CFB DFS Top Plays: Week 1 – Thursday

Editor’s Note: We may not write up every player we consider to be a top play. Be sure to consult the chart at the bottom of the page. This page will be updated as necessary.

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Understanding optimal lineups for cash games is extremely important, even if you only play tournaments. Players in our cash pool are the ones we believe are the most underpriced, have the best floor/ceiling combo, and typically feature a relatively tight range of outcomes. These are the best plays on the board when considering price, context, and positional scarcity. These are usually pretty good options for GPPs as well.

The optimal GPP lineup will typically mix some of these cash-type plays with higher-variance options, often in correlated lineups. In cash games (where roughly 50% of the field gets paid out), we don’t worry about ownership, game stacks, or correlation. In large-field tournaments, we should be much more mindful of ownership. For more tournament content, check out our projections, and Friday’s live show, Establish The Show: The College Years, with Alex Hardin and Sean Newsham.

With all that said, these are our Top Plays considering the following factors: mean projection, matchup, upside, and value. Ownership is NOT considered here. Generally speaking, these players are what we consider to be “head-to-head and 50/50 considerations”.

They are listed in price descending order (NOT ranked by “best play”). At the bottom, you’ll find suggested rankings by site once salary is accounted for.

Quarterback

John Rhys Plumlee (UCF – DK $10,600, FD $12,400) – The Plumdog has feasted in cake matchups in the past, as lower-level teams really struggle to contain his speed. Kent State basically lost their whole team (coaching staff and impact players) from last season, so this one likely gets ugly with lots of big plays from the home team. Looking back to the 2022 opener for UCF, they won by 46 points and most of the starters played extremely deep into the game. JRP is live for the double bonus (300+ passing yards & 100+ rushing yards) here and has upside for 4+ touchdowns, especially if Kent State can keep this one even slightly competitive.

Mitch Griffis (WAKE – DK $8,300) – With Sam Hartman departed for Notre Dame, Griffis takes over the typically high-powered Wake Forest offense. He has mobility like Hartman and should be able to effectively orchestrate the offense against Elon, where 300+ yards and three TDs seem very reasonable given that we expect their team total to hover around 40 points once the lines come out. If you recall, he started last year’s opener vs. VMI (when Hartman was out) and put up 288 passing yards and three touchdowns — so he has seen live game action previously.

Darren Grainger (GAST – DK $7,400) – Rhode Island is a pretty solid FCS school, so this should be a much more competitive game than it might seem at first glance. Grainger is a dual-threat QB (734 rush yards and six rush TDs last season) that we love to use on these types of slates, as his price point is a bit cheaper than the very upper-end options but gives us access to similar upside.

Running Back