Week 9 college football DFS must-starts: It's all about Perine
Samaje Perine is back with the Sooners and our Matthew Coca is bubbling over with excitement. Check out his top picks for Saturday's slate on FanDuel.
By
Matthew Coca
•
5 min read
It's the Halloween edition of college football and you are all in for a treat. Say it with me, SAMAJE PERINE IS BACK! His 201 rushing yards and four touchdowns were good enough for a 45 FanDuel-point day last week against Texas Tech, which stood absolutely no chance against Perine once he saw my plea for him to have his best game of the season.
It's possible I had nothing to do with it, but I would like to think it was. This week, he is going to do that all over again against Kansas and I will sit back and bask in the glory. Remember, he rushed for a record 427 yards on 34 attempts against the Jayhawks last season.
Many question marks stand out this week at almost every position. South Florida quarterback Quinton Flowers is the No. 4 quarterback on this 16-game slate. That basically tells you everything you need to know. While Flowers is coming off a 41 FanDuel-point effort against SMU, he is not playing SMU again.
UPDATE:
Florida State running back Dalvin Cook has been ruled out for this week's game against Syracuse. Cook has been dealing with hamstring and ankle issues so coach Jimbo Fisher has decided to rest him.
Must Starts
Quarterbacks - Brandon Doughty, Western Kentucky (at Old Dominion); Patrick Mahomes II, Texas Tech (vs. Oklahoma State); Chad Kelly, Ole Miss (at Auburn)
Running Backs - Samaje Perine, Oklahoma (at Kanas); Anthony Wales, Western Kentucky (at Old Dominion); Akrum Wadley, Iowa (vs. Maryland)
Wide Receivers - Taywan Taylor, Western Kentucky (at Old Dominion); Laquon Treadwell, Ole Miss, (at Auburn); JuJu Smith, Southern California (at California)
Tight Ends - Jaylen Samuels, North Carolina State (vs. Clemson); Jordan Leggett, Clemson (at North Carolina State); Jerrell Adams, South Carolina (at Texas A&M)
Western Kentucky at Old Dominion: Hilltoppers quarterback Brandon Doughty is a star. He has thrown for more than 320 yards in seven of his eight games this year. Most recently, he had 325 yards and three touchdowns against LSU in Death Valley. So it's safe to say whoever Doughty plays against next is not going to be a major factor.
Old Dominion just surrendered 390 passing yards to an awful Florida International offense. The Monarchs' defense has been good against the pass this season, but it has not played anyone who can pass as well as this Western Kentucky team. The Monarchs have also allowed more than 250 rushing yards in a game four times.
What all this information tells us is Western Kentucky is going to be your best stack of the day. Wide receiver Taywan Taylor has scored a touchdown in his last seven games and has never had less than 84 yards receiving in a game this year. Running back Anthony Wales had a tough matchup against LSU last week, but he should be back in your lineup this week. No Tyler Higbee at tight end, so wide receiver Jared Dangerfield could see more targets than usual.
South Carolina at Texas A&M: Aggies coach Kevin Sumlin said he will release the name of the starter for this week’s game on Friday. A quarterback battle he reopened in College Station, but none of that is shying me away from using the Aggies' players this week. As much turmoil as the offense has been through, the Aggie defense is still pretty good. Playing at home is going to give this team some extra confidence and the defense is going to give whoever starts at quarterback multiple opportunities to score.
If Kyler Murray gets the nod, which I hope he does, he would be a top-tournament choice at quarterback. This is a favorable matchup for a dual-threat quarterback and he will be looking to make a big splash. The true freshman has not played many snaps this season, but word is some of the players have rallied behind him and are pushing for him to start. The former five-star recruit threw for 4,715 yards and rushed for 1,498 yards his last season of high school. We saw what Sumlin was able to do with Johnny Manziel, so let's see if Murray could be the next big Aggie star.
Aggies wide receiver Christian Kirk will be a nice play this week. He is coming off his worst game of the season and he is too good of a player to not have a bounce-back week. The South Carolina defense has not been tested through the air in a long time, but they have not played anyone who could air it out. The Aggies receiving corps of Kirk, Josh Reynolds and Ricky Seals-Jones should all be reliable targets.
Oklahoma at Kansas: Oklahoma offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley must read this column. Baker Mayfield only threw 22 passes and the Sooners were still able to score 63 points last week. That's because Riley has finally figured out that the best player on his team is his running back -- Samaje Perine. The combination of Perine and Joe Mixon had 39 carries for 355 yards and 6 touchdowns. It was a very favorable matchup for the run game and this week should be no different.
Kansas is a bad football team. The defense is dead last in the Big 12 in points allowed per game (45) and total yards allowed per game (563.1). That means Riley will be licking his chops knowing all he has to do is have his quarterback turn around and hand the ball off to his running backs and let them rack up big Fantasy points.
Last week was the perfect week for the Perine and Mixon stack at running back. I have never been a firm believer in using both backs from the same team in a game, but it worked last week and it is going to work again this week. Get Perine and Mixon in your lineup and just watch them run for another 350 yards and six touchdowns. We want points and they will give us those points.
Under the radar finds: Mason Rudolph, QB, Oklahoma State (at Texas Tech); Kyler Murray, QB, Texas A&M (vs. South Carolina); Joe Mixon, RB, Oklahoma (at Kansas); David Glidden, WR,Oklahoma State (at Texas Tech); Zach Pascal, WR, Old Dominion (vs. Western Kentucky); Matt VandeBerg, WR, Iowa (at Maryland); Henry Krieger Coble, TE, Iowa (at Maryland)
