There’s getting fired, and then there’s getting fired in the middle of a college football game.
Apparently, we’ve reached the point where coaches can’t even wait until Sunday to start taking headsets away from people.
At Cal, Tosh Lupoi decided he’d seen enough of offensive coordinator Jordan Somerville and handed play-calling duties to Pat McCann at halftime.
Colorado State’s Jim Mora took things a step further. He stripped defensive coordinator Tyson Summers of play-calling duties during the first half against Oregon State. Summers left the sideline and was subsequently out of a job entirely.
Imagine if this happened in a normal office.
You’re halfway through a PowerPoint presentation, your boss gets up, takes the clicker out of your hand, gives it to the guy sitting next to you, and tells you to pack your things.
Except 50,000 people are watching, your presentation is being televised, and the other team has already scored four touchdowns.
I do see the logic. Why waste everyone’s Sunday morning with an awkward conversation when you can just fire somebody between possessions?
What Week 5 Taught Us
I spent most of last week talking about Alabama-Mississippi State and trying to figure out all the different ways that game could explode.
Meanwhile, Iowa State and West Virginia went out and played a 45-42 game featuring two of the most ridiculous individual fantasy performances of the season.
Aiden Flora rushed for 212 yards and three touchdowns. Apparently, that wasn’t enough, because he also completed both of his pass attempts for another two touchdowns. All in all, he racked up 52 DraftKings points.
He finished in 96% of the top-1% lineups. He was 40% owned. If you didn’t roster him, you probably didn’t have a very good day.
On the other side, Michael Hawkins Jr. threw for 227 yards and two touchdowns while adding 149 yards and two more scores on the ground. He was necessary to have any chance in GPPs as well.
I liked Faizon Brandon, Fluff Bothwell, Andrew Marsh, Omari Hayes, and Patrick Overmyer for different reasons. Individually, plenty of those bets were defensible. Collectively, we had too many lineups depending on several of them beating their projections simultaneously. You can’t do anything about Fluff getting hurt or Faizon getting benched.
Overall, a lot of my takes were right. I just had too many landmines and not enough Hawkins Jr. to be relevant in any GPPs.
Week 6 in 60 Seconds
For once, DK deserves some credit for putting together a solid main slate. No Ohio State or Notre Dame, meaning we don’t have to spend another Saturday figuring out how many points Jeremiah Smith has to put up to bury us.
Arizona-West Virginia looks like the obvious source of cheap receiver chalk, while Houston-Kansas State might be my favorite GPP environment. I love both Conner Weigman and Avery Johnson, even though projections disagree.
Oklahoma State’s passing game is another spot I’m increasingly interested in.
And apparently we’ve got a hurricane coming, so Florida-South Carolina and Duke-Georgia Tech are weather spots to monitor.
What’s the Field Going to Do?
I think most people are going to start by figuring out how many Arizona receivers they can fit into their lineups.
Isaiah Mizell is projected for around 39% ownership, while Caleb Smith, Brandon Phelps, and R.J. Mosley are all attracting meaningful attention. That’s a lot of cheap receiving value in one game.
From there, Caleb Hawkins and Jamal Roberts are probably the most natural running-back combination. Both have strong workloads, reasonable salaries, and solid projections, and I expect them to be extremely popular together.
Hawkins Jr. is another obvious starting point at quarterback.
The latest Low-Variance builds are using two quarterbacks and four receivers nearly 68% of the time, while only 18% use three running backs.
An example of a popular lineup skeleton looks something like:
Hawkins Jr. + Caleb Hawkins + Roberts + Mizell + another Arizona WR + two more cheap receivers + QB2.
That’s not necessarily what the entire field will build, but I think it’s going to be a pretty common starting point. Around 20% of the current Low-Variance lineups pair Hawkins Jr. with Dylan Raiola.
Solver vs. Field
Here are the latest DraftKings projected ownership numbers compared with 1,000 Optimals and 1,000 Low-Variance builds.
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