Kansas State vs. Oklahoma State
Point-Spread: K-St -11.5
O/U Total: 55
Implied Score: K-St 33.5 – Ok-St 22
Weather: 63 degrees / 1% rain / 14 mph winds
Kansas State:
Top Play(s) – RB DJ Giddens ($6,100) Sounds as though Treshaun Ward is full-go this week after missing the UCF game and then having the bye week to heal. So the question now becomes does Kansas State go back to the 50-50 split the staff was utilizing prior to the injury or is Giddens the featured back after rushing for 207 yards and four touchdowns against the Knights. Comments from HC Chris Klieman do sound promising that Giddens might get the lion’s share of the work but expect to also see Ward involved.
“I don’t know if we want to give it to him 40 times a game. You know, when you talk about carries and receptions. We want to make sure he can last for the whole season. But without a doubt he proved to us that he can be that bell cow that can carry it now. I don’t know if that’s 20 carries if that’s 18 carries and six catches, I’m not sure how the game will play out but if we could book and have 80 every game yeah, we’d get him a lot of carries but every game is gonna be a little bit different.”
Oklahoma State is allowing 18.6 FPPG to opposing RB1s so far this season.
Fade – RB Treshaun Ward ($5,900) See above. First game back from injury + Giddens’ emergence means we’ll side with caution here on Ward’s potential involvement on Friday.
Bargain Bin – WR Keagan Johnson ($4,200) The former Iowa transfer saw his most playing time of the season as he returned from injury, targeted five times vs. Central Florida. Comments from Klieman suggest Johnson is now at 100% health, though with the way Jadon Jackson ($4,400) has performed of late, we’ll probably see a four-man rotation at receiver for K-State.
Pivot Play – QB Will Howard ($9,000) Worth spending up for Will Howard? The senior quarterback has scored 23 or more fantasy points in all four starts this season, and this is an average Oklahoma State secondary, ranked 73rd in pass D success rate. The Cowboys are allowing just 16.7 FPPG to opposing quarterbacks but haven’t faced any top-tier passing offenses to date.
Best of the Rest – TE Ben Sinnott ($5,400) 60 or more receiving yards for Sinnott in three of the first four games, and second on the team in targets (26). Oklahoma State has yet to allow an opposing TE to score more than 7 fantasy points in a game this season. WR Phillip Brooks ($6,500) leads the team with 24 receptions on 31 targets. He’s very intriguing in this spot given the way Oklahoma State has struggled mightily against slot receivers in 2023. South Alabama’s Caullin Lacy and Iowa State’s Jaylin Noel combined to score nearly 60 fantasy points in their matchups.
Injury Notes – Sounds like Kansas State should be full-go following the bye week with Treshaun Ward, Keagan Johnson and RJ Garcia being available.
Oklahoma State:
Top Play(s) – RB Ollie Gordon ($5,700) Hopefully a sign of things to come from Gordon after seeing 18 carries against Iowa State in Week 4. The sophomore back rewarded the coaching staff with 121 yards on the ground, while nabbing four receptions on five targets. Not the best defense to roster a running back against as Kansas State is allowing just 14 FPPG to opposing RB1s and are 5th in rush D success rate nationally. The hope is that this is a trend moving forward with Gordon’s 22 touches his last time out.
Fade – RB Jaden Nixon ($5,300) We’ll just lean into the notion that this is Ollie Gordon’s backfield moving forward and that Nixon has fully been relegated to RB2 duties. Still a factor in the passing game, converting on all 10 of his targets in 2023, but saw a season-low two rushing attempts in Week 4.
Bargain Bin – WR Blaine Green ($3,100) We saw last year that this system can support two slot receivers with Brennan Presley and John Paul Richardson. Hasn’t been the same in 2023, but Green had his best performance of the year with six receptions on seven targets.
Pivot Play – WR Jaden Bray ($4,700) Lowest of the salaries between the starting trio featuring Brennan Presley and De’Zhaun Stribling yet leads the team with 18 receptions on 29 targets. Oklahoma State will spread the ball around with the top three receivers but should be noted that Kansas State has allowed a pair of huge offensive performances this year with both Kobe Hudson and Luther Burden scoring 30 or more fantasy points.
Best of the Rest – QB Alan Bowman ($6,800) Mike Gundy announced over the bye week that Bowman would be the starter on Friday after seeing 100% of the offensive snaps against Iowa State last time out. Oklahoma State had been rotating at quarterback between Bowman, Garret Rangel, and Gunnar Gundy in the first three weeks. Bowman failed to complete 50% of his passes against the Cyclones and was lucky to his 20 fantasy points with a rushing touchdown; he’s a statue under center and that might be his only rushing TD of the season. Kansas State is 65th in pass D success rate, so they’re far better at defending the run vs. the pass, fwiw.
Injury Notes – n/a
Nebraska vs. Illinois
Point-Spread: Illini -3.5
O/U Total: 43
Implied Score: Illini 23 – Neb 20
Weather: 53 degrees / 25% rain / 21 mph winds
Nebraska:
Top Play(s) – RB Anthony Grant ($5,400) Same premise as a week ago – Grant remains the last man standing in the Nebraska backfield with Rahmir Johnson and Gabe Ervin out for the season. Really the only player Grant will share any significant amount of carries with moving forward is whoever starts under center at QB. The Illini are 116th in rush D success rate, allowing 17.1 FPPG to opposing RB1s.
Fade – WR Josh Fleeks ($3,900) Priced up to $3.9k because of a 74-yard rushing touchdown against Michigan last week. The former Baylor transfer has played in just two games this season and played all of four snaps vs. the Wolverines. Fleeks is the 5th or 6th option in the Nebraska passing game.
Bargain Bin – TE Thomas Fidone ($4,100) Fidone is second on the team in targets (15) and has three of Nebraska’s five receiving touchdowns. Illinois is allowing 7.4 FPPG to opposing tight ends this season and have allowed two B1G tight ends to hit double digit fantasy points.
Pivot Play – QB1. Who that is, I’m not sure. Coaching staff again is being coy with their mid-week comments when discussing Heinrich Haarberg and Jeff Sims, stating that the former is full-go in practice and that Jeff Sims is getting closer to 100%. Neither player is the future of this Nebraska program, but both can run which keeps the QB1 in play on Saturday against an Illinois defense that is now dead last in the B1G in scoring. This will have to be a late swap as we likely won’t see any confirmation until pregame warmups.
Best of the Rest – WR Billy Kemp ($4,900) Nebraska throws the ball just 39% of the time, good for 122nd nationally, so we really don’t need to invest in any Cornhusker receivers if we don’t have to. Kemp is the top playmaker on the team with 17 receptions and 31% of the target share. Smaller, shifty receivers like Kemp have given the Illini fits this season with LaJohntay Wester, Deion Burks and Jerjuan Newton all scoring over 16 fantasy points against them.
Injury Notes – Keep an eye on the QB situation. Some Nebraska folks are of the belief Sims will play on Saturday because Matt Ruhle brought him to Lincoln to be the starter.
Illinois:
Top Play(s) – WR Isaiah Williams ($6,400) Does Williams have the highest floor of any player in college football outside of maybe Caleb Williams and Bo Nix? Five receptions or more in every game this season, now accounting for 29.7% of the team’s target share. What’s more promising in 2023 is that the ceiling has been raised, averaging 14.9 YPC compared to just 9.1 a year ago. Amazing with that improvement that Williams has yet to find the end-zone in 2023. Sneaky suspicion that changes on Friday.
Fade – RB Josh McCray ($4,400) Had high hopes this season for McCray who rushed for 500 yards as a freshman before his sophomore year was derailed due to injury. Just hasn’t found his footing in 2023 outside of the Florida Atlantic performance, now averaging just 3.6 YPC. This could be a three-man rotation now with potentially Reggie Love and another player we’ll mention below. The Cornhuskers are allowing just 9.3 FPPG to opposing RB1s.
Bargain Bin – WR Malik Elzy ($3,300) In the same vein as we’ll mention with Feagin below, we’re seeing Illinois get some of the younger players on the roster involved with this slow start in 2023. Elzy has played double-digit snaps in each of the last three games with 11 of his 12 targets coming in that span.
Pivot Play – RB Kaden Feagin ($4,200) Love’s injury had a lot to do with the increased usage for the 4-star freshman last Saturday as Feagin rushed for 85 yards on 11 carries at Purdue. So, this tout could blow up in our face should Love be available and the coaching staff reverts back to using their upperclassmen. I view this as an opportunity in a down season for the Illini to get some of the younger players involved, because my naked eye is telling me that Love and Josh McCray are not the solutions at running back in the long-term.
Best of the Rest – QB Luke Altmyer ($7,200) This is an average Nebraska pass defense, allowing 19 FPPG to opposing QB1s and ranking 73rd in pass D success rate. Don’t have any strong opinions here for Altmyer at his pricing with a 19.4-point projection. Take it or leave it for me. We’ve seen minimal rotation at the wide receiver position to this point with Williams, Pat Bryant ($5,900) and Casey Washington ($4,600) all playing at least 64% of the offensive snaps in 2023. That said, there was a lot of talk from the staff and beat writers about getting some younger players more reps, as we alluded to above with Elzy. I’m only interested in Isaiah Williams among that trio.
Injury Notes – RB Reggie Love ($4,600) Listed as questionable, though the coaching staff said that Love should practice with the team on Tuesday. The caveat is that this was the same situation last week and Love wound up not playing.
