** This thread discusses the Content article:
College Fantasy Football: Pac-10 Preview **
This is the first in a series of College Fantasy Football Conference previews. You can see the complete list here.
As the start of the season approaches, I’m here to help you all get ready for your college fantasy football leagues. I already wrote a draft guide, in which I tried to lay out some general guidelines for you to follow for your own league. College fantasy football has so many different ways to play, that I tried to make some key points you could use when thinking about your individual league rules. In the interest of helping as many people as I can, I will provide a breakdown of each of the BCS leagues (and the independents), and if your league takes some random combination of those (my league with the Solid Verbal podcast uses Big Ten, Pac-10, and independents only), you can look at my analysis of these leagues to prepare for your draft. Then, throughout the season, I’ll keep you updated on which players are underperforming, and which players are emerging as fantasy options.
Without any further ado, here is my preview on the Pac-10:[/quote]
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As a reminder, I will assume CBS league default scoring rules and roster limits when discussing these leagues, as those will be the most commonly used rules.[/quote]
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Here is one fantasy sleeper per team; some of these will make a large enough splash in the largest of player pools, while others are only worth consideration in Pac-10 only leagues:[/quote]
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Arizona
Keola Antolin (R
Arizona State
Danny Sullivan (Q
California
Shane Vereen (R
Oregon
Jamere Holland (WR)
Oregon State
Ryan McCants (R
Southern California
Curtis McNeal (R
Stanford
Chris Owusu (R
UCLA
Ryan Moya (TE)
Washington
D'Andre Goodwin (WR)
Washington State
Johnny Forzani (WR)
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Quarterbacks
Quarterback is a surprisingly shallow position in the Pac-10 this season. The biggest question, of course, revolves around the departure of Mark Sanchez from USC. Pete Carroll threw a minor tantrum when he left, so I don’t know how good I would feel drafting Aaron Corp. In an interview with ESPN’s Bruce Feldman, uber-safety Taylor Mays called out Matt Barkley as a player that may surprise people. Of course, now we have the whole Aaron Corp injury to consider. The injury risk, or the true freshman? I’ll probably stay away.[/quote]
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So why play with the USC QB fire? It doesn’t seem to matter who they put back there… in that system… they are a good quarterback. (Wait, did someone just call all those highly-touted, NFL-prospect USC QBs “system QBS”? Yes. Yes I did.) Anyway, guess right on this situation and you could be headed for college fantasy football glory.[/quote]
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The rest of the Pac-10 QB pictures aren’t much better. Here are the surefire starters: Jeremiah Masoli, Jake Locker, and Danny Sullivan. This is why the Arizona State QB is a big-time fantasy sleeper for me. In smaller leagues, wouldn’t you rather take a guy you know has a job than being one of 6 people with a USC RB (or worse, trying to draft all 6)?[/quote]
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Which Cal QB (Riley, Mansion) will get the bulk of the action? Can either Lyle Moevao or Sean Canfield get healthy enough to take control in Corvallis? Is Andrew Luck worth the fantasy sleeper hype heaped on him by CBS? Whoever grabs the Washington State job, are they going to score enough TDs to impact your league? If you must take a Pac-10 QB, you want to get one of the sure things. If you do not, you will be stuck taking flyers on multiple players mired in position battles.[/quote]
Is there a positive side to so many unsure fantasy options at QB in this league? I would say so. If you pay attention to walk-ons (NFL fantasy players, that means ‘waiver wire pickups&rsquo
, you may be able to grab a rock solid option on the cheap a couple weeks after the season begins, or to take a fill your bench with these sorts of options, to transfer to some unfortunate owner who suffers a Tom Brady-like catastrophe week 1.[/quote]
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Running Backs
Running back is an elite fantasy position for the Pac-10 this season. Indeed, several of these players will be very early picks in leagues with large player pools. I’ll get to the six pack of options at USC later, but as elite Pac 10 RB options I count: LeGarrette Blount, Jacquizz Rodgers, and Jahvid Best. Any of those three guys could be the top RB taken in your fantasy draft, no matter which leagues are included.[/quote]
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Other top options are Toby Gerhart (whom I like, a lot) and Nic Grigsby. But again, the biggest fantasy storyline at this position lies in the position battles at USC. Basically, Pete Carroll is the college game’s version of Mike Shanahan.[/quote]
Joe McKnight could have a breakout season, but he has the name recognition to get taken too early in the draft for my tastes. Stafon Johnson and CJ Gable are getting most of the publicity, and Allen Bradford may finally be healthy and ready to breakout. But the deep sleeper pick here is 5-6 redshirt freshman Curtis McNeal. He had a fantastic spring and I’m excited to see what he can do (also, it could be that my orange and blue lenses love the little guys). Anyway, depending on your league, I could see 3-4 of these guys getting drafted, and easily all 6. Two of them will probably wind up as startable fantasy options, but who knows which two? Follow the reports closely as your draft nears.[/quote]
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I had the talented Keola Antolin marked as a sleeper before this report of an ankle injury to Nic Grigsby, so watch that situation. I marked Shane Vereen (Cal) and Ryan McCants (OSU) as guys to target late in the draft, as the reasons we think Best and Rodgers are elite options would hold true if either of these guys become the starter, and for leagues with smaller player pools, there could be enough carries to go around. This is also a reason to watch Andre Crenshaw and LaMichael James at Oregon, in addition to the fact that Oregon has shown the ability to support two fantasy options at RB.[/quote]
Wide Receivers
Wide receivers are like pitchers in fantasy baseball. For most of them, it is impossible to predict which games they will make an impact. You need to make sure you spend an early pick to get one of the studs, but after that I would use bench spots to grab some sleepers, and to play matchups as much as possible. In college fantasy football, matchups are very important, and there should always be good options in the walk-on pool. You can see which team is playing against a WAC (or better yet, a Big XII) defense to pick up a WR that will score a few extra points.[/quote]
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The best option at WR in the Pac-10 is James Rodgers. Something about that whole family breeds fantasy goodness. If possible, look for WRs that either run the Wildcat, or are involved in reverses. Even a couple carries per game leads to more consistent scoring. The same is true for receivers that catch a lot of bubble screens. Whether or not they break one for a TD, the extra point or two they gain by playing these roles will lead them to being more consistent fantasy options. And you need to consistently put up high scores (i.e. avoid the low scoring weeks) to be successful in fantasy sports.[/quote]
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But other top options are: Damian Williams and Ronald Johnson from USC; Jeff Maehl and Jamere Holland at UO; and D’Andre Goodwin at Washington. Note I named Holland and Goodwin as sleepers, because they could put up huge numbers, and could get drafted pretty late in leagues with several conferences.[/quote]
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There are many guys I will keep in my watch list, to either take a flier on if I have room on my roster, or to play matchups if I am facing bye week problems. These guys include: Marvin Jones at Cal, Taylor Embree and Terrance Austin at UCLA, Chris Owusu at Stanford, and Johnny Forzani at Washington State.[/quote]
Tight Ends
The Pac-10 is home to one of the top the two TEs in fantasy, Rob Gronkowski. Points-wise, CBS would rate him the second best wide receiver in Pac-10 leagues. He’s a good enough fantasy option to make me reconsider one of my core fantasy values: play the matchups with your TE. If you don’t get Gronkowski (and he’s going to command an early draft pick), stick to my old tried and true philosophy. Grab a TE only after you’ve filled out your roster (and your backups) at QB, RB, and WR. Remember that CBS rules include a roster maximum, where you can draft no more than 3 QBs, 3 RBs, and 4 WRs.[/quote]
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You can play matchups and there are enough sleeper candidates that you can get enough production out of the position to stay competitive, especially given that with this strategy you should be getting better production that all of your opponents at the other offensive positions.[/quote]
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So who are some Pac-10 TEs that are worth paying attention to for matchup plays? I consider Ed Dickson to be a very solid TE option, and probably would not be available for this sort of thing. I believe UCLA’s Ryan Moya will have an excellent year, and he could go undrafted in leagues with several conferences. After that, the Pac-10 TEs are fairly dreadful. It is worth noting that CBS projects 3 different Cal TEs to rack up a total of 87 points, which would be good for second in the Pac-10.[/quote]
Monitor that position, if one player catches significantly more balls than the other, this could be another place to snag value out of the walk-on pool.[/quote]
Kickers
Don’t draft one till the end. Don’t carry a backup. It’s a waste of time to try to rate one versus another for fantasy purposes. Just play the matchups.[/quote]
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Defense / Special Teams
USC is good. Not worth the pick in the draft you’d have to waste to get them, though. Just play the matchups, and don’t carry a backup.[/quote]
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