Top Stacks: USC, LT, OHIO, Vandy
Optimal Plays: C. Williams, Bachmeier, Thornton, Sheppard, Harris
It’s our first slate of the new season, and it’s a fun one! We’ll start by diving into the optimal teams to stack.
USC is obviously the king on this slate. An implied total of 48 is nearly a full two scores above the next closest team (Vandy at 36). Caleb Williams is the top dog here, and there really isn’t much we need to say. He won the Heisman last year, had 4500 passing yards, 42 passing TDs, and 10 rushing TD. He’s as good as it gets for CFB DFS, and should be extremely high owned in every contest. The WR group for this stack is huge, especially in a game with a 30 point spread. Dorian Singer, Mario Williams, and Brenden Rice/Kyron Hudson are the expected starting WR. Tahj Washington is listed behind Williams, but seems a surefire bet to mix in early. They have a couple prized recruits that could mix in, as well as RB turned WR Raleek Brown being a possible candidate to get snaps. They have SO much talent. Numbers wise, Tahj is the top returning target with 54, then Mario 51 (in 9 games + OU connection), and Rice at 50. With Singer presumably taking on the Addison role, he probably has the top upside here, and is a guy who could break the slate. The only issue is that we don’t love the expected volume. In addition, the RB situation of Austin Jones/Marshawn Lloyd further muddies the water. Jones caught some passes last year after Dye went down, but in a spread like this USC probably has their targets planned out — Game one against Rice last year, the top targets were 5-5-4-4-3, (though Addison scored twice in the role Singer will likely take on) and they only threw 28 times. However, the starting WR ran 21-19-16 routes, which would be Singer-Williams occupying those top two, so they’re certainly the safest USC WR to use, with Singer our top option if you choose to use this route. They’re both solid, but it’s just hard to see more than 5-7 targets going their way. A lot of people may stack USC here, but we truly love the idea of playing naked Caleb, as the Trojans will spread it like the last stick of butter on a dinner roll, and Caleb can easily run for multiple TDs.
Louisiana Tech is a simpler stack for us: Hank Bachmeier – Smoke Harris – Cyrus Allen – Tru Edwards. Harris has been there a while and occupies the slot. Bachmeier is known to pepper his slot WR, so we love that combo. Allen and Edwards are the wide guys, and have some upside on big plays, but they’re more GPP in their roles while Harris is a lock in optimal lineups. Edwards has a distinct advantage of starting in a high total offense at 3k, so he’s firmly entrenched on our radar, although it does seem he’s the clear third option. Allen had some solid games throughout 2022, but his 50 targets were dwarfed by Smoke’s 98 and (transferred) Tre Harris’ 102. Allen has a shot to take on the role Tre had, so in tournaments he’s firmly on our radar.
When you look at the projections, you can see that Hank Bachmeier is clearly optimal. He grades out as the best PT/$ play on the entire slate by a decent margin. In cash games, you absolutely can not fade him. In GPPs, you could target a ceiling game from other QBs. Hank doesn’t run much, so while he brings a high floor, he probably doesn’t have the same ceiling as some of the runners. We still like him in GPPs overall as his ownership won’t be as high as Williams by any means, and he’s technically the best value on the slate. Regardless of whether you play Hank, you probably want Smoke Harris in your lineup.
Sticking with LA Tech, Charvis Thornton is underpriced for the role he will play in this offense, and he gets a great matchup as well. He’s the optimal RB on this slate because he’s getting the keys to the backfield as other members of his team deal with injury. We like using him as your optimal RB1 this Saturday regardless of whether you play Bachmeier or not.
Now we get to Ohio, which is a fun team to have on this slate. Kurtis Rourke has upside with his legs, but shouldn’t be too popular since Williams and Bachmeier are so clearly optimal. Passing wise, we checked out his targets in a couple of his bigger games and found a nice trend: Miles Cross – 5-8 targets | Sam Wiglusz – 9-7 | Bostic – 6-6 | Jacoby Jones – 3-4. All of them return except Bostic, so we expect a boost across the board for the trio — along with RB Sieh Bangura continuing his progress in the passing game. Wiglusz is the clear top target, but he’s also priced like it. An Ohio stack could be a good play in GPPs. As mentioned, the two optimal QBs on the slate are clearly Williams and Bachmeier, which means Rourke and his weapons should be lower owned. Whether you play Rourke or not, we like using Wiglusz or Jones in GPPs as unique WR options with big upside.
Finally, we get to Vanderbilt. AJ Swann is taking control of the offense, and he had a CLEAR top target when he was tossing it well. Will Sheppard had 15 and 14 targets in Swann’s big games. An absurd target share up near 40%. Jayden McGowan also has some appeal as he is quite talented, and at his price he could fly under the radar a bit as a perceived overpay. His other starting WR is Quincy Skinner Jr., but he’s barely in play at all. They have a split group at RB but Patrick Smith is getting the nod here. He actually proved fairly useful with his hands when given the chance, but they have two other RB — Chase Gillespie and Sedrick Alexander — that could be used here as well. It’s a high team total, and we can’t fault the Swann-Sheppard-Smith stack for a solid chance at TD exposure, but we think the optimal move here is to just play Sheppard. He’s a near lock in optimal lineups for his target volume, but in GPPs he could be faded simply due to ownership.
Projection wise, Tylan Hines seems like a surefire value play, but we don’t believe he’s a lock on this slate due to his floor. Hawaii is a passing team, and tossed it 460 times last year. Roughly 12% of those targets went to true RBs. They have an implied total of under 20, making it quite the uphill battle to score. His saving grace is that he’s the starting RB, and coach Timmy Chang gives his starters a solid workload, so his chances of scoring aren’t awful. Hines, along with the aforementioned USC WR group are the high projected players that we don’t see as a necessity in lineups. For USC receivers, the volume just won’t be high enough to warrant a full stack, so then you’re just trying to nail the perfect outcome for a guy getting 6 or 7 targets.
If you want to be different for GPPs, we do have a few options to consider. For those of you on the WILD side, it’s FIU WR Eric Rivers. We don’t have a depth chart yet so his role is unclear, but coach talk from camp has been steady. They love him in the red zone, and he reportedly has a solid rapport with QB Grayson James. It’s a punt, but man a punt with some interesting potential. We still prefer Edwards as our 3k option on DK, but Rivers is the super low owned GPP dart. Most sites don’t even project him playing, and at this point we’re not sure exactly how to project him, but we’re scouring reports to see if we can get a depth chart with him on it. Another fun GPP play is Chevan Cordeiro. It’s an awful team total, so this isn’t the best spot, but his rushing upside is insane. Cordeiro has proven himself a near lock to move it on his feet decently well, it’s just a question of how many yards does he give back on sacks? Right with Cordeiro is Diego Pavia with a similar structure for how he can make it happen. He actually had 500-6 on the turf last year and gets a favorable matchup against Umass. Pavia could be one of the lower owned QBs on the slate, and has potential to pay off big time. And lastly, a tournament move at RB: Stack USC RBs Austin Jones and Marshawn Lloyd. People love to avoid an “or” situation on a depth chart. Last year they spread it out week 1, but they had 0 broken rushing plays for long gains. If they get that long run, we could see them combine for 150-3 or so on Saturday. There are scenarios in which that puts them both in the top 5 on the slate for RBs, and takes away from Caleb Williams + the USC WR core in the process. It’s a GPP strategy that covers quite a few bases and makes your path to a takedown very plausible.
Conclusion: We like this slate because it seems so straight forward, but has some places to differentiate. Caleb Williams is a great start to most any lineup, along with Charvis Thornton at RB and Will Sheppard serving as an excellent building block at WR for optimal lineups. We’ve got four solid stacks to choose from, with two of them clearly being the chalk. If you’ve never played CFB DFS, know that it’s not uncommon for an 80% owned guy to have 0 catches and then suddenly go 2-120-2 on the last two drives. Big plays happen, so we have to expect them. The chalk is often chalkier in CFB than NFL, so getting off the guys who don’t project that much better than the pivots can pay off big time. Another general thing to remember is that RBs are a lot safer so we typically use them in the Flex spot, and a QB is a near requirement in the SuperFlex spot. Let’s have a great Saturday!