The College Football regular season is officially winding down but thankfully we have another huge Saturday of wall-to-wall action straight ahead. DraftKings is doing its part to help us close the regular season out in style with a lobby full of games to fit any budget. There’s a ton of ground to cover with 25 games spread across the two main slates. Let’s get right to it, starting with Saturday’s early games.
Early Slate
Saturday’s early slate kicks off at 12pm and includes 15 games. Featured tournaments include the CFB $80K Redshirt and the CFB $70K Tailgate. The Redshirt has a $3 entry fee and a top prize of $5,000, while the Tailgate has a $27 buy-in and a 1st place prize of $10,000.
Projected game totals range from a low of 42 points for Northwestern at Illinois to a high of 72 points for the matchup between SMU and Memphis. Five games hit the sweet spot with projected totals of at least 60 points, we’ll start with those games to start building our lineups.
- Cincinnati @ East Carolina. East Carolina -1 ½, 67 ½.
- Indiana @ Purdue. Indiana -6 ½, 68 ½.
- SMU @ Memphis. Memphis -21 ½, 72.
- UCLA @ USC. USC -3, 62.
- North Carolina @ NC State. North Carolina -5 ½. 65 ½.
The five projected highest-scoring games of the early slate offer up plenty of options, ranging from value plays to high-priced studs. Here’s a player from each game to keep in mind as a potential building block.
- East Carolina QB Blake Kemp, $6,500. Kemp threw for 465 yards and four touchdowns last week against UCF and will face off against a Cincinnati team that was just trounced by USF 65-27. A repeat is probably asking too much, but Kemp should be able to exceed his season long average of 16.0 points.
- Indiana RB Jordan Howard, $7,500. Monitor the news on this one as Howard is dealing with a knee issue that limited his availability last week against Maryland. Assuming all systems are a go, our projections call for him to the top running back of the early slate of games.
- SMU WR Courtland Sutton, $5,400. Sutton has had three down weeks in a row under his belt but will look to get back on track in the projected highest-scoring game of the early slate. He’s averaging 17.7 points per game this season and the game script calls for SMU to air the ball out quite a bit.
- UCLA RB Paul Perkins, $7,100. A tough matchup against USC awaits Perkins and the Bruins, but our projections call for him to finish within shouting distance of his season-long average of 22.4 points. Perkins has found the end zone three times in his past four games and has two 100+ yard rushing performances under his belt over the same period.
- North Carolina QB Marquise Williams, $8,500. Over the past four games, Williams has at least 22.6 points and a monster 47.76 outing to his credit. Look for a floor in the mid-20s but know that the upside is very high.
As we mentioned, there are plenty of value plays from the high-scoring affairs to help balance out your lineups. USC RB Ronald Jones II is averaging 12.8 points per game and comes in at a very reasonable price of $4,900, while East Carolina WR Trevon Brown is also priced at $4,900 and averages 12.3 points per game.
Traveling a little north on the salary scale helps us find Memphis RB Doroland Dorceus at $5,100 for a favorable matchup with SMU and two of the top targets in the Cincinnati passing game – Shaq Washington and Chris Moore, at $5,900 and $5,800 respectively. Here are some more picks to keep in mind from the rest of the early games.
- Purdue QB Austin Appleby, $5,200. Appleby has nice upside at a low price with a matchup against Indiana’s atrocious passing defense on deck. Indiana has allowed 29 touchdowns and an average of 325.9 yards per game through the air.
- West Virginia QB Skyler Howard, $6,900. Howard and the Mountaineers welcome Iowa State to town to close out the regular season. He’s averaging 22.5 points per game and has topped the 25-point mark five times this season.
- Utah RB Joe Williams, $5,300. Williams handled lead back duties for the Utes last week and carried the ball 26 times for 121 yards, good for a cool 21.2 points. He faces off with a Colorado team that struggles against the run and is a good candidate to return 4-5x value.
- Alabama RB Derrick Henry. $9,100. Henry is the most expensive player for the early slate of games, but we like his chances to provide a nice return. He’s squarely in the mix for the Heisman and will look to close out the regular season with a strong performance in the Iron Bowl against Auburn.
- Purdue WR DeAngelo Yancey, $4,100. Yancey is coming in off of a 23.7-point performance and has the privilege of facing off with a poor Indiana defense. An Appleby-Yancey stack looks like an appealing, low-cost option for the early games.
- Colorado WR Nelson Spruce, $6,100. Spruce has broken the 20-point plateau in three of his last four games. He’s averaging 16.8 points per game and our projections call for him to exceed that mark this week against Utah.
Late Slate
The late slate kicks off at 7:15pm and features 10 games. Tournament highlights include the CFB $40K Redshirt and the CFB $30K Tailgate. The Redshirt has a $3 entry fee and a top prize of $3,000, while the Tailgate has a $27 buy-in and a 1st place prize of $3,500.
Game totals range from a low of 43 points for the matchup between in-state rivals Florida State and Florida to a high of 68 ½ for the game between Arizona State and Cal. Only three games have projected totals of at least 60 points, we’ll begin there to find some building blocks for our lineups.
- Ole Miss @ Mississippi State. Ole Miss -1, 64.
- Oklahoma @ Oklahoma State. Oklahoma -7, 68.
- Arizona State @ Cal. Cal -3 ½, 68 ½.
Although there are only three games that are projected to be really high-scoring, they offer several viable options at each position. Here are three of the top selections from these games.
- Mississippi State QB Dak Prescott, $8,400. Prescott was electric last week against Arkansas as he had a hand in seven total touchdowns and scored 57.92 points – the second time in the past four games he has scored 55+ points. The matchup with Ole Miss shapes up to be a close, high-scoring game and should produce plenty of fantasy goodness.
- Oklahoma WR Sterling Shepard, $6,800. Shepard has scored five touchdowns over the past four games and is averaging 32.88 points per game over that span. Our projections call for him to be one of the top-scoring wideouts for the night games.
- Arizona State RB Demario Richard, $7,100. Monitor the news for this one as Richard is questionable for Saturday’s game with Cal. If he’s a go, he should have little trouble returning value against a Cal team that allows 204.6 yards per game on the ground.
Value plays at running back are a little scarce for the high-scoring games, but Chris Carson of Oklahoma State at $3,900 or Jaylen Walton of Ole Miss at $3,700 could be used as GPP fliers and free up a ton of salary cap space. Wide Receiver presents a different story as there are several viable options at a price of less than $6,000, led by DeRunnya Wilson of Mississippi State at $5,700 and Kenny Lawler of Cal at $5,000. For the rest of the games on the late slate, here are some players to keep on your radar.
- Stanford QB Kevin Hogan, $6,600. Hogan brings his 19.6 points per game average into a tough matchup with Notre Dame to close out the regular season. This game projects to be pretty close and relatively high-scoring with Stanford favored by 3 ½ points and a projected total of 56 points.
- Air Force QB Karson Roberts, $6,800. Roberts has back-to-back 25+ pint performances under his belt and faces off with a New Mexico team that has had their struggles on defense. The dual threat has some nice upside at an affordable price.
- Hawaii RB Paul Harris, $6,600. Harris has scored 30+ points in two of his last three outings and will face off with a ULM team that allows 215.9 yards per game on the ground. He has at least 120 yards rushing in each of his last three games and has a great chance to make it four in a row.
- Florida RB Kelvin Taylor, $6,300. Taylor will face off with a Florida State team that can be tough against the run, but in order for Florida to have success in this game they will need a strong performance from him. The Gators passing game has struggled for much of the season and we can expect Taylor to receive a heavy workload.
- Colorado State WR Rashard Higgins, $6,700. Higgins checks in as our top receiver for the night games and has a great chance to exceed his season-long average of 22.1 points. He has eclipsed 100 yards receiving in each of his last two games and will look to make it three in a row against Fresno State.
- Texas A&M WR Christian Kirk, $5,800. The talented freshman has been a little hit-or-miss over the past few weeks but we like him to bounce back nicely against a reeling LSU team. Kirk is averaging 19.6 points per game and has found the end zone six times this season.
That concludes our walkthrough of another huge Saturday of College Football DFS action. 25 games can be a lot to digest, but with a clear plan of attack it becomes much more manageable. Be sure to get your lineups in on time as we can expect the featured tournaments to fill quickly in anticipation of the close of the regular season. Best of luck this weekend!
