CFB DFS DraftKings College Football Week 7 Main Slate Plays

College Football DFS: DraftKings CFB DFS Week 7 Main Slate

A lot of the college football discourse this week has been centered on the Bill Belichick Saga in Chapel Hill and the failings of Penn State and Texas. While I'm thoroughly enjoying following each of those dumpster fires, we're going to turn our attention to something more important: the DraftKings Week 7 main slate for college football DFS. 

One overarching observation I've had is that pricing is a little tighter this week than it has been. We're not getting discounts on players who have been outperforming their salary figures in recent weeks. It's no longer a choose-your-own-adventure type of exercise. For instance, Pitt QB Mason Heintschel is $7,800 after bursting onto the scene with 232 yards and four touchdowns on 41 pass attempts against Boston College. $7,800 means you're paying full boat. 

We're still getting some good values on the board, though, especially at running back and receiver.

We also have a possible slate breaker. Sam Jackson V, listed as a min-priced wideout, will draw the start at quarterback for Oklahoma State. The guy is just a football player. He got some burn as the starting quarterback for Cal a couple of years ago. It wasn't great (52.6 Comp %; 5.7 YPA) but really the main thing is that there's a starting quarterback on this slate at $3K that can be used in your WR slot. It might be wise not to go all in on Jackson in your lineups, but it's hard to see any min-priced guy having a better projection this season. I think something like ~150 passing yards, 60 rushing yards and a touchdown is a reasonable expectation. 

Texas vs Oklahoma

The final observation I want to make is on the OU/Texas game. Has the SEC ruined this rivalry? An over/under of 45.5? After last year's 49.0? What happened to the game I love?

Prior to 2024, nine of the previous ten games had posted totals of at least 60 points. Upsetting times we're living in.

Is Oklahoma actually going to play John Mateer, or is it orchestrating a massive smoke screen? He's listed as probable and is ~three weeks removed from surgery on his throwing hand. My hunch is that he suits up and gets in for a series or two. I could see Oklahoma leveraging the mystery by trotting him out there on third or fourth and short in a key situation to force a Texas timeout. I don't see him having a massive impact. 

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I'd imagine that the Mateer status, the shaky Texas offense and the low total will steer much of the DFS action away from this game. That opens up an opportunity to get some low roster % exposure, but ultimately, I think the defenses on both sides are too much for this game to pop. Let's move on.

Tight Spreads & High Totals

Finding a game with a high over/under where both teams are expected to be competitive is always a primary goal for building our lineups. Games like that create a great scoring environment on both sides with little worry about the star players being pulled, like we do when a game gets lopsided. 

• Notre Dame vs NC State (ND -23.5; O/U 58.5): This one doesn't fit the "tight spread" criteria, but there's a lot here to believe there will be points aplenty on both sides. Notre Dame's offense is one of the best in the country; it's multi-faceted and dangerous. It ranks #3 in SP+. The defense? 28th. It's played better of late against Arkansas and Boise State but there are still some serious questions. 28 almost feels generous relative to the eye test.
  • NC State, meanwhile, doesn't rate as well offensively as the Irish, but I think the talent is understated. They rank 25th in yards per play (6.65) while ND is 73rd in YPP allowed (5.55). The best way to attack the ND defense is through the air. Running back Hollywood Smothers ($8,400) is probably a bad value this week given that the Irish defense is stout in that facet. You can confidently use any part of the ND offense on the other side.
• Kansas State vs TCU (TCU -1.5, O/U 55.5): 55.5 is the third-highest total on the slate, and somehow it still feels a little low. TCU has the No.21 defense and Kansas State's is starting to wake up with 34 points scored in back-to-back weeks. TCU quarterback Josh Hoover ($8,200) sets the table for the Horned Frogs and is putting up 27 DK Points per game. The days of bargain Avery Johnson ($9,200) are over after he smashed his $7,600 tag last week with 36.8 fantasy points. I wonder if the new salary will keep his roster % in check. The bargain on the K-State side is  Joe Jackson ($4,100). He hasn't been amazing thus far, but 18-20 touches for a player at $4,100 is worth the plunge. 

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Quarterback

Haynes King, Georgia Tech ($9,400) vs Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech is bad. Really bad. 78th in SP+ puts them among the worst P4 teams. Conversely, Georgia Tech is good. 16th in total offense. 25th in scoring. King is the driving force behind that. 

King is completing nearly 70 percent of his passes and doing serious damage as a runner. He's 10th in rushing yards among quarterbacks -- eighth if you remove service academy QBs -- and has the most rushing touchdowns at his position. 

There isn't a great stacking option for King in the pass game. Eric Rivers ($4,200) commands 21 percent of the targets but averages just 7.6 yards per target and has one touchdown. Isiah Canion ($3,100) seems to be carving out a bigger role, having drawn 10 targets against Wake Forest. Both are cheap enough to justify pairing with King, but I'd be more inclined to run a QB-RB stack here. Hamal Haynes ($6,800) is conventionally the best play given his rushing workload and involvement in the passing game but I'd keep Malachi Hosley ($3,400) in mind, especially if you see this turning into a blowout. He's shown some explosiveness against weaker opponents.

GT is expected to score 35 points, the second-highest figure on the slate. Expect King to have his fingerprints all over that. 

Brendan Sorsby, Cincinnati ($7,700) vs UCF

Don't be fooled by the 14th next to UCF's OPRK on DraftKings. It's not a bad defense per se but it's not one to be avoided, either. UCF has played one true road game -- at Kansas State -- and it allowed 434 total yards at a 6.2 YPP clip to go with 34 points.

Sorsby had a monster game against a far superior Iowa State defense last week and is still under $7,700. He's easy to stack with his top wideout (Cyrus Allen, $5,800) under $6K and other legit options checking in at $4K or less. 

Game Stack Opportunity: Michigan State vs UCLA

This is an objectively gross game. Luckily, the defenses are bad enough on both sides to put it on our DFS radar. 

Aidan Chiles ($6,500) has been brutal as a passer against power opponents. 55% completion rate with seven touchdowns and two picks. 176 passing yards per game. Good sell, right? Well, Chiles can also get it done on the ground. He's averaging just over 10 rushing attempts on the year (3.4 YPC) and has punched in four touchdowns. We don't need a ton from him for Chiles to hit value and the matchup is soft enough to where it should happen.

As for Nico Iamaleava, $6,200 feels like his game last week never happened. The guy broke the slate. 50 DK points. Five total touchdowns. Against Penn State! Michigan State's defense ranks 71st in SP+ compared to Penn State's 22. This is a far easier matchup and Iamaleava seems to have unlocked something under the new play calling direction of Draco Malfoy.

Iamaleava had been middling prior to last week, hovering around 18 DK points per game in his first four outings. That's workable at $6,200 but not ideal. I think we can expect more here, though. UCLA might be frisky from here on out following the coaching change, and Sparty is far from imposing. 

Others to Consider

• Mason Heintschel, Pittsburgh ($7,800)
• Beau Pribula, Missouri ($7,100)
• CJ Bailey, NC State ($7,200)

Running Back

Ahmad Hardy, Missouri ($8,300) vs Alabama

This might be the first time I've recommended a running back playing against Alabama. This ain't your daddy's Alabama defense, though. The Tide are gettable on the ground. And they're on the road. Playing against the No.3 rushing offense in the country. 

In two conference games, Bama has allowed an average of 181 rushing yards on just under 7.0 YPC. The defense tightened up in the second half against Vandy last week, but Missouri has a better conventional attack spearheaded by Hardy. 

Hardy is the nation's leading rusher with 103 carries for 730 yards and nine touchdowns. Now, Missouri hasn't played a murderer's row of opponents yet, but they've beaten their two P4 opponents (Kansas and South Carolina) reasonably soundly. He had over 100 yards and a touchdown in each of those games. 

Abu Sama, Iowa State ($4,300) at Colorado

Trying to find the next great Iowa State running back since Breece Hall has been a fool's errand. Carson Hansen's 2024 is the closest thing to fantasy stardom with him rushing for 752 yards and 13 touchdowns, but that touchdown dependency is doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

Sama led the team in rushing in 2023, averaging 7.3 YPC on 84 attempts. He fell off a bit last year but looked impressive in last week's loss to Cincinnati. He took on a season-high 18 carries and plowed ahead for 96 yards while also drawing three targets. Adding to Sama's projection this week is Hanson's status. He suffered a concussion against the Bearcats and is questionable. We could have a ton of runway for Sama production Saturday, especially against a Colorado defense that coughs up 180 rushing yards per game. 

Dean Connors, Houston ($7,900) at Oklahoma State

Last week, we talked about the "Coors bump" equivalent of playing Oklahoma State. This week, Houston gets the honor of beating up on the 'Pokes. As such, Conners' salary has jumped $700 to a season-high $7,900 despite coming off his worst game of the season with 13 carries for 31 yards and a nine-yard catch vs Texas Tech. Put another way, it's not a 4.0 point performance that's fueling the salary bump here.

Conners himself has been a productive player and would be a solid play against your average Big 12 team. He's got 80 carries for 355 yards and three touchdowns on the ground to go with 11 grabs on 13 targets. It'd be great to see Houston use him more in the passing game after he racked up over 100 receptions in his last two seasons at Rice, but alas. 

Oklahoma State's defense has had strange results against the run in conference play. Baylor ran all over the 'Pokes to the tune of 219 yards and 2 TD (5.6 YPC). Arizona was then shut down with 45 yards on 33 attempts. Weirder yet, Baylor and Arizona have nearly identical per-game rushing figures. 

Ultimately, I'm willing to bet that Saturday's game looks more like the Baylor game than the Arizona game for OK State. 

Now, there is an important game theory note to consider. Ismael Mahdi was pushing 40% rostership in GPP contests last weekend and obviously was a horrendous flop with 3.4 points. 

Makhi Frazier ($4,800) Michigan State vs UCLA

UCLA made me look foolish last week. I led the Kaytron Allen blurb talking about how I felt bad for them and how Penn State would just be exorcising its demons all afternoon. Oops. 

Even with that wild upset, targeting the UCLA run defense is still a sound idea. The Bruins are still coughing up 217 rushing yards per game on the year. Even in arguably their best performance of the year last week, they surrendered 5.0 YPC, 157 yards and two touchdowns on the ground.

Enter Frazier, who commands a 41 percent rushing share for Sparty. Quarterback Aidan Chiles runs a decent bit (28%) but Frazier owns the backfield. No other MSU back has more than 17 percent of the carries. 

He's $4,800 because he hasn't done a ton with those opportunities. His best game against P4 competition was 17 carries for 81 yards. We're betting on the matchup helping squeeze the most juice possible out of Frazier's opportunities. There aren't many backs in this price range that you can comfortably project for 15+ touches. With that, Frazier's a worthwhile dart throw here.

Others to Consider

• Joe Jackson, Kansas State ($4,100): Likely to step into the starting role for the injured Dylan Edwards. There's some vulture risk from Avery Johnson but ~20 touches should be in the offing for Jackson.
• Marcellous Hawkins, Virginia Tech ($3,900): You'll need to keep an eye on the injury report, but if Terion Stewart (questionable) is unable to go, Hawkins should give us a starter's workload at a sub-$4K cost.

Wide Receiver

Here's this week's target cheat sheet. I filtered it to receivers on this slate with at least a 20% team target share who also average at least 8.8 yards per target. Those are fairly arbitrary thresholds, but they still tend to paint a good picture of who is A.) Getting Volume and B.) Maximizing It.

Alabama vs Missouri

Though the total in this game lags behind some of the others, I think we'll see some fireworks in this game from both passing attacks.

Alabama's setup is pretty stratified. Germie Bernard ($5,900) and Ryan Williams ($7,900) lead the way with a combined 38.7 percent target share, while Isaiah Horton ($4,800) is coming on strong with 14 catches for 179 yards and two scores on 20 targets in the last three weeks.

Roster % will likely funnel to Bernard given the savings in rostering him vs Williams when they have roughly the same statistics. Well, actually, that's disrespectful to Bernard. He's been the best of the bunch so far. I still think Williams' slate-breaking potential is worth rostering this week, too, and will have less interest from the field. 

Tight end Josh Cuevas ($3,700) has caught my eye, too. The numbers aren't eye-popping at 13/23/126/2 but he's consistently drawing targets from one of the best passers in the game. He presents a good way of getting low-owned Bama exposure. 

Kevin Coleman ($6,300), on the other side, is simply too cheap for what he's doing right now. He's cooking at 9.0 YPT while shouldering a 31 percent target share. He's second in the nation in receiving touchdowns with six. In a game like this, Missouri is going to lean on Coleman heavily. It may not be his prettiest game in terms of efficiency but that's fine if he's pushing for 12+ targets. 

Duce Robinson, Florida State ($4,600) vs Pittsburgh

The former five-star USC standout is finding his footing in Tallahassee. He has become the top target for Tommy Castellanos, drawing double-digit targets in back-to-back games. In that stretch, Robinson has brought in 15 grabs for 234 yards and a touchdown. Overall, Robinson has a 25% target share in the last three games. 

He gets a good matchup at home against a Pitt defense that's far tougher against the run than it is against the pass. Robinson profiles well either in a Castellanos stack or as a one-off play. 

Amare Thomas, Houston ($3,200) vs Oklahoma State

I was surprised to see a Houston player make the cut on the target table. It has not been a great passing attack for the Cougs thus far, checking in at 98th in passing yards per game (199.2). However, Thomas is starting to emerge as the best option despite being priced like a reserve. 

He's drawn 19 targets over the last two games, catching eight passes for 174 yards and a score. Quarterback Conner Weigman (concussion) is out of protocol and ready to roll. We don't need that much from the Houston passing game for Thomas to crush value, and it's fair to have heightened expectations when the opponent is OK State. 

Others to Consider

• Kenny Johnson, Pitt ($4,500)
• Justin Joly, NC State ($6,400)
• Malachi Fields ($4,600) and Jordan Faison ($4,500), Notre Dame
• Joseph Manjack, TCU ($4,500)