NCAAF
College Football Market Share Report: Week 9
Jahan Dotson continues to see a boatload of targets for Penn State, and they will need him against Ohio State's beatable pass defense. Who else's workload stands out entering the college football weekend?

Since many of the 2018 law changes that marked the return of college football daily fantasy, it has been quickly growing. After all, more individuals watched the 2020 National Championship Game than any other non-NFL sporting event.

With so many eyeballs on the games, and some monster statistics put up by the elite players in the sport, it is natural for many to gravitate to playing daily fantasy instead of traditional betting. FanDuel offers college football contests each weekend, which can include Thursday, Friday, and Saturday main slates -- depending on game volume.

College football is a unique challenge for DFS, as a lot of necessary information is not easily found. Often, injury news is reported through the schools themselves and newspaper beat reporters. It can also be particularly difficult to find accurate information on which players are on the field, who has the best usage, and where inefficiencies in the salary cap model may reside.

The latter point is the premise for this piece, which in addition to numberFire's betting guides and daily fantasy helpers, is designed to help you find out which college football players are on the field and seeing work.

With that in mind, let's examine the market shares for players on Saturday's main slate on FanDuel.

Note: Players with fewer than 10 pass attempts, 10 rushing attempts, and 5 targets in the previous week will not be featured but may still be viable in daily fantasy formats. For players returning from off weeks, previous reports will contain their most recent sample. All stats are from PFF.com.

Quarterbacks

Player Team
Name
Week
8
ATT
2021
ATT/G
2021
YPA
Rush
ATT/G
Rush
YDS/G
Will Rogers MSST 56 56.7 6.34 0.7 8.0
Devin Leary NCST 42 35.9 7.35 1.1 6.1
Kenny Pickett PITT 39 34.7 9.19 3.0 35.7
Sean Clifford PSU 34 30.4 7.75 2.4 31.6
Tyler Van Dyke MIA 33 24.2 8.78 2.0 23.6
Aidan O'Connell PUR 32 28.5 7.70 0.3 2.0
Skylar Thompson KSU 30 22.6 9.49 2.6 14.8
Jack Coan ND 28 27.0 7.39 1.6 6.4
C.J. Stroud OSU 28 30.8 10.62 0.8 10.0
Cade McNamara MICH 27 21.0 7.58 2.1 1.3
Max Duggan TCU 26 24.7 9.16 6.1 44.6
D.J. Uiagalelei CLEM 25 28.7 5.49 6.9 41.9
Matt Corral MISS 24 30.6 8.95 7.3 81.1
Caleb Williams OU 21 16.0 9.84 3.8 62.8
Henry Colombi TTU 18 23.0 8.80 1.7 20.7
Malik Cunningham LOU 17 29.1 8.26 8.7 77.1
Jordan Travis FSU 10 13.8 7.66 5.7 67.0


Surely, Caleb Williams ($11,800) cannot be worth his lofty salary again with only 21 pass attempts, right? Wrong. Williams found his usual magic in the second half last week against Kansas and notched a third straight week with a long touchdown run. That just appears to be in the cards for the Sooners freshman, who is averaging 62.8 rushing yards per game. Normally, his passing volume would be concerning, but Texas Tech is 84th in the country against the rush and just fired their coach. He likely delivers a solid week as a 19.5-point favorite.

On the other side of that game, Henry Colombi ($7,400) might be a perfect buy-low candidate. Colombi only has 20 and 18 pass attempts the past two weeks against Kansas and Kansas State, respectively, but those were in positive game scripts for much of the day. Colombi may revert closer back to his Week 6 total where he chucked it 41 times trailing Texas Christian. Oklahoma is ranked a putrid 121st against the pass, so the openings for Colombi and his deep receiving corps should be present.

A total cross-off this week -- and it should have been this way all year -- is DJ Uiagalelei ($7,000). Normally, there would be a reason to target a weak Florida State secondary, but Uiagalelei was limited to 25 attempts before being benched in favor of Taisun Phommachanh ($6,500). Even in a good matchup, this situation is too volatile to trust either quarterback, but Justyn Ross ($6,600) is still a fine way to access Clemson on Saturday; he saw nine targets spread between the two passers.

Running Backs

Player Team
Name
WEEK
8
RUSH
ATT
2021
RUSH/G
2021
RUSH
SHARE
WEEK
8
TGT
2021
TGT
SHARE
Chez Mellusi WIS 27 19.9 45.6% 1 6.1%
Kyren Williams ND 25 17.3 57.9% 6 12.0%
Kennedy Brooks OU 23 15.1 50.2% 1 1.6%
Hassan Haskins MICH 23 17.7 38.9% 0 1.9%
Jaylan Knighton MIA 21 17.7 26.6% 6 4.1%
Blake Corum MICH 19 16.6 36.4% 4 12.8%
Zach Evans TCU 18 15.3 37.1% 3 7.1%
Snoop Conner MISS 14 9.4 22.9% 0 4.3%
Deuce Vaughn KSU 14 17.3 54.3% 7 24.1%
Trevion Cooley LOU 13 6.7 16.4% 1 2.6%
Jerrion Ealy MISS 12 9.8 20.5% 1 6.3%
Vincent Davis PITT 12 11.3 32.5% 4 6.5%
Jashaun Corbin FSU 11 12.3 38.6% 0 11.6%
Jalen Mitchell LOU 11 13.7 39.3% 0 3.1%
Evan Pryor OSU 11 5.3 9.8% 2 0.9%
R. Hammond Jr. PITT 11 10.5 17.3% 0 1.2%
Braelon Allen WIS 11 11.2 18.4% 1 1.4%
Noah Cain PSU 11 11.1 39.4% 2 6.3%
Henry Parrish Jr. MISS 10 10.6 25.7% 2 9.2%
Will Shipley CLEM 10 10.8 26.2% 2 3.3%
S. Thompson TTU 10 12.2 30.7% 1 2.8%


Thank goodness for Auburn's stout rush defense. The Mississippi backfield situation is chaos, and the matchup means we likely don't have to deal with it. Ole Miss's lead back -- by volume -- was Snoop Conner ($7,000) with 14 carries, and he is theoretically their goal-line back, as well. However, he didn't score, but Jerrion Ealy ($6,100) and Henry Parrish Jr. ($6,200) did on their 12 and 11 carries, respectively. Parrish Jr. also saw two targets, Ealy saw one, and Conner saw zero. This is an offense folks love to target in DFS, but there are nothing but oxford blue darts in the backfield behind Matt Corral ($10,600).

Kyren Williams ($9,300) has waved goodbye to his Notre Dame backfield mates. After a nearly even carry split in Week 4 against Purdue with Chris Tyree ($5,300), the backfield is his with Tyree fighting a toe injury. Logan Diggs ($4,400) only handled three carries last week, too. Williams was already trending ahead of Tyree before the injury, and Diggs appears to be a non-factor. He now carries last week's 61% rush share into a matchup with North Carolina. UNC has struggled in their past three games against the run; they've ceded 175 rushing yards on average in that span.

The surprisingly fun offense of the Miami (FL) Hurricanes not only includes a volume passer and star receiver, but Jaylen Knighton ($8,500) had one of the best roles of any back in college football last week. Knighton added 6 targets to 21 carries in their upset of North Carolina State, and that likely continues moving forward, as Manny Diaz wants to keep the workload off freshman quarterback Tyler Van Dyke ($7,800) as much as possible. Knighton's pass-game work is helpful to overcome a matchup against Pitt, who is 19th-best in the country in terms of rushing yards per game allowed.

Wide Recievers

Player TEAM
NAME
WEEK
7
TGT
WEEK
7
TGT
SHARE
TGT/G 2021
TGT
SHARE
2021
REC
YDS
SHARE
Jahan DotsonPSU1341.9%11.034.5%31.8%
Payne DurhamPUR1028.6%7.315.4%15.1%
David BellPUR1028.6%10.021.0%31.7%
Quentin JohnstonTCU1040.0%7.225.4%28.2%
Beaux CollinsCLEM1031.3%4.210.0%7.2%
Dontario DrummondMISS937.5%6.923.2%31.8%
Charleston RamboMIA929.0%8.925.6%27.9%
Justyn RossCLEM928.1%7.926.1%28.0%
Garrett WilsonOSU821.6%8.125.6%24.5%
Thayer ThomasNCST821.1%5.916.9%20.5%
Makai PolkMSST711.9%11.020.1%21.3%
Kevin Austin Jr.ND725.0%6.620.4%19.4%
Jordan AddisonPITT719.4%7.922.4%27.5%
Erick AllMICH618.8%3.013.5%11.8%
Jaxon Smith-NjigbaOSU616.2%5.617.5%22.4%
Cornelius JohnsonMICH618.8%4.319.2%23.5%
Phillip BrooksKSU620.7%5.121.7%22.3%
Jaden WalleyMSST610.2%5.710.4%13.1%
Parker WashingtonPSU619.4%5.918.4%21.1%
Devin CarterNCST615.8%5.114.9%17.3%
Mike SainristilMICH618.8%2.810.9%11.0%
Michael MayerND621.4%8.723.1%22.5%
Rara ThomasMSST610.2%3.33.4%4.3%
Christian FordMSST58.5%4.34.4%5.5%
Jeremy RuckertOSU513.5%3.79.9%7.5%
Marshon FordLOU529.4%5.921.0%17.9%
Lideatrick GriffinMSST58.5%3.05.5%5.8%
Porter RooksNCST513.2%2.77.9%9.2%
Landry WeberKSU517.2%3.09.0%11.3%
Emeka EmezieNCST513.2%7.120.7%24.1%


Josh Downs ($9,800) had a bye week last week for UNC, so the top target share of the week amongst main slate teams belonged to Penn State's Jahan Dotson ($8,500). Dotson continues to get peppered with targets, as he has seen 30 in just the past two weeks. Dotson has seen double-digit targets in five of his seven games, and that likely doesn't change this weekend. The path to least resistance against Ohio State is through the air. The Buckeyes are just 67th in passing yards allowed despite a fairly weak quarterback schedule.

Notice a team missing completely? There are no Oklahoma receivers on the board because not a single one earned more than four targets last week against Kansas. That was Jadon Haselwood ($6,500), but the larger takeaway is that stacking the Sooners at the moment appears to be limited to just Caleb Williams and Kennedy Brooks ($9,200). Game stacks can still be formulated in that one, however, as Texas Tech is fairly concentrated with their wideouts. Both Erik Ezukanama ($7,500) and Kaylon Geiger Sr. ($6,800) have a 19.0% target share or better.

An interesting value one-off in a bad game could be Cornelius Johnson ($6,300) of Michigan. The Wolverines let Cade McNamara ($6,000) air it out quite a bit more than his salary would indicate. He had 27 pass attempts against Northwestern in a game they controlled, and 6 of those passes were in the direction of Johnson. Johnson has a passable 19.2% target share on the season, but this matchup is divine. Michigan State has allowed the fourth-most passing yards per game in the entire country.

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