With the introduction of College Fantasy Football over at Yahoo! Fantasy, introductions to the game we at Campus2Canton adore are sure to pop up left and right. The main thing to remember, going into these drafts, though, is that the same thing holds in college fantasy football as it does in NFL redraft: You can’t win your league on draft day, but you sure as hell can lose it. That’s why it’s important to prep yourselves on the art of avoidance and how to dodge these three rookie mistakes.
NFL Potential Nets You Zero Points
This is the 1.01 on red flags to remember for draft day, and it’s for a couple of reasons. The first being that the “consensus first round draft picks” in August rarely turn out to be one-for-one replacements for how the draft plays out in April.
Last season, we saw Fernando Mendoza come out of nowhere as the Number One pick, while projected top QBs like LaNorris Sellers and Drew Allar faltered and stumbled their way through the fantasy season. That’s not to say that highly touted players are bad. Jeremiah Smith and Malachi Toney are known as the best WRs in the nation, and they should be selected in the top four or five of every P4 draft this fall.
The rationale for distinguishing gold from fool’s gold is reason number two for being wary of NFL prospects: the best NFL prospects don’t always play in fantasy-friendly offenses. Going back to Smith and Toney, they’re in offenses that have produced strong passing attacks more years than not.
A player like Dante Moore does have the NFL’s attention as the top-projected QB in next April’s NFL Draft, but Oregon will be playing from ahead more often than not, and Moore’s in the Big Ten, a conference filled with cold-weather venues and staunch defenses. There are better options at the QB position for us fantasy players, even if NFL GMs disagree.
If it “Means More”, You May Score Less
This is a generalization based on the SEC’s slogan (“It Just Means More”) and applies to both the SEC and the Big Ten. These powerhouse conferences have built up a reputation for having a swath of great teams and tough competition on the field. And while the studs of these beloved conferences are still studs (and should typically be treated as such), there’s an argument to be made once the elite options are off the board. A tie-breaker should be given (and potentially even a bigger bump in scoring) to those QBs and skill players in the ACC and Big Ten, as they are known for a more wide-open style of play and more upsets and surprises in competitive games.
There’s a reason the Big Ten is known as the conference of “three yards and a cloud of dust,” and there’s a reason most people think of Mike Leach’s Texas Tech programs from yesteryear when they envision the Big 12’s gameplay. Likewise, Georgia, Texas, and Alabama are typically programs atop the standings of the SEC (LSU, A&M, Oklahoma, and Ole Miss are there too most years — don’t worry, fans of those programs), but Duke, the team expected to be a bottom dweller in the conference last year, ended up winning the Conference Championship. Lean into the chaos, especially as players start flying off the board. Don’t be afraid to roster players in the bottom half of the P4 if the situations are right.
Zero RB Comes with Much Greater Risk
A popular draft strategy over the past few years in the NFL game has been going Zero-RB, or opting to draft WRs and QBs early on in drafts and grabbing RBs in committees and uncertain situations later in the draft, and hoping for the right breaks. While there are more teams available in these P4 leagues than in the NFL (there are theoretically 69 starting RBs to choose from instead of 32), not all of these starters are created equal, and actually, the chasm between the top guys and the bottom feeders at the position comes with much greater disparity than that of the NFL game.
In college football, run-heavy teams pound the rock at a much higher rate than in the NFL. For example, Kewan Lacy led the nation in most touches for an RB with 325, and Mark Fletcher was 10th in the P4 with 233. That’s nearly 100 fewer touches for Fletcher than Lacy had, despite still being in an offense that would be considered run-heavy by NFL standards. Passing up the great options with massive workloads at this position early in drafts is not nearly as viable as it is in Sunday’s game.
Regardless of where you fall on the experience scale this Fall, these practices are good for all drafters to follow. Dodging the landmines and navigating your draft smartly are the first steps to bringing home a championship in these Yahoo! College Fantasy Football leagues and in any league this season.
