We are heading into Week 8 of the CFB DFS season after the best week college football has had to offer this season. In terms of my purposes here, Week 7 was a bit of a mixed bag of results but an overall successful one in terms of value.
Miami pass catchers provided an outstanding ROI no matter how you played them. The Texas offense still remains below their fair market rate (besides B-Rob) after another three-TD performance from quarterback Quinn Ewers.
On the flip side, I reluctantly and foolishly talked myself into a Wisconsin passing game for the afternoon contest. It wasn’t a complete bust, but the upside I thought was there never had a chance to be reached. And, I completely forgot to say “Jalin Hyatt no matter what” to my lineups during the day.
In the evening, everything played out swimmingly except whatever that trash performance was from Notre Dame. I would love to say I’m done trying to figure them out, but they have another soft matchup/price combo this week. I can already feel my thumbs all over Michael Mayer at his price. Did that sound as creepy as I think? Splendid! Onto the plan for this week!
As always, the purpose of every post I make here is to attempt to identify value for any particular slate. I am never going to offer the most expensive, obvious, and essentially best players as my “suggestions” or “picks” for a slate. I’m trying to point out options that could help you afford those players and/or options that I believe could provide similar results at a cheaper price based on logic and statistical evidence. That said, let’s talk about some of my favorite plays for the Week 8 Saturday slates!
Tyjae Spears | RB | Tulane $5,700
At this point in the season, roles and pecking orders are usually established for most depth charts. And accordingly, so are DFS prices. That’s why it’s critical to find value in the mid-range where certain players have the right recipe on paper that their upside is capable of competing with the top dogs at their position. Especially at running back where it can be very challenging to find what guys like B-Rob and TreVeyon Henderson have to offer on paper at discounted prices.
That’s why I love someone like Spears for this slate. He has the clear RB1 bell cow role, catches passed, a solid matchup, and a proven track record of displaying YUGE upside given the right circumstances. With all those boxes checked on paper, the Louisiana native is an excellent pivot if you are looking to save some cap space at the running back position. For similar reasons, I also believe Cincinnati’s Charles McClelland is a great mid-range candidate that has a ceiling to compete with the higher-priced tailbacks in the slate.
Monitor Or Send It?
The LSU offense continues to be all over the place. After looking barely functional against Tennessee in Week 6, they lit up Florida last Saturday night for 45 points and 500 plus total yards behind quarterback Jayden Daniel’s monster six-touchdown night. Another note from this game was that all-world receiver Kayshon Boutte is starting to look like he and Daniels are forming a stronger connection after recording back-to-back six reception games, and a season-high 115 yards against Florida. He’s still severely mispriced in the low 5k range given what he’s capable of and will be a full send in their matchup with Ole Miss where the over/under approaches 70 points.
At the running back position, it’s somewhat comical that their lead back the last three games, Josh Williams, remains at the contest minimum price this week. However, the speculation that early season starter, Armoni Goodwin, is on track to play Saturday creates a fair amount of uncertainty on how touches will play out against the Rebels. If Goodwin is a go, I’d expect at least three tailbacks to see work with John Emery Jr. getting in the mix along with the aforementioned Williams. That probably has me leaning in the monitor direction for this week, but the matchup and price combo are very enticing, and I could absolutely see solid DFS upside from this backfield. Official position: Goodwin out–Williams is a full send. Goodwin plays–only Williams or Goodwin would be playable in my mind and I’ll probably be sending it on one because of the Vegas projection.
Over in Waco, Baylor wideout Gavin Holmes out of nowhere popped off with a gaudy 7-210-1 line in last week’s shootout loss to West Virginia. I’m not into paying for last week’s stats, and that performance is unlikely to ever be replicated. But, this is at least someone to have on our radars this week to see what Holmes can do in another soft matchup with Kansas at home. His three touchdowns in five 2022 games is equal to the number he has scored in his previous 13 career games across two other seasons. Even if he can’t produce as he did against the Mountaineers, he’s shown this season that he’s a good bet against the Jayhawks at a sub-5k price. It’s not a full send, but I’ll be interested to see what Holmes can do for an encore.
Night Contest
As tempting as it will be to bookend both quarterbacks for Texas A&M and Alabama in the same lineup after watching last week, there is a slightly less expensive duo that offers arguably a higher ceiling. The UCF Knights are projected as five-point favorites on the road at East Carolina with a total that will likely be up towards 70 Saturday night.
UCF quarterback John Rhys Plumlee has been a revelation in Gus Malzahn’s offense and has provided one of the highest DFS floors of any player this season, mostly due to his running ability. On the other side, the big southpaw QB Holton Ahlers has always had a penchant for putting up big numbers since he arrived at Greenville in 2018. Having both of these quarterbacks rostered in a game that projects to be a back-and-forth shootout over the SEC QB duo will be preferable for my fantasy life Saturday night. I would also make the case that an Ahlers, Keaton Mitchell, Isaiah Winstead stack has just as much upside and reliability as any in this slate.
A couple of nice building block pieces to help make the UCF/ECU players affordable are Texas A&M receivers Evan Stewart and Moose Muhammad III in the low 4k price range. With star Swiss Army knife Ainias Smith out for the season, these two are now the clear top targets for quarterback Haynes King moving forward. Muhammad has recorded six grabs and one score in each of the last two games. Meanwhile, the highly recruited true freshman Stewart has at least five catches in 4/5 games this season and is coming off his single-game highs for catches (8) and yards (108) in their close loss to Alabama two weeks ago. Both should have enough volume with four full quarters of normal game flow as slight favorites at South Carolina Saturday night to return value with legit upside to outperform their prices.
If you’re looking for a super deep cut to provide some major salary cap relief, consider fellow Aggie freshmen Chris Marshall at receiver and tight end Donovan Green, both at the contest minimum price. Since Smith’s injury, they have been operating as the 3-3A options in the passing game. Marshall is also a 5-star recruit like Stewart, while Green comes in highly touted in his own right as a 4-star prospect with offers from most top tier programs, including Alabama. Both should at least be safe with 2-3 catch floors in their now elevated roles sans Smith.
Also, give TCU tight end Jared Wiley a look as a dart throw. He only has seven catches on the season, but three have gone for touchdowns.
Good luck in Week 8! Follow me on Twitter @realBobbyAdcock compliments and insults are always appreciated.
