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CFB Props Show w/ Shannon Sommerville

Shannon’s CFB props video should be out later today! Keep an eye on the LineStar YouTube page to track the latest videos!

Welcome back! One of the most highly anticipated college football seasons in history has arrived! We got a small taste of what’s to come with an entertaining kickoff match-up between FSU & Georgia Tech last Saturday, and plenty of other games are loaded onto the Thursday and Friday schedules. But the first true CFB Saturday of the season is on the horizon so it’s time to shake the cobwebs and get back into the college football DFS action!

The focus of these CFB newsletters will be geared toward the Saturday main slate on DraftKings, which will typically begin at noon ET. Unlike most other sports, game selection on college football slates vary considerably between DraftKings and FanDuel from week to week, so it simply isn’t optimal to attempt to focus on both sites in one newsletter when many games are only going to apply to one DFS site’s slate and not the other. With that being said, if you’re playing CFB DFS primarily on FanDuel, feel free to keep some of the highlighted players and information in mind since there is still plenty of overlap between the DK and FD main slate game selection.

College Football DFS Tips & Strategy 💡

Let’s give a quick rundown on some general strategy and nuances when it comes to CFB DFS compared to NFL DFS.

If you’re a seasoned CFB DFS vet, feel free to skip these next few paragraphs.

There is a huge edge to be had in college football DFS if you do the research and stay on top of things leading up to a slate kicking off. Few DFS services offer reliable CFB projections or even cover college football at all, at least not as extensively as LineStar, so you’re in the right place if you’re looking for a profitable CFB DFS season. The lack of CFB support in the DFS industry is largely due to a shortage of resources and reliable information which professional sports like the NFL, NBA, and MLB possess in droves. There are also a TON of players to go through each week, injury news can be extremely vague or simply non-existent, depth charts are constantly changing week-to-week, and there may be some weeks where a certain team appears on a specific slate and then you’ll never see them show up again for the rest of the season. College football injury news and player availability can be difficult to find and are oftentimes not made public until the very last minute, if at all -- though, there may be changes in the works concerning how long college football teams are allowed to withhold injury/availability news. Fortunately, plenty of key info is shared in the LineStar chat, so try to hang around for the latest news and rumors as we get closer to each slate kicking off! And don’t hesitate to share any sliver of news you come across as well. Sometimes it takes a community effort to gain an informed edge against the field!

From a strategy standpoint, many approaches you would take in NFL DFS lineup builds are identical to what you should be doing in college football builds -- things like QB + pass catcher stacking, finding high-volume offensive players facing poor defenses, predicting game scripts, targeting players on both sides of a match-up that has a high total and close spread, etc. The 2024 LineStar NFL Strategy Guide will be released within the next week but feel free to post any inquiries in the chat if you have questions about general football DFS strategies and insights.

A unique aspect of traditional CFB lineup construction is the inclusion of an “S-FLEX” roster position, aka a “Super Flex.” For the uninitiated, that means you can place any skill position player in that roster slot, including quarterbacks. Since quarterbacks have the highest fantasy floors and excellent ceilings, rolling out two QBs, one being your Super Flex, is one of the best strategies to implement on most slates, especially in cash games. On average, college point totals are drastically higher than NFL totals, and quarterbacks really do reign supreme at this level of football. Many more QBs can also add value running the ball at the college level compared to the NFL. Securing two quarterbacks with high floors/high ceilings can often be the optimal route in both cash & GPP lineup builds. Another thing you may notice is the lack of dedicated tight end and D/ST roster spots. DraftKings essentially just groups both receiving positions together so all players who are technically TEs will be labeled as WRs. As for defense and special teams, I believe most of us can agree that being forced to play a D/ST in CFB lineups would just end up being a hassle.

Fire away with any questions you may have about CFB DFS, and either myself or one of our other knowledgeable staff or members will be happy to help!

Main Slate Rundown 🏈

A loaded college football weekend awaits, and we’ll get to enjoy the first major CFB Saturday slate of the season! Before diving into this huge day of games, here is just another reminder that these newsletters are geared toward the DraftKings Saturday main slate which will feature 12 games and kickoff at noon ET. The FanDuel Saturday main slate also kicks off at noon ET but consists of 14 games, and since FD also dips into some evening games, there will only be eight mutually shared match-ups with the DK slate. So, there will be some info and recommended plays that FanDuel players should find useful in this newsletter, but the general focus will stay on the set of games for DK.

To begin, let’s get a look at the 12 teams with a 25.8+ implied point total on this slate. The majority of our preferred DFS plays will be found on these rosters:

On the flip side, we’ll want very little exposure to teams who are expected to struggle to score 20+ points. Unless a specific player is priced down and is guaranteed high volume, we should lean toward avoiding these nine teams on the slate:

Obligatory: Vegas spreads and totals aren’t the be-all, end-all but they do give us a solid amount of information to use as our research ‘jump-off point’ on any given slate.

Main Slate Match-Ups

Week 1 Core Targets 🎯

QB Kyron Drones, VT | $8,300 | @ VAND

Whether it be NFL or CFB, we all love having a dual-threat QB in our DFS lineups and Kyren Drones is arguably the best multi-dimensional QB on this slate. In the 11 games where he saw extensive action last season, Drones had seven games with at least 14 rush attempts and five games with at least 74 rushing yards. He’s not the most polished of passers, but he can make the throws that count and he took good care of the ball in 2023, throwing 17 touchdowns against just three interceptions. There isn’t much to fear with this Vandy defense, which ranked 129th out of 133 FBS schools in 2023 in scoring defense. Drones, at his generous $8,300 price tag (he could easily be priced at $9k+), is among the safest plays on the week one slate.

RB Jaydon Blue, UT | $6,200 | vs. CSU

I believe the top RB on the slate, Oklahoma State’s Ollie Gordon II ($9,100), needs little introduction. Gordon is considered by many to be the top RB in the country and he’s a true workhorse back at the collegiate level. OKST also opens up with a match-up that should be fairly competitive as they’re only 9.5-point favorites over South Dakota State, so Gordon should handle plenty of volume and be worth the luxury spend up.

But we’ll set our sights on the new Longhorns RB1 in Jaydon Blue. Blue was relegated to an RB3 role in the 2023 Longhorns’ backfield as he worked behind Jonathan Brooks, who was the first RB selected off the board in the 2024 NFL Draft by the Carolina Panthers. Blue was also behind CJ Baxter on the depth chart. Baxter would have been the presumed RB1 heading into this season, but he tore both his ACL and PCL in fall camp and will miss the entirety of this season. While he was down on the depth chart last season, that isn’t a slight against Blue’s talents. Blue averaged an efficient 6.1 YPC while also proving to be a capable pass catcher. The Longhorns (-32.5) should cruise to an easy win over Colorado State this week, so I do have some concerns over how much work Jaydon Blue will see in the second half, but he could easily fill the stat sheet in whatever work he receives pre-blowout. Quintrevion Wisner ($4,500) is the de facto backup to Blue and should receive some solid work as well.

RB LeQuint Allen, SYR | $5,100 | vs. OHIO

This is a clear misprice on LeQuint Allen, who was a 1,000-yard rusher for Syracuse last season. His 245 carries ranked 11th in the nation, and his 38 receptions ranked 8th among FBS running backs. Ohio boasted a surprisingly strong run defense in 2023, allowing the 8th fewest rushing YPG, but Syracuse (-18.5) is simply the better team here, and Allen is a pretty solid bet to handle 15-20 touches, produce 100+ yards and find the endzone at least once. He’ll be popular but tough to pass on at this price tag.

WR Jeremiah Smith, OSU | $5,400 | vs. AKR

Wide receiver is always the trickiest position to figure out at the start of a new season. You can see which of the more expensive receivers I like on the cheat sheet below, but we’ll dip into the $5k range for our first WR spotlight. Jeremiah Smith has yet to take a single snap at the collegiate level, but he’s probably already among the best WRs in the country. At 6’3”, 215 lbs, Smith heads in as the number one overall recruit in the country from the 2024 cycle. While the public has not had many glimpses of him from his play in camp, he’s already being touted as a physical freak in the gym and nearly unguardable in 1-on-1 situations while drawing comps to the likes of Julio Jones and AJ Green. Smith will begin the season listed as Ohio State’s starting WR-X receiver. Similar to the way NFL teams use preseason games to showcase their young talent and give them all-important live-game reps, this game against Akron could be a good spot for the extremely heavily favored Buckeyes (-48.5) to get Smith acclimated to the CFB level. I doubt they’ll risk injury to their star freshman once the game is well in hand, but we should expect Jeremiah Smith to be a key target early out of the gates on Saturday.

WR/TE Oronde Gadsden II, SYR | $3,500 | vs. OHIO

If you know where to look, finding DFS value isn’t ever really difficult at the beginning of each CFB season and Oronde Gadsden II sticks out as one of the better “WR” values on this week one slate. In reality, Gadsden is officially a tight end (& also a bit of a hybrid big-bodied WR), but as is the case in CFB DFS, all receivers are listed as WRs. Gadsden’s 2023 campaign was cut short due to a foot injury after playing barely over a full game. But he returns healthy in 2024 and is considered by many to be among the country’s top five tight ends. In his last healthy season, as a sophomore in 2022, Gadsden brought in 61 receptions for 975 yards (16.0 YPC) and six touchdowns. He was routinely priced around the $6k range on DraftKings, and, if anything, he could be even more involved in 2024 than he was in ‘22. Gadsden can easily pay off this $3,500 salary even if he doesn’t manage to find his way into the endzone. But, no doubt, at 6’5” and 225 lbs, he’s a top redzone weapon in this Syracuse offense that owns a favorable 31.0 implied team total this week.

DraftKings Week One CFB Cheat Sheet 📝

Click the cheat sheet above to view a higher quality direct image.

Alternative Cheat Sheet Direct Image Link

Best of luck on Saturday! Here’s to a prosperous 2024 season!