Below are positional rankings for the 15-game early slate of Week 12 DraftKings CFB contests on Saturday with some commentary along the way. Keep in mind that salary has a huge impact on a player’s ranking.

Matchup Chart

Below is a matchup chart I create each week that includes information from Vegas and information on each team’s opponent in terms of their defensive strength. The defensive numbers are rankings from Football Outsiders’ S&P+ ratings. All the info is color coded as follows from most favorable to the offense to least favorable: purple-blue-green-yellow-orange-red-burgundy.

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Quarterback

1. Brandon Doughty – $8,800 – Western Kentucky
2. Perry Hills – $6,500 – Maryland
3. C.J. Beathard – $5,800 – Iowa
4. Travis Wilson – $6,300 – Utah

There are quite a few expensive quarterbacks available in the early slate, but Brandon Doughty is the best of the bunch. Western Kentucky will face Florida International, giving Doughty one of the best matchups of the day. FIU rates 101st in total defense, 126th against the run and 107th against the pass. No other high priced quarterback has nearly as good of a matchup, and several, like J.T. Barrett, Vernon Adams, Paxton Lynch and Marquise Williams, have below average matchups. If you don’t like Doughty for whatever reason or want to spend on two quarterbacks, Deshaun Watson has a good enough matchup against Wake Forest. But if you’re only paying for one, Doughty is the guy.

As for your cheap options at the position, there are several. Both Perry Hills and C.J. Beathard have upside and value potential, but they also come with quite a bit of risk and downside. Hills has games of 29 and 39 fantasy points, but he has been below 10 points in each of the last two weeks. Beathard has games of 23 and 25 points the last two weeks, but he has been in single digits three times this season. On top of their normal boom-or-bust nature, Hills was benched two weeks ago but got the start again last week and went 14-of-30 for 140 yards with no touchdowns and a pick, while Beathard is dealing with a sore hip. Hills is in line to start this week and Beathard is probable, but those issues add to their risk.

Despite the risk, both guys are options thanks to their matchups. Hills will get an Indiana team that rates 104th in total defense, 87th against the run and 85th against the pass. Beathard draws Purdue who rates 66th in total defense, 114th against the run and 74th against the pass. Of games with a line in Vegas at the time of this writing, Beathard and the Hawkeyes had the second highest team total of the slate. So yeah, there’s risk, but they have the matchups to reach their upside. Of the two, I prefer Hills because of the upside his rushing production presents. He has 542 rushing yards in seven games and had a stretch of four weeks with 90+ rushing yards in each game. Beathard can run a bit as well, but his hip injury reportedly limits his mobility.

If you’re looking for a safer QB2 without the upside, Utah’s Travis Wilson is an option. Wilson did have a 44-point performance this season, but that was way back in Week 4 against Oregon. In the last four weeks he has been between 17 and 23 fantasy points in each game. His matchup with UCLA is pretty average as the Bruins rank 52nd in total defense and are better against the pass than they are against the run. If you wanted to make a case for Wilson having upside, you could point to Devontae Booker being done for the season. Booker carried the ball 34 times in each of the last two weeks for Utah, so his absence could create a little more usage for Wilson. But if you do roster Wilson, you should probably be expecting something in the 18-20 point range. At his price, that will do in cash games.

Running Back

1. Jahad Thomas – $6,900 – Temple
2. Royce Freeman – $7,500 – Oregon
3. Ronald Jones II – $5,100 – USC
4. Brandon Ross – $3,300 – Maryland
5. Jordan Canzeri – $5,200 – Iowa

Jahad Thomas has been priced as high as $9,500 this season, and he hasn’t been priced under $7,000 since Week 1. But his price has fallen below that 7K mark thanks to a string of good-but-not-great performances. The good news is that he has scored at least once in every game this season and has 15 touchdowns in 10 games. The bad news is that he has been between 65 and 82 yards rushing in his last four games. He definitely has upside as he’s gone for 190+ yards twice this season, so he has some value potential at this price point. He’ll face Memphis this week who rates 88th in total defense but is better against the run than they are against the pass. It’s probably not a 190-yard matchup, but it is an above average one. Maybe he’s not a GPP play for you, but he is a good cash game option for sure. That said, there aren’t a ton of spots to spend in this slate, so pay for Thomas if you have money to burn.

Next up, I’d understand if you had to roster Royce Freeman. The dude has at least 100 yards rushing in all but two games this season, and he still managed to top 20 fantasy points in those two games. He’s also got the ability to go big with four 30-plus point performances, including a 53.2-point performance in Week 6. The only concern I have is his matchup. USC rates 39th in total defense and 23rd against the run. But it’s not a horrendous matchup, and Vegas still likes the Ducks to do plenty of scoring. Moreover, Freeman is not unreasonably priced. So if you’ve got to roster him, I can’t blame you.

In the mid-price range, Ronald Jones II and Jordan Canzeri are your options, but they’re in the mid-price range for a reason as both guys have some competition for carries. For Jones, Justin Davis has gotten enough work the last two weeks to keep Jones from getting 20 carries.  Jones gets a larger share of the work, but the timeshare has been about 55/45 the last two weeks. As for Canzeri, an ankle injury has allowed other backs to work into the mix, and LeShun Daniels dominated the carries for Iowa last week with 26 to Canzeri’s 10. However, Canzeri’s balky ankle probably had more to do with that than anything. If fully healthy, it’s entirely possible that Canzeri could dominate the touches this week. So Canzeri has that upside, and Jones is the safer play. Both guys have great matchups against teams with run defenses that rate outside the top 100 in the country.

If you’re looking for salary relief, consider Maryland’s Brandon Ross. Ross lost the starting gig a few weeks ago, but his replacement, Wes Brown, is now serving an indefinite suspension. Ross is averaging more than five yards per carry this season on 103 carries, so it’s not like he’s not capable. He’s gone over 130 yards twice this season but has not done so since Week 4. But if he goes for 100 yards at this price point, he’ll be a huge value. He doesn’t even have to get to double digit fantasy points to be worth his price tag. As mentioned, this is a good matchup for the Maryland offense. I don’t know if I’d have the stones to roster Ross along with his quarterback Hills, but I’m also not sure it’s necessary given the cheap options in this slate. So just make sure you get exposure to one cheap element of the Maryland ground game.

Wide Receiver

1. Taywan Taylor – $6,200 – Western Kentucky
2. Isaiah Ford – $4,800 – Virginia Tech
3. Robby Anderson – $4,500 – Temple
4. Matt VandeBerg – $4,100 – Iowa
5. Levern Jacobs – $3,300 – Maryland
6. Nicholas Norris – $4,000 – Western Kentucky
7. Bralon Addison – $5,100 – Oregon
8. Ricky Jones – $4,000 – Indiana

First, let’s cover the stack options with the quarterbacks ranked above. Taywan Taylor and Doughty as a stack seems almost too obvious, especially with Taylor being so reasonably priced. Taylor is averaging 26 fantasy points per game and has only dipped below 20 fantasy points twice in 10 games. The only reason to fade them is for the sake of being contrarian in tournaments, but I’m not even sure that’s a good idea. The other option to pair with Doughty, or even with Doughty and Taylor, is Nicholas Norris. After a slow start to the season, Norris has hit double digit fantasy points in all but one of his last eight games, and he has mixed in 28 and 29 point performances in that stretch. At $4,000, he’d only need to get to 10 points to be worth his price tag, so there’s plenty of value potential there.

As for stacking with Hills and Beathard, it’s not totally necessary since part of their production is on the ground. But both guys have cheap stacking options that see a healthy percentage of their team’s targets. Matt VandeBerg sees over a quarter of the targets for Iowa, which is the 12th highest rate of any receiver playing in this slate. Levern Jacobs only sees about 20 percent of the targets for Maryland, but that still comfortably leads the team as no other receiver sees more than 12 percent of the targets. Given that salary relief and upside are what you’re after with Hills and Beathard, it would make sense to pair them with Jacobs and VandeBerg.

Speaking of receivers that see the most targets for their team, the same could be said of the other four receivers ranked here. Isaiah Ford sees almost 30 percent of Virginia Tech’s targets, and Robby Anderson sees a little more than a quarter of the targets for Temple. Those two rank eighth in 17th in targets per game among receivers playing in this slate. Tied with Anderson for 18th in targets per game is Ricky Jones and ranking 24th is Bralon Addison.

Addison and Jones are the lower ranked receivers because of their matchups. Again, Oregon will face USC who rates 39th in both total defense and against the pass, while Jones and Indiana will face Maryland who rate 34th in total defense and 36th against the pass. Ford and Anderson have better matchups against North Carolina and Memphis who rate 63/53 and 88/79 in total defense and against the pass, respectively.

Bonus Night Slate Player Rankings

I’m headed from Dallas to Norman in the morning to get drunk and then go freeze my ass off at the TCU-Oklahoma game. As such, I just didn’t end up having time to do a full night slate write-up. But I did do all the research so I could make a lineup or three. Below are my player rankings for the 13-game night slate of CFB contests on DK for Week 12 without the commentary that usually follows.

Quarterback

1. Luke Falk – $8,300 – Washington State
2. Keenan Reynolds – $8,100 – Navy
3. Kenny Potter – $5,700 – San Jose State
4. Matt Davis – $7,300 – SMU

Running Back

1. Donnel Pumphrey – $7,900 – San Diego State
2. Ralph Webb – $4,400 – Vanderbilt
3. Xavier Jones – $3,900 – SMU
4. Joe Mixon – $5,200 – Oklahoma
5. Chris Swain – $5,300 – Navy

Wide Receiver

1. Gabe Marks – $6,900 – Washington State
2. Dom Williams – $6,200 – Washington State
3. Sterling Shepard – $6,700 – Oklahoma
4. James Washington – $6,300 – Oklahoma State
5. Teddy Veal – $4,100 – Tulane
6. Courtland Sutton – $5,400 – SMU
7. David Glidden – $4,200 – Oklahoma State

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