makes a ton of sense here too. Plitt’s considered the more talented QB and playing up in the Ford Field Dome smells like a nice spot for a four touchdown day from Plitt.
Tyler Shough – Oregon – $7,800 & Kedon Slovis – USC – $8,000
Just look at the prices and you can see that these two are probably slightly less owned than the two above. But they’re two that you should logically play together. Shough should be able to move the ball via the ground and his rushing ability makes him a strong play at his price. Slovis needs little mention as he throws the ball so much and has 3 very good WR that can make it work here. You are basically playing Slovis or Plitt IMO.
RUNNING BACKS
Jaret Patterson – Buffalo – $10,000
The best game on paper is the MAC Championship game which obviously should feature some scoring given the quality (or lack there of) of defense in the MAC, but also the benefit of playing in a Domed environment. Buffalo’s stud RB Jaret Patterson needs very little introduction, it’s a matter of how much you want to spend on him on this slate and at $10,000 it’s not really a matter of asking if he hits value as much as will anyone come close to touching him.
CJ Verdell – Oregon – $4,200
Two things that Oregon has going for them in this game are that they should be able to run the football and logically that is the best approach to slowing down the USC Passing attack. The good news with Verdell is that he’s the clear #1 RB getting 13+ carries per game at over 4.3 ypc on the season and is only $4,200. The bad news is that he’s gotta contend with his dual threat QB Tyler Shough for carries. Plus, although the Trojans have given up damage on the ground they have only given up 29% of opponents TD’s on the ground. Mostly because they’ve been forcing teams to pass late in games. But his price is cheap and really pairs well with a Patterson lineup.
Brenden Knox – Marshall – $6,100
Really like Knox even in a low scoring game. At home for the Championship and with cold weather they should lean on their stud back well over 20 times and if he gets 100 yards alone he can hit 2x and give you a considerable savings off Patterson
Also consider: Nobody else, either roll 2 RB or play the 3 RB above. That’s it.
WIDE RECEIVERS
Antonio Nunn – Buffalo – $5,000
We have a spot where Buffalo is going to be able to pass the ball easier than they did in the regular season. And for only $5,000 we get a very good Senior WR in Antonio Nunn who will see > 30% of the teams targets and should hit double digits. He is a must play.
Justin Hall – Ball State – $7,200
Hall is clearly the best WR on Ball State, but they do spread it around to two other guys in Antwan Davis (possession type guy) and YoHeinz Tyler (had 6 touchdowns this year). All three are in play in the game I kind of prefer to stack over the Pac 12 spot.
Tyler Vaughns – USC – $5,900
There’s a couple ways to play the USC WR this week and I’ll touch on that below, but if we want to highlight one that I think is a must own its Vaughns who saw 14 targets last game, has seen 20% total on the season and is going to get a better DB matchup than St. Brown and London.
WanDale Robinson – NEB – $6,400
The Nebraska QB situation is a complete dumpster fire in my mind and Robinson could take a hit with either QB likely running it themselves, but none the less Robinson should see enough targets that he easily gets a good value score on DraftKings as they get him the ball many different ways. With Rutgers not being good at doing much I will take the best option on the Nebraska offense and move on.
VALUE (Under 5k)
- Myron Mitchell (UAB) – This is a sub 5% owned play in the lowest total game on the board. But given that it’s a 3 game slate I think this is a logical dart to consider. I do expect UAB to have some air game success just not at an extreme volume today. Mitchell is the team leader in the passing game and would be a dart to consider.
- Jaylon Redd (Oregon)
- Antwan Davis (Ball State)
- Zac Lefebvre (Buffalo) – When Vantrease has good passing games he has to get production from his TE. He’s the cheapest value play on the board.
Lineup Thoughts
- Play 2 Quarterbacks
- If you go without Patterson I would strongly lean going St. Brown, Nunn and Hall as your WR. Take the best 3.
- This slate comes down to identifying the proper #3 WR who gets 2 Touchdowns.