CFB FFwd/Rew Week 1
My oh my, it’s that time of year again. Time to fire up the BBQ pit and fill the fridge with plenty of beers on Saturday. Time to prop the feet up, put on the alumni T-shirt with holes in it and watch some freaking college football. But before you watch the games, you need to make your lineups. Rotogrinders will now be your one stop shop for all the information you need. If there is a value play or a stud, an injury or a coaching change, then you’re probably going to find it here. Every Wednesday I’ll be dropping a weekly article for you detailing some games on Saturday that I had the pleasure to watch. I’ll translate that information into next week’s match-up to get some insight on what may happen. Beyond stats and numbers, I do more research by just observing when it comes to football. This week there are obviously no games to review, so I’ll take the time today to run through some games that will be heavily watched in the Daily Fantasy CFB community this week.
Thursday Games
North Carolina at No. 6 South Carolina
The first game off the board in the 2013 season is a battle of Carolinas. This could prove to be a very interesting game and one that many people seem to be playing in the early set match-ups. Some important information relating to this game that I have come across is things like the following;
Jadeveon Clowney, the all everything future #1 NFL pick has battled some injuries leading up to this game. If he is out then the SC defense takes a severe hit. He makes that defense good. Without him the UNC passing game will be in play against a secondary that could be exposed if it doesn’t have that pass rush.
Gio Bernard, the current Cincinnati Bengal and former UNC stud is no longer on the team and the starting job appears to now belong to nifty runner Romar Morris. Morris beat out AJ Blue for the starting gig according to sources and he is a cheap play on most sites.
On the other sideline there is also a new starting RB. Gone is the phenomenal, but often injured, Marcus Lattimore and earning the starters role is Mike Davis. This UNC defense had a ton of trouble last year stopping people. Davis seems to be a minimum price on numerous sites. There is value to be had here, but be careful of Connor Shaw. Shaw is also a very explosive runner and will often dominate carries for this SC team.
Perhaps the best fantasy players in this game are the 2 QB’s. Previously mentioned Connor Shaw is a threat to throw for 200+ yards with a couple scores as well as run for 100+ yards a couple of TD’s. Bryn Renner is the UNC QB. This is a very good pocket passer. Renner is actually good enough and in a pass happy enough system to be elite if things break right for him. This is his second year in this system under Larry Fedora and for a college QB that is huge. Just look at the dramatic improvement last year that Geno Smith made in his second year under a pass happy head coach. At this point I’m leaning towards not playing Renner though, due to the match-up. However we will know by tip off about the status of Clowney, and if he is out then UNC is in play in this one.
Saturdays Games
Rice at No. 7 Texas A&M
Here is one of the bigger questions heading into the 2013 CFB season; will Johnny Manziel play. As I have stated in the forums before, I believe he is going to play as normal throughout this season unless the NCAA steps in and suspends him. Texas A&M has no intention of taking him off the field. They want the publicity that comes with him being out there. They want a crack to run the tables or go 1 loss and make the title game. Seeing as how slow the NCAA is to pass judgments like this, I would say it’s safe to assume that Manziel will be good to go for the entire year.
Manziel is expensive, but he is also the most electric and dazzling player in the game. Rice doesn’t stand a chance of stopping him. Some things that come to mind when I think of this game, not from a numbers standpoint, but rather a gut feeling are this;
With this game being the first game I think A&M plays him longer than a normal blowout. Next week is another blowout and then the 3rd game of the season is Alabama. This is a tune-up game for the Aggies. They’ll play hard for a long time to iron out preseason kinks. Their well-rested from the off season so I don’t think anyone comes out of this game prior to a good 63+ points on the scoreboard.
This is also Manziels first game back since this wild offseason where his name was run through the mud. This will be a huge statement game for him to show is doubters. This competition couldn’t be much better for him to do it against. Rice cannot play defense. If the Aggies put up 8 to 9 TD’s on Rice while Johnny Football is in the game, which they will, how many do you think he accounts for? My best projection is a solid 5 or 6 of them. That makes him a sure fire top tier QB this weekend. The reason why you pay this salary is not just the incredible points he is capable of putting up, but also because his floor is so high that there is zero worries about consistency with him. Perhaps the most viable strategy (or at least one of them) heading into this first week is to spend the money on Manziel and play the numerous under-priced sleepers and value plays out there at RB and WR.
The only other Aggie that I would play this game is big Mike Evans, the #1 WR. If he builds on what he did last year he could be a force. Obviously sometimes he gets lost in production due to Manziel running so much, but its hard to imagine him not scoring this game.As for Rice, I am avoiding them. No players of interest on their offensive side of the ball in this one.
EDIT: Just today it was announced Manziel was suspended for the first half of the Rice game. This makes for an interesting situation now. More than likely the game will not be in doubt when he plays. However, with this being the first game of the year, they may just let him play the entire second half and treat it like a scrimmage. If he lays the entire 2nd half he could very well put up some good numbers. I am not sure they will put him in only to play the 3rd Q and nothing else. This is a play left up to your own discretion, I cannot recommend Manziel at this point, but do realize he can still put up monster numbers against this team in just 1 half.
No. 5 Georgia at No. 8 Clemson
This is the game of the day here, for both real life and fantasy purposes. The Las Vegas total on this game is a whopping 72. That’s the highest of the day, including all the smaller schools that don’t play defense. What really makes this game interesting is that the line is only a miniscule 1.5 points with Georgia being favored. It tells you that the projection is a back and forth close, high scoring game with no defense by either team.
With that being said, the rundown of fantasy relevance in this game isn’t that deep. So these options will be good ones. For Georgia you start with Todd Gurley. He is a stud. His game is big time with the only drawback being the rather large amount of carries Keith Marshall also gets. Gurley still out up good numbers last year with the partial committee approach, so you have to roll with him this year, although you’d love to see Marshall disappear at some point. Next in line is Aaron Murray. He’s just a solid passer who has been around for a while and will have no problem picking the Clemson secondary apart. He likes to spread the ball around but if you’re going to target in on 1 WR for Georgia it has to be Malcolm Mitchell. He is the best returning WR the Dogs have and with all this projected scoring it would be tough to think he doesn’t find a couple big plays somewhere along the way in this game.
For Clemson this is a showcase game for perhaps the most under-appreciated stud QB in the nation, Taj Boyd. Boyd had an unreal year last year through the air and also on the ground. He threw for 36 TD’s and ran for an amazing 10 more scores. Georgia had no success at stopping anyone on defense last year. I don’t know where that old Bulldog, tough, SEC style defense went, but they lost it. Boyd should have a field day throwing the ball. When he does throw he will first look to Sammy Watkins. Watkins was a stud WR his freshman year, 2 seasons ago, but fell off last year with just 57 catches for 3 TD’s. He’ll look to bounce back this year and he has the QB play to do it. My only fear is the amount of time Georgia had to prepare the double team for Watkins, in which case Boyd will look to Martavis Bryant as his possession receiver. Bryant actually caught more TD’s than Watkins last year and should really benefit from the loss of DeAndre Hopkins, now in the NFL. With this total and projected game style both WR’s will be in play. Running back will be interesting for the Tigers. They lose a very good, productive runner in Andre Ellington and stepping in to take his place will be Roderick McDowell. In the brief time I saw him last year he actually looked really good. He rushed for nearly 500 yards and 5 TD’s backing up a stud last year. Now he gets the full time gig and in this offense, with defenses trying to stop the passing game, the runner can be a great fantasy option.
That will wrap it up for me in the column this week. Next week will be the first real installment of the FFwd/Rew Game Analysis Article. This is it fellas. It’s time to put the women and children to bed and go looking for dinner. Good luck to you all, just stay out of my games. See you boys on Saturday