Halloween falls on a college football Saturday this year, which feels appropriate because I haven’t needed to watch a horror movie all season. I can just open the DraftKings app at 2:30 every Saturday afternoon and watch my lineups get slaughtered in real time.
The plot is always the same. I spend all week studying offensive lines, route participation, injury reports, ownership projections, and which backup running back gets the carries inside the 5-yard line. Then Saturday rolls around, and the guy I spent four hours researching is apparently just out there getting his cardio in while everyone I didn’t roster is scoring touchdowns.
At this point, I know exactly what’s waiting behind the door, but somehow I keep opening it anyway.
Another week, another slate, and somehow I’m just as excited to do it all over again.
I’m not going to pretend everything has been perfect. There are things we need to fix, and we’re going to talk about them. But I’m also not throwing out months of research and changing everything just because the last few Saturdays have been ugly.
Besides, if I were interested in making responsible financial decisions on Saturdays, I definitely wouldn’t be playing college football DFS in the first place.
What Week 8 Taught Us
Watching college football from London last Saturday was an interesting experience. Apparently, being six time zones away doesn’t make your DraftKings lineups any less painful to watch.
We absolutely nailed the TCU–West Virginia game environment. Jaden Craig threw for 372 yards, Jordan Dwyer earned 12 targets, and Ed Small ran 55 routes. Unfortunately, Small turned all that playing time into four targets and five DK points, sinking a significant chunk of my lineups.
Meanwhile, Sam Leavitt (42 DK points at 9% ownership), Jackson Harris (42 at 9%), and Isaiah Sategna III (36 at 13%) were the tournament difference makers.
On the other side, Small was 43% owned, while Kamari Moulton got steamed all the way to 21% after I made him my flag plant. He proceeded to score 2.2 points and left the game hurt. You’re welcome, everyone.
The route count wasn’t the problem with Small; my confidence in his target share was. That’s a distinction worth making before I get buried by the same mistake again.
Week 9 in 60 Seconds
We’ve got a 12-game DraftKings slate with some obvious salary relief and a handful of injuries that could still change things before Saturday.
SMU–Syracuse (58.5), Auburn–Ole Miss (57.5), and Utah–Cincinnati (56.5) lead the game totals, but I don’t want to attack them identically. Ole Miss–Auburn can turn into a shootout; Utah might have the best one-sided offensive matchup.
Trinidad Chambliss and Bear Bachmeier both project well, with Gio Lopez, Gunner Stockton, and Byrum Brown offering strong alternatives.
Makhi Frazier and Sione Moa open up salary at running back, while Wayshawn Parker remains a major spend-up decision.
With the cheap RBs available, I’m interested in what the field decides to buy with all that extra salary.
What’s the Field Going to Do?
The biggest question this week might not be which players attract ownership, but what the most popular roster construction looks like.
In 1,000 unrestricted Optimals, 82% featured three running backs, and 24% included the same Bachmeier–Chambliss–Frazier combination. Optimals aren’t the same thing as projected field ownership, but three running backs remain the dominant construction.
An example of a popular lineup skeleton looks something like:
Bachmeier + Chambliss + Frazier + Moa + Parker at FLEX + three sub-$5,000 receivers.
That won’t be everybody’s exact lineup, and The Solver is now finding more combinations with Brown and Stockton. But I’m curious how many rosters still start with the cheap backs and a FLEX running back before filling the three receiver spots.
I don’t expect everybody to use the two highest-projected quarterbacks together. Stockton, Brown, and Lopez all have meaningful projected ownership, so we should see plenty of different pairings. But if the 3-RB structure becomes as popular as it is with The Solver, spending differently at receiver could become one of the more interesting tournament decisions.
Solver vs. Field
Here’s how the latest available DraftKings ownership estimates compare with 1,000 Optimals and 1,000 Low-Variance builds.
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