College Football Daily Fantasy Helper: Saturday 9/5/15
If you haven't played daily fantasy college football yet, you're missing out. The NFL's version is obviously a lot of fun, too, but college football has interesting dynamics that come into play with so many different styles of offenses being thrown on the field each weekend.
And it's especially fun if you're a big college football fanatic. If that's the case (or if you just wanna spice up your daily fantasy life), hop over to FanDuel.com and enter a few contests for Saturday's slate of games.
If you're new to the game, that's perfectly fine. I'm here to give you some suggestions for each position.
To help, I'll be using our in-house college football projections, which produce team-based statistics based on our algorithms. This type of approach is logical, as the basic principles of any daily fantasy sport are to target high point projections and teams that are supposed to perform well offensively.
So without further ado, let's take a look at some of the players who should be heavily involved this weekend based on our team projections.
Top Quarterbacks
Joshua Dobbs, Tennessee ($10,000)
Tennessee takes on Bowling Green at home, and are 20.5-point favorites. The Vols finished 30th in our power rankings a year ago, and Dobbs is a big reason why. The dual-threat quarterback gave the Tennessee offense a much needed jumpstart at the end of the 2014 season -- in six games, Dobbs accounted for 201 passing yards per game (on a completion percentage of 63.3%) and 9 passing touchdowns. Add in his 4.5 yards per carry, 78.1 rushing yards per game and 9 rushing touchdowns, and you have an elite fantasy quarterback. This is especially true in this matchup, as Bowling Green finished in the middle of the pack last year in both adjusted passing and rushing yards per attempt this past season. If you want to pay up for big points, Dobbs is your guy.
Jaquez Johnson, Florida Atlantic ($8,200)
If you want to go a little cheaper at quarterback, there's a dual-threat signal-caller in your price range, too. Jaquez Johnson isn't the biggest name (seeing as he plays for Florida Atlantic), and he didn't put up huge numbers a year ago (17 passing touchdowns, 7 rushing touchdowns). However, he's playing against Tulsa, the seventh-worst rush defense and third-worst pass defense from a year ago. According to our projections, this game is one to target a player like Johnson because we have it pegged as a shootout. We project Florida Atlantic to score more than 30 points. Seeing as we have FAU projected for over 400 total yards of offense you should take advantage of Johnson's huge part in that.
Top Running Backs
Ray Lawry, Old Dominion ($9,900)
Some of you may be saying, "Who in the world is Ray Lawry?" And, of course, I can see all the reasons why. Old Dominion, Conference USA, a 6-6 record and he was just a freshman in 2014. But you should get to know him. Lawry tore up Conference USA last year as he rushed for 947 yards on a 7.1 yard average while tallying 16 touchdowns in just 12 games. I don't see any reason why Lawry won't get into the endzone and rack up the yards against an Eastern Michigan squad that allowed 5.18 adjusted yards per rush. Our numbers agree. We project the Monarchs to rush for 169 yards, so Lawry could very well match Chubb's output at a $1,000 discount.
Sony Michel, Georgia ($6,500)
Nick Chubb ($10,900) is the obvious number-one play of the night. His backup, Sony Michel, could be a premier play at his price point too. The Georgia run game was nearly unstoppable in 2014 as Chubb and Michel rushed for nearly 2,000 yards and 19 touchdowns between them. The Louisiana-Monroe rushing defense wasn't all that bad a year ago, giving up just 4.12 adjusted yards per rush -- but this game is headed for a blowout. The Bulldogs are favored by 36 points, and we project them to score 48 points and rush for a total of 239 yards. I'd expect Michel to get about 10 carries, but no matter. He averaged 6.4 yards a carry a year ago and scored five touchdowns in the three games he got double-digit touches. You do the math.
Top Wide Receivers
D'haquille Williams, Auburn ($7,500)
The one they call "Duke" pulled in just 45 receptions a year ago. Nothing worth $7,500 of your cap right? That assumption would be wrong. Williams played in just 10 games last year, contributing 73 yards on 4.5 receptions per game. He was a key to Auburn's third-best passing yards per attempt (10.19) in 2014. That was in large part with the departed Nick Marshall at quarterback. Jeremy Johnson now takes the reins for the Tigers, and he's much more of a passer than Marshall ever was. As a result, we project Auburn to pass for 225 yards and rack up 20.85 first downs. And in a game against Arkansas last year Johnson completed 12 passes with nine of them going to Williams for a total of 154 yards and a touchdown. That could be a sign of things to come for the duo.
Roger Lewis, Bowling Green ($6,200)
Tennessee has just a middle of the road pass defense so that's not a reason to target them here (5.58 adjusted yards per play allowed in 2014). The reason you want to put Lewis in your lineup is opportunity. He secured 73 catches for over 1,000 yards and 7 touchdowns in his freshman year. Lewis is the number-one guy on a team that averaged nearly 260 yards passing. The fact that Ronnie Moore will miss the first half of the game due to suspension is just an added bonus. I gotta have him in my lineups.
Top Tight End
Hunter Henry, Arkansas ($2,800)
Now, in college football, much like NFL DFS, you often want to punt the tight end position and hope for a lucky touchdown at best. But rather than simply streaming a tight end against a bad pass defense you want to look for teams that either pass a ton or use their tight ends more than your average college football team. Arkansas is of the latter.
Last year, Hunter Henry averaged over 3 receptions per game and totaled over 500 yards on the season. UTEP is in the bottom half of our rankings in adjusted yards allowed per pass play and we project the Hogs to score 45.85 points in this game with 224.68 yards coming through the air. So, Henry could be a very valuable play. He's done it before. He had games of 17.7 and 14.5 FanDuel points a year ago. High upside at a low cost? Sign me up.
