Sit down. Week 9 Tailgate, the Halloween slate, twelve games and a pile of hurt quarterbacks. I got the books open and I been through every line twice.
Here’s the short version: our guy found three or four winners nobody else was looking at, and then he put the Play of the Day on a wideout our own model had thirty-fifth. The bets went 1-3. That’s the kind of week where the good stuff and the bad stuff are both real, so we’re gonna go through all of it. That’s the service.
THE GOOD
Thomas Castellanos ($5400 – Texas Tech)
The late update. “A chalky value play.” He threw for 144 and two, ran for 117 and another, 34.5 DK points, second-best quarterback on the whole slate at 6.39 points per thousand. Eleven percent owned, so it wasn’t even that chalky. Castellanos paid. Castellanos paid with interest.
Aidan Chiles ($7100 – Northwestern)
“The cheap quarterback I want in my second lineup.” 22-of-38 for 281 and a score, 14 carries for 93 and another one, 30.5 points, third-best QB on the slate, at 3.82% ownership. The model had him 13th. Our guy had him higher than the model and he was right. That’s a call.
Griffin Wilde ($7200 – Northwestern)
Five catches, 146 yards, a touchdown, 28.6 points, under five percent owned. He said “stack him with Chiles,” and that’s the stack. Fifty-nine points out of two guys nobody was on. A beautiful thing.
Cole Tabb ($7900 – Cincinnati)
Core play RB. 14-131-1 on the ground, three catches for 16, 26.7 points, second-best back on the slate. At 3.82% owned. Lemme tell you something: the model had Tabb 15th among backs. The Tout took a home back on a dog “smelling an upset chance.” No upset, Utah won 49-25, and Tabb ate anyway. Right read on the player even with the wrong read on the game.
Carlos Hernandez ($7300 – Wake Forest)
“My favorite pair on the slate” with Lopez. Hernandez did his half: 8-136-1, 30.6 points, fourth among wideouts. Lopez did about two-thirds of his, which we’ll get to.
Yamir Knight ($4600 – SMU)
Core play. 6-80-1, 20.0 points, 4.35 per thousand. He called Knight “the logical safe play” and then said he was going Smith first. Knight was the one. Smith went 5-95-0 for 14.5, which is fine at $4300, but there were no bombs in the dome.
THE BAD
Makhi Frazier ($4900 – Ole Miss)
“Best salary-saver on the slate and I don’t need to think about it any harder than that.” 17 carries, 56 yards, no score, 6.8 points, at 33.3% ownership. Ole Miss scored 45 and the lead back got none of it. The model had him ninth with a 13.4 projection, so this wasn’t a case of ignoring the numbers. Process was fine. The outcome stunk. Nobody’s getting whacked for Frazier, but the chalk didn’t pay, and that matters when a third of the field had him.
Isaiah Sategna III ($7300 – Oklahoma)
“Pay for him.” One catch for three yards, four carries for 13, 5.6 points. Oklahoma lost a 67-point game and their target hog got one ball. The model had him fourth among wideouts, so again, the article and the model both bought it. Variance, mostly. But 15% owned at $7300 is a debt.
Turbo Richard ($6900 – Indiana)
“Somebody has to carry this thing.” Seven carries, 34 yards, 3.4 points. Indiana won 23-16 and nobody carried anything. Model had him third among backs. Both of us wrong.
Dylan Edwards ($7000 – Kansas)
20-42-0, 6.0 points. He got the volume he was promised and Kansas got nothing out of it in a 22-16 loss. Process fine, outcome nothing.
Reed Harris ($7700 – Arizona State)
One catch, four yards, 1.4 points. Arizona State wasn’t down big at halftime, they covered. The model had him third among wideouts. This one is on the model as much as the Tout.
Gio Lopez ($7800 – Wake Forest)
“Lock him in.” 13-of-21 for 229 and one, 13 carries for 64 and none, 19.6 points. Wake won 51-7, and the quarterback got 19.6 out of it because Ty Clark III ran in three touchdowns. A cash anchor is supposed to anchor. Right team, right game script, wrong guy got the goal-line work.
THE AMAZING
The Northwestern stack. Chiles at 3.82%, Wilde at 4.91%, 59.1 points between them, and he wrote them up as a pair with his own reasoning: Chip Kelly’s quarterback runs, 46% of the targets, a short-handed Oregon secondary. The model had Chiles 13th and Wilde fifth. The Tout went further than the model on the quarterback and nailed it. If you built the second lineup he was describing, you had a shot at everything. What are we doing here? We’re doing that.
THE UGLY
Deuce Alexander, Play of the Day, $8000. One carry for six, five catches for 59, 11.5 points, 1.44 per thousand. Ole Miss scored 45 points and the Play of the Day wasn’t in on any of them.
Here’s the part I gotta say. The model had Alexander 35th among wideouts, rating 44.2. Thirty-fifth. Our guy wrote that “Ole Miss is going to let Trinidad Chambliss make this a standout game” and told you to route your Ole Miss exposure through Deuce instead of paying for Chambliss. Chambliss went for 30.0, fourth-best QB on the slate. The read on the game was right and the player chosen to express it was the one the numbers liked least. Then the Singleton run-back went 3-2-0 for 3.2. That’s a process miss, not a bad beat, and it was the headline play. I’m putting it on the books.
THE MODEL
Plain talk. The model had a mixed day. Quarterback projection ranked the position reasonably (rho 0.50 on projection), but the top-ten rated QBs averaged 18.4 against a 21.8 projection, with Bachmeier (#2, 13.9) and Byrum Brown (#4, 17.3) dragging it down. Dampier, the #1 rated QB, went 25.9: three touchdowns, a pick, sixth at the position. Fine, not special.
Running back was where it hurt. Top-ten rated backs averaged 11.2 against a 16.3 projection. Parker (#1) went 18.9 at 34.4% owned, Raphael (#2) 19.4 at 27.1%, Richard (#3) 3.4. Meanwhile the backs who actually won the slate were JKoby Williams (#5, 28.6, 2.74% owned), Cardae Mack (#29, 25.0), Daniel Bray (#42, 23.1), Ty Clark III (#12, 22.8 on three touchdowns) and Brandon Smith (#73, 21.4). The article never mentioned one of them. To be fair, neither did the model, outside of Williams.
Wide receiver was the model’s good position. The top-ten rated averaged 17.2 against 14.4 projected. Charlie Becker (#1, 31.9) and Dakorien Moore (#6, 33.8) both hit, and both were in games the article waved off. “Minnesota at Indiana? No, thanks.” Becker went 8-149-1. “Oregon has no receivers left.” Moore went 7-128-2. Those are the two places the model saw something and the article didn’t. The model also had its own stinkers at the position: Hatcher (#2, 12.5), Harris (#3, 1.4), Sategna (#4, 5.6).
The slate’s biggest winners nobody wrote up: LaNorris Sellers, 46.6 points, #1 QB on the slate, rated 16th by us and 3.3% owned. Isaiah Mizell, 34.2, #1 wideout, rated 15th. Cam Pickett, 30.3 at $5000, rated 32nd. Dylan Raiola, 28.4, rated 20th. DaShawn Martin of Virginia, 29.9, rated 31st, from the game the Tout said “anything Virginia? No, thanks” about. Nobody saw those. Not the model, not the Tout. That’s the slate.
THE BETS
He told you up front it was “a weird early slate for bets” and “probably a good teaser slate.” He was right about that, and then he bet four sides anyway.
- Ole Miss -11.5: 45-15. Cashed by 18 and a half. Clean.
- SMU -10.5: SMU lost 30-27 outright. Lost the spread, lost the ML, and the “constant points every drive” game got 57 total. The whole game preview was built on SMU controlling it from the first drive. They didn’t.
- Kansas / TCU OVER 45.5: 22-16, 38 points. Lost by a touchdown and change.
- Northwestern +3.5: lost 34-26. Lost by eight. Right stack, wrong side.
1-3. The Ole Miss number was the only one with real conviction in the writeup and it was the one that hit. The other three were exactly what he said they were: a weird slate with no game standing out. When you say that, bet one, not four.
The agents went 1-1 on the day. Hannah had FSU -5.5 and Clemson won outright 36-24. Pablo had Florida-Georgia UNDER 56.5 and got 35 points. Pablo got paid.
THE VERDICT
Grade: C+
The good was genuinely good. Castellanos, Chiles, Wilde, Tabb, Hernandez, Knight: six real hits, four of them under five percent owned, two of them better than the model’s own read. That’s the part worth keeping.
The bad was the headline. The Play of the Day was a player the model had 35th, the SMU game preview was wrong from the first drive, and the bets went 1-3 on a slate he told you not to bet. Next week: when the model and the gut disagree on the headline play, write down why before you print it. And when you call it a teaser slate, tease.
Books are closed. Capisce? Same desk next week.