Another huge Saturday of College Football and DFS are at hand and DraftKings has a lobby full of games to choose from. The two main slates include a bunch of games to dig into, 31 in total. Let’s get right to it, starting with Saturday’s early set of games.
Saturday Early Slate
The action kicks off at 12pm and includes an eye-popping 19 games. That’s a ton of ground to cover, but we’ll go through a quick plan of attack to make it a bit more manageable. Tournament highlights include the $100K Redshirt ($3 entry, $10,000 to 1st) and the $100K Tailgate ($27 entry, $10,000 to 1st). As always, these tournaments will fill so get your lineups in.
So how do we go about attacking a 19-game slate? For starters, we’ll need to go through the list and find the games that really matter. The Vegas lines become our best friend in this situation and we can use it to sort the games into three tiers by projected points. On the low end, we have eight games with a projected O/U of 50 or less. Sounds like some pretty low-scoring games, we’ll want to look at them to see if there are any truly great matchups – i.e. power running team vs. poor rushing defense – but for the most part we can put these games to the side.
Next tier up we have seven games with an O/U of between 51 and 69 ½ points. There could be some quality sources of points in here. We’ll definitely want to spend some time on these games. Finally, we have the really high-scoring games with a total greater than or equal to 70. Four games fit the bill, we definitely want to key in on these games to find some players we can use.
Simply by using the lines we can develop a plan of attack for which games we want to spend the most time on. The lines will vary each week and as such you may want to adjust your cutoff points depending on how the week shapes up. For example, this week we have four games at 70 or greater for an O/U while some weeks we may have none at that level. In that case, the games at or over 60 points is a good baseline to spend some quality time with.
On to the games themselves, let’s find some picks to keep in mind starting with the two highest totals for the early slate:
- Houston @ Tulsa. Houston -7, O/U 81. Houston QB Greg Ward Jr. $8,900.
Ward Jr. is averaging 39.5 points on DraftKings this season. Tulsa is tied for 79th in the nation in passing yards allowed and has surrendered 7 touchdowns through the air so far. To make things even more appealing, Ward Jr. is a dual-threat. Tulsa is even more porous with their rushing defense, ranking 107th with eight touchdowns allowed. All of the above plus an O/U of 81 points to Ward Jr. being a strong play on DraftKings.
- Texas Tech @ Baylor. Baylor -17, O/U 88 ½. Baylor WR Corey Coleman, $7,900.
We saw what TCU WR Josh Doctson did to Texas Tech last week – 18/267/3 for 65.7 points. Coleman is no slouch himself and also had a productive game last week to the tune of 6/100/3 – good for 39.8 points. An O/U of 88 ½ points us to another good old-fashioned Texas shootout. The high-powered offense of Baylor should do plenty of damage and Coleman will be front and center among the fantasy stars of the game.
With 19 games to choose from, there are plenty of other directions we can go to build our lineups. The two selections above are at the higher-end of the salary scale. If we decide to use them, we’ll need to save some salary. Let’s go position by position to find a top play and a value play to keep in mind.
- Cal QB Jared Goff, $8,600. Goff has been on fire to start the season and is averaging 24.3 points per game on DraftKings. One of the higher projected scoring games of the early slate with an O/U of 73 ½. Forecast calls for points and Goff should have a big hand in delivering them.
- Missouri QB Drew Lock, $4,300. I’ll preface this by saying that there is risk with this selection. Lock is making his first career start at home against South Carolina on Saturday. Missouri’s offense has been struggling, but there are those that think Lock just may be the spark that is needed to kick start it. If he knocks it out of the park, he could provide an awesome return for $4,300.
- Oklahoma RB Samaje Perine, $7,800. Perine had an absolutely monster day against West Virginia last season, carrying the ball 34 times for 242 yards and four touchdowns. A repeat performance might be too much to ask for, but he looks like one of the more appealing high-priced running backs of the early slate.
- Texas RB Jonathan Gray, $5,100. Gray faces a TCU team that just allowed Texas Tech running back DeAndre Washington to rush for 188 yards and four touchdowns. Not sure that Gray gets there, but for $5,100 he could provide a ton of value.
- Michigan State WR Aaron Burbridge, $6,400. Burbridge was held in check for the first time all season against CMU last week. A porous Purdue passing defense will probably not have the same success. Look for Burbridge to return to his 100+ yard ways and hopefully find the end zone a couple of times.
- Illinois WR Geronimo Allison, $5,500. Allison is a high-upside wide receiver that is facing the nation’s worst passing defense in Nebraska. He can be a little boom-or-bust, but in this matchup we can expect some boom.
Saturday Late Slate
The late set of games kicks off at 7pm and includes 12 games. The slate originally included the Michigan @ Maryland game which has been moved to an earlier time due to the weather. This game still appears when you’re penciling in your rosters so be sure to be careful not to choose any players from this game. Tournament highlights include the $50K Redshirt ($3 entry, $4,000 to 1st) and the $55K Tailgate ($27 entry, $10,000 to 1st).
The number of games is a little more manageable than for the early slate but we can still apply the same metric of sorting the games into three tiers. We have four games at 50 points or less, four games between 50 ½ and 59 ½ and four at 60 points or greater. Nice even mix, let’s see what we can find, starting with the two of the higher projected totals.
- Oregon @ Colorado. Oregon -7 ½, O/U 70. Oregon RB Royce Freeman, $8,100.
Freeman and the Docks are probably still licking their wounds from the 62-20 pasting at home by Utah last Saturday. One would think that they will want to take some frustrations out and Freeman should play a big part in the festivities. Colorado is middle of the pack against the run and Freeman is averaging 26.5 points on DraftKings.
- Arizona @ Stanford. Stanford -13 ½, O/U 60 ½. Stanford RB Christian McCaffrey $7,100.
McCaffrey receives the privilege of facing an Arizona run defense at home that was just pounded by UCLA to the tune of 213 yards and six touchdowns. Six different ball carriers joined in the fun last week, imagine the possibilities if McCaffrey receives a full workload.
Here are some more players to keep in mind for each position on the late slate:
- Mississippi State QB Dak Prescott, $7,900. This game against Texas A&M could be a great source of fantasy goodness. We have A&M favored by 5 ½-points at home with a total of 63. Give me one of the top quarterbacks in the nation at a reasonable price.
- Mississippi QB Chad Kelly, $6,900. Kelly’s price takes a hit after a dip in performance last week against Vanderbilt. He faces a Florida team that can be tough on defense, but Kelly and the Rebels have too much firepower to be held completely in check. Take Kelly at a discount while you can.
- Tennessee RB Jalen Hurd, $7,000. A little against the grain as Tennessee faces a strong rushing defense in Arkansas. Hurd has rushed for 402 yards and eight touchdowns so far and is coming off of a two touchdown game. Arkansas has not been lighting the world on fire this year, take the running back with high upside that should be under-owned.
- Vanderbilt RB Ralph Webb, $6,000. Webb quietly averages his 19.7 points per game and flies under the radar due to the program he plays for. Middle Tennessee State is decent against the run but can be exposed, grab Webb from under the radar and reap the rewards.
- Texas A&M WR Christian Kirk, $6,300. Kirk saw a small increase in price off of last week’s stellar 8/173/2 performance against Arkansas. The price is still not in line with his potential output and he has a solid shot at 4x value in what could be a shootout with Mississippi State.
- Utah State WR Hunter Sharp, $5,500. Sharp saw his first action of 2015 last week, catching six balls for 74 yards. He is slightly a boom-bust type player, but has the ability to make the booms of thec sonic variety. Our projections like him to be one of the top-scoring wide receivers of the late slate, keep Sharp on your short list of wideouts for the late games.
Thirty-one games can be a lot to manage in one day, but with a solid plan of attack you can approach the day with confidence. Be sure to check out the rest of our College Football content and tools here on Footballguys to help cut your research time down substantially. Best of luck this weekend!
