We come into this week with two WR that I am a big fan of no longer being relevant to our DFS lives.
Maryland star WR Dontay Demus JR has indeed been ruled out for the season after his brutal knee injury over a week ago against Iowa and Syracuse WR Taj Harris announced he is leaving Syracuse and entering the transfer portal. This is great news for Taj Harris and sad news for Demus, and sad news for me too as both would have been elite plays this week.
TIER 1 GAMES
- Virginia at Louisville (OU: 69.5, Louisville -2.5)
- Maryland at Ohio State (OU: 71, Ohio State -21) … Maryland star WR Dontay Demus Jr is OUT for the season
- Wake Forest at Syracuse (OU: 585, Wake -6.5) … Trap spot for Wake Forest
- Arkansas at Ole Miss (OU: 66.5, Ole Miss -5.5)
FAVORITE GAMES
Virginia at Louisville
Extremely hard to overlook a game with two Quarterbacks that are surely to gain a ton of ownership and put up a ton of stats today. Neither defense has had much luck slowing down opponents and more specifically they have trouble stopping areas where the opposing QB should shine.
Brennan Armstrong (UVA) has viable WR options to move the Wahoo down the field against a Louisville defense allowing 261 passing yards per game, while Malik Cunningham (UL) is by far our star player to lock in on as a home favorite against a rushing defense giving up almost 200 yards per game on the ground.
They don’t make stacks this easy that often, but when they do, we plug it in and move right along.
Game Stack: Armstrong, Kemp, Cunningham
Arkansas vs Ole Miss
Both these teams were way under expectations as week ago, but now they are facing easier competition and I am not sure how either side figures to have much luck slowing the other down. Arkansas has a decent pass defense allowing just 52.6% completion rate on the season but Matt Corrall in a home game to bounce back his Heisman Hopes (they’re dead, sorry) figures to be a nice contrarian play where people might avoid paying up for him. Not many games on this slate should have the tempo and close back and forth action like this one should
Malik Cunningham – $9,700 (UL) & Brennan Armstrong – $9,200 (UVA)
This is the favorite QB stack duo and the top plays on the slate — if you can afford it. The problem here is that you’ll basically have to take some longshots at RB and hope that the two value QB below do not pan out. But Cunningham really projects to go over 35 points today.
KJ Jefferson – $6,900 (ARK)
Jefferson is not someone I would play naked, but if you combine him with Treylon Burks at WR you can get a great 1-2 punch off the Louisville/UVA game and onto the other very popular game this week.
Garrett Shrader – $6,700 (SYR)
Shrader has taken over the QB job in Syracuse and with a matchup against a poor rush defense this plays out well for what he and the ‘cuse would like to do offensively. His $6700 price tag makes him the primary QB2 option that you can plug in today for a balanced lineup build as he should get close to 20 fantasy points here.
Leddie Brown – $6,900 (WVU)
I keep saying this every week but a guy getting over 15 carries and about 80% of the timeshare if not more most weeks for sub 7k with 150 and 2 TD upside each week is an auto play at this price range.
Tyler Allgeier – $7,800 (BYU)
Strong rushing matchup against Boise, most teams try to run with lots of success against Boise to slow them down and BYU should have that strength going for them at home.
Sean Tucker – $7,200 (SYR)
With Taj Harris out the door there’s temptation to look at Garrett Shrader as a dual threat option at QB for Syracuse given that he has 7 TD on the season, but I lean Sean Tucker as I expect him to see a boost in passing targets out of the backfield.
Kenneth Walker – $8,100 (Mich St)
If not for price KW2 would be right up at the top with Brown.
Treylon Burks – $6,300 (Arkansas)
The Razorbacks do not have a big game today without Burks being involved heavily. His 38% target share in a fast paced game which should have lots of offense in it is too hard to ignore as the top play today.
Jaquarri Roberson – $6,400 (Wake)
Different week, same story. Jaq Roberson is too much of a big play threat who game through last week and should carve up Syracuse in the dome this weekend. Love that this is a late afternoon game as well because normally teams on the road up in Syracuse suck at the noon time spot for whatever reason. I guess its a good party town or something?
Bo Melton – $4,600 (Rutgers)
Melton was very much shutdown by Ohio State last week, however Michigan State is this weeks opponent and they’re a good target yielding 61% completion % a year ago and 67% so far this season. Melton should jump back up in targets to his usual 25% and if they throw even just 25 times that would result in him likely having a 10 point floor today. Not much better value out there than this.
Saturday Morning Update – Oversight on my part is that obviously with Dontay Demus out we have a boost in target % that Rakim Garrett should see for Maryland and he is only $4100 and a safer play than the banged up Bo Melton for Rutgers.
Value WR
Keytaon Thompson (UVA)
Thompson is a borderline CORE play this week and the one I would lean on slightly over Billy Kemp IV from UVA to stack with Armstrong. Thompson ($4,600) is 2400 cheaper and see’s close to the same number of targets each week. He’s a very athletic play who should be involved for UVA.
Jake Ferguson (Wisconsin)
One off Studs
Chris Olave (Ohio State), Jaxon Smith-Njigba (Ohio State)
Maryland’s pass defense is atrocious, which is one the reasons their offense has to do so much work. Olave and Wilson both grade out well this week and I can totally see Ohio State getting Jaxon Smith-Njigba involved more this week.
Johan Dotson (Penn State)
The one thing that he has going for him is that 70%+ of the touchdowns Iowa allows are through the air. But that’s basically because their run defense is so good they dont let anyone score on the ground. Longshot stud play which has to score twice but in a big game on the road he could be called upon more than he normally is.
What a wild slate of College Games today. Play the game with the big 80+ total in the SEC?
DEEPEST POSITION
Quarterback is loaded this week.
VALUE POSITION
Wide Receiver is where I want to find the most value. Mostly because RB is very clear cut and very thin in the choices. Better longshots at WR.
BETS
Ohio State -21
BYU -5.5
Wake vs Syracuse – OVER 58.5
Oklahoma vs Texas – 1H Under
DFS LINEUP REMINDERS
College Football remains a sport you want to focus on a game stack where you can. The Super-Flex position allowing us to pair two Quarterbacks from the same game is often what folks refer to with a game stack but it can actually be done many different ways.
The simplest method that I find to consistently work however is to ensure that my secondary plays in a lineup are also correlated within the same game together. If you are new to College Football DFS and just trying to get your feet settled into a consistent approach then follow this template — which on a slate like today should wind up being the right template.
We will identify three games to our lineup as the core build.
- Game A – Pick 3 players from this game, this will be the premiere game with the QB that we want to lock in on. We will pair that QB with a pass catcher (ideally a WR on the full PPR site of DK) and then run it back on the other side. If you want that run it back to be the other QB then they go into the SFLEX obviously.
- Game B – Pick 2 Flex players, no QB in your second favorite game. Usually for me I find this to be two WR but having a RB stud (often times at home is good here) and then a WR from the other side plays out well.
- Game C – Find your favorite one off RB play and plug them in as RB1. If there is an obvious correlation with this play in the same game then put that player in the FLEX.
You should wind up with a template like this:
| QB | Game A |
| RB 1 | Game C |
| RB 2 | |
| WR 1 | Game A |
| WR 2 | Game B |
| WR 3 | Game B |
| FLEX | Game C |
| S-FLEX | Game A |
The salary for WR2 and WR3 are critical here. You can’t go to a game that has two 7k+ wide receivers and expect this build to work. Often times that’s going to be a 5700 and a 5100 player, but it also could dictate the WR 1 player you took from Game A and if that should be more of a value.
The bottom line here is that we’re focused on three games. We want those three games to have the best tempo and action in them and this lineup should have the most tournament upside. As you are moving along with this, if you find that there is an optimal player who is cheaper and fits better than one of the correlations — then that is where you make the pivot to help with salary.
CORE BUILDS
This is not a week to easily fit in the A, B, C type model but a big reason for that is the A core plays in stacking one game probably should run about 4 or 5 deep with a few of the big games this weekend. Here are the three types of CORES that I would build lineups around.
A – Malik Cunningham, Brennan Armstrong, Keytaon Thompson – Top game stack, can add in Ford from UL to make it a 2&2 build.
B1 – Garrett Shrader & Jaquarri Roberson
B2 – Khalil Shakir & Tyler Alleigier – Studs in a good game.
C – Treylon Burks, Jerrion Ealy – Value in a high scoring game