I have watched a lot of college football in my life.
I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like what happened to N.C. State on Saturday.
The Wolfpack were up 31-28 on Vanderbilt, had the ball with six seconds left, and basically had the game won. The plan was simple: have CJ Bailey burn the remaining clock, take an intentional safety, and walk out of Nashville with a win.
Instead, Bailey got hit in the end zone, fumbled, Vanderbilt recovered it for a touchdown, and somehow won 35-31. If you were holding an N.C. State +3 ticket, you just need to quit sports betting.
I was watching it live and literally couldn’t believe what I had just seen. It was one of those plays where you’re staring at the TV trying to figure out whether you actually understood what happened.
Apparently, I had every reason to be confused. According to ESPN Stats & Info, teams leading and possessing the ball in the final 10 seconds were 1,046-1 over the previous 20 years before N.C. State found a way to lose that game.
That’s why we love college football. You never know what’s going to happen on any given Saturday.
What Week 3 Taught Us
Week 3 was one of the weirder roster-construction slates I can remember.
Going into the slate, it looked like all of the cheap wide receiver value would make salary easy and potentially push people away from using a quarterback at Superflex. Instead, the field basically did the opposite.
The popular cheap receivers were largely landmines, while ownership flocked to quarterbacks. Across the large-field DraftKings contests, 83% of lineups used a QB at Superflex, and that jumped to 90% of the top 1%. Every main-contest winner I tracked used two quarterbacks.
2QB/3RB/3WR constructions made up 32.2% of the top 1%, nearly twice its 17.5% field rate.
So the lesson isn’t “always play three running backs” or “always force two quarterbacks.” Roster construction itself can be a huge source of leverage, and the obvious salary-saving path isn’t always the one that wins.
Week 4 in 60 Seconds
Gavin Freeman leads the country in targets, and DraftKings priced him at $5,500. He gets a great matchup, DJ Lagway is back at quarterback, and I’m not going to overthink that one.
Byrum Brown is the other obvious place to start. He gives us the rushing ceiling we’re always looking for at quarterback and is playing in one of the better tournament environments on the slate.
If you want to spend up, Jadan Baugh and Jeremiah Smith are the two studs who stand out most. Both have legitimate slate-breaking ceilings, and there are enough values available that rostering them isn’t particularly difficult.
There is plenty of room for the chalk to bust hard this week.
Notre Dame is a great example. Nolan James Jr. and Micah Gilbert will be popular, but I have real questions about how secure those plays actually are. James is still dealing with a backfield where Aneyas Williams is very much involved — we’ll get to that later — while Gilbert is a cheap way into a massive team total without necessarily having a dominant role.
That’s what makes this slate interesting. We have some chalk I’m willing to eat, a couple of studs I really want to prioritize, and several popular plays where I think the floor is much shakier than the ownership is going to suggest.
What’s the Field Going to Do?
Freeman is going to be everywhere.
He’s about as close to a free square as we’ll get all season.
Brown should be one of the most popular quarterbacks, and from there I think the field naturally starts deciding where to spend. Baugh and Smith are the obvious studs, while there are enough playable options in the middle of every position that you don’t have to completely punt anywhere.
A standard lineup could look something like:
Brown + QB2 + Baugh/Smith + Freeman + two mid-range RBs + two value/mid-range WRs
That’s what makes the field construction interesting. There aren’t necessarily seven guys everyone has to play, but a handful of very natural building blocks that can create similar-looking lineups.
Solver vs. Field
We create the highest-quality CFB content
Sean Newsham and Alex Hardin are two of the most successful college football DFS players ever. Together with the ETR Team, we bring you the best CFB information. We analyze what’s happening in a way that’s digestible and actionable, with a goal of preparing you to make the best decisions possible during the College Football season.
Click to learn more about ETR’s In-Season College Football (CFB) subscriptions.
Full Details » Already a subscriber? Log In
