Fantasy Football Daily - CFF All Access: Top 10 CFF RBs

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

On this episode of CFF All Access, the guys talk about Spring Camp news at LSU, UNLV, and Ohio State before deep-diving into their top 10 CFF RBs for 2024. Barring injury, can anything stop Ashton Jeanty from averaging 30 FPG? Will teams stack the box to shut down Omarion Hampton? Will Gus Malzahn give RJ Harvey enough carries for him to hit value? Enjoy this podcast and take your game to the next level with CFF All Access. Make sure to follow us for more valuable college fantasy football content! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's week three of Canadian tires early Black Friday sales. These prices won't go lower this year. Maybe too long. Freezing. Save up to 50% November 20th to 27. Conditions apply, details online. This is CFF All Access, the College Fantasy Football podcast at Fantasy Points. All right.

We are wasting no time getting into our subjects today. I am joined today by Zach Hall, the data guru, Eric Frotan of NBC Sports, the CFF Props God. and so you know that we had to open with a segment about Charlie Baker. If you don't know who Charlie Baker is, he is the NCAA president who has decided that he wants to take up a cause of canceling player props among all college sports. And so he went on a big deal this week, this last week, and created a big hoopla, if you will, asking states across the board to ban player props. He even got woege. We got a woge bomb from ESPN. He got in on this, and he basically sent out a tweet saying that very thing,

saying that Baker is contacting officials from all states that still allow prop bets on college sports and asking them to join with several other states and having banned them. Now, as you guys know, we do quite a bit with player props over here. And on this show, we have the props god, Eric Frothon, when 11 for 11 for 11. and the national championship this last year, set it up, he's the goat at this. And so, look, Eric, what does this mean? Can Charlie Baker do this to us? Well, I mean, he certainly is trying to.

And if we remember, Charlie Baker was the governor of Massachusetts for years. And when Connecticut and Rhode Island and New Hampshire and then a little further out, but New Jersey all went legal for gambling, Massachusetts was the last one to kind of to adopt it, He was at the forefront of saying, no, we will not be allowing college football prop betting in Massachusetts when he went and spearheaded the charge to go legal. Then as soon as that happened, you know, he goes out of office and he goes right into the NCAA presidency. Now, he's been in his post for a while now. It's been over a year.

And what everybody has to remember is this isn't anything new. He's been saying this and this has been his platform for years, dating back to his as governor. So he said this all last year. He said it a couple times during the college football season. He's saying it now because there's a new cycle to latch on to. He's just latching on to the latest new cycle. And that was the Otani controversy with the interpreter. Jante Porter went out and made substantial, obscenely large bets. Like betting an $80,000 player prop, you know, on a several leg parlay. And he hit for 1.2 and three of the legs were his parlays. So, you know, it's outrageous. That sort of thing hasn't happened in college quite to that extent, obviously, yeah. We haven't seen that.

But it's important to remember that, you know, every time that they've gone to court for this, the NCAA NICHA has gone and legislated NIL, they've gotten crushed. They've gotten their teeth kicked in. This is obviously a different entity, but look, these players are getting money now. They're not amateurs. These are professional players. All of them are going to take $500 at a copy of the NCAA 25 game and they're getting paid. All of them. We're very few and the ones who want are getting more money elsewhere. That's the whole point why they kind of kick out. So, you know, the pretense of this being an amateur league, it just isn't, it doesn't make sense anymore. With, you know, you got to remember, too, with these organizations, I look at for NFL and for NBA purposes, the NCAA is basically like the European Premier League, how they use their under 14 and under 15 and their club developmental team where those kids get paid.

13, 12, 13, 14. All those soccer organizations have their farm teams and that's what they do. That's what essentially the NCAA is for the NFL. It is AAA. It is the G League. That's what it is for these professional, those two specifically professional leagues. So I just, I don't want to hear about how these are amateur athletes. If you want to talk about preserving the sanctity of a game so that, you know, idiots don't go and aren't enticed to go and do things like Jonti Porter did, well, that's, you know, I have no problem with that. I think that's pretty reasonable. We want to reduce the barriers, you know, or excuse me, the interest and the potential for these college players.

to look and say, oh, well, I could make a million two like John Tate ported it. No, we don't want that to happen. And frankly, that's extremely rare. And that doesn't happen. That's a ridiculously large bet. But if you want to talk about some caps on a per bit, all right, you know, now we're talking. However, you're just going to send these markets overseas to where they were before, which means that anybody who has these interests in these markets and loves college football, which is the second most wagered on sport in the country to NFL, all these people want to do this. And for our purposes, how far does this go? How far are we going?

Okay, it starts with player problems. What does that mean? Are you going to take away DFS too? What about college fantasy football that we're literally on this college, this podcast above? We have fan tracks, it's a Canadian company, go and take care of most of what we do because they skirt already the existing ridiculous laws. How far are we going to go now? To what end, Charlie Baker? Where is it enough for you to where we stop?

Like some gambling's okay, but other isn't? I don't know. We'll see how this goes. Obviously, he's making calls. He's been making calls. It's just there's a new cycle to latch onto. We'll see how this all transpires and see how this all develops. Yeah, it's entirely possible that Charlie Baker could get those other 12 states to go and, you know, eliminate props.

It's also possible that they could go and try to go through the courts, and that could be struck down. in a few of these cases on a state level. And then on the other side of things, there's also ways around that that I know that underdog and that prize picks are looking at already because of the potential of California going to a referendum vote and taking away the ability to do the parlay markets and things like that. So those are also, you know, another avenue to play props. So those are going to be affected, which is really DFS because that's how they operate.

grade under state law. So there's all these type of loopholes and these clarifications that need to be made that make it a long way from the outright ban of college football props. Because he specifically mentioned the 12 states that are draft kings, Fandul legal, straight legal, is being the ones that he's targeting. Does that mean that the other markets, the parley markets, you know, they can't go, they're not going to bother going after them on a state-by-state basis? okay, there's also peer-to-peer gaming that gets around that by meaning that people are essentially betting against each other. You aren't using a service like draft kings or fan duel. So there's a lot of different avenues that we're going to have to be able to have some form of this prop, at least

marketplace, it's just a matter of what that becomes. That's my personal feeling. I still think we'll have something. I still think we won't have to go off, sure, you know, but time will take. Yeah, I mean, do you think, I mean, it sounds like from what you're saying, like, once the cat's out of the bag, once the stuff's been legalized to a certain extent, it's hard to go backwards. Is that, is that true? Or am I kind of reading into that into your words there? Sure. I mean, you would think that it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle. But that's where grabbing the correct news cycle and glomming on to it. That's what they're trying to do. He's a politician. Charlie Baker is not is not an athletic director. He is a politician. He had to. he won as a Republican in the governor the governor seat in Massachusetts. Not an easy task. He knows how to triangulate.

He knows how to work the press. It's exactly what he's doing here. He's warming on to a news cycle. He's been doing this for a year already. It's nothing new he said. Keep that in mind. He's just being opportunistic like a true politician would. Because let's face it, the Big Ten and the SEC,

have pretty much taken hold and said, we don't need you anymore, NCAA. You're functionally irrelevant for what we're doing. We're going to add teams. I don't care what you say. So the NCAA needs a win, and they need one bad because the NCAA is borderline irrelevant. So, I mean, we could see the big time in the SEC go,

listen, we don't care when you say Charlie Baker. We don't care. We're not going to have anything to do with this. I do whatever we want with the NCAA, but they don't have anything to do with us. And it's getting close to a pretty much a full break between those two conferences anyways. So, you know, there's so many moving pieces here. This is nothing more than Charlie Baker trying to get a win and just using a new cycle.

They need a win. The NCAA has to justify their pathetic existence to somebody. And here we are. It's a winning public message. It's the one message they have that they haven't been, you know, hasn't been a new cycle of talking about getting beat up in NIL court. Yeah. It reminds me a little bit of like a couple years ago, right, when they banned college DFS for a little bit.

And then it came back. And I wonder like in a couple years, right, the professionalization of college football at least and probably college basketball as well means in a couple of years, not like NCAA is going to be irrelevant. And whatever they get, you know, and whatever happens in court will be then overturned by any other professional gambling laws. right that will go along with exactly and they don't want to have the nationwide notice how he didn't say we should have a nation one like he's going state by state

he knows that there's nothing he's a politician he knows that a national gambling all right let's do this once and for all and have a federal thing he knows there's no appetite for that nobody wants any part of it from a national level leave it to the

states so he knows he has to go state by state you can't do it nationally so yeah I mean we'll see how that transpires and how it works out. Well, sounds like he's already smarter than Mark Emmert, which that might be bad for us, but probably will be irrelevant here a couple years.

We'll see. We'll see. All good. Well, sweet. Zach, you got anything that you want to contribute to this conversation? I don't have much here. I've never gotten too much into the prop game,

but I hope it continues as it is so we can, you guys can keep winning some money. Dude, with your ability, man, with all the data you got, we got to get you into this. Seriously, shit. We'll get you going with that.

Hopefully there's a market for you to attack come this fall at least. Wouldn't that be a nice problem to have? Exactly. Get all your Jamal Banks overs while they're out there. Yeah, all right. Yeah, there we go. Our boy, Zach called me. He's a Nebraska fan.

So we got to give him some love occasionally. But we got, speaking of Nebraska, we got some spring camp news that we want to talk about here. And so we want to run down, you know, every week hit two or three different items. In fact, I think in a couple weeks once we have a bunch of spring games, we just need to do a whole show on this. But I wanted to hit on three different topics that have been top of mind for me over the last week or two as we've been doing some best ball drafts. The first one is the LSU wide receiver room.

So, you know, you have Kyron Lacey, CJ Daniels, who have been drafted pretty high in drafts, right? Kyrin Lacey's going round 10, ADP, you got CJ Daniels going round five. And, you know, as the LSU's been in in camp for about three weeks now, we're really starting to get a clear picture of what the rotation looks like there. And, you know, it's Kyrin Lacey and one other guy that is basically with the ones all the time. And then everybody else is rotating. Xavier and Thomas. You got Aaron Anderson, right? You got Kyle Parker.

All those guys are rotating. but Chris Hilton is that other guy that's running with the ones with with Karen Lacey. And so Chris Hilton though has been drafted like twice, I think in the first 20 drafts that I've done. He hasn't gone before round 26. But all the reports that are coming out are asking the question like, man, is Chris Hilton actually the player that's going to break out with Malik Neighbors and Brian Thomas moving on? So my question for you guys, are we drafting? like is one is CJ Daniels like where should he like he's going round five that seems absurd to me where should CJ Daniels go and like are we just draft is are we drafting the wrong wide receivers

for LSU is Chris Hilton actually the guy we should be going after and he's actually virtually going undrafted yeah that's good question I mean in terms of CJ Daniels you can't remember he had a damn good year last year 16 yard a dot eight of nine contested targets he reeled in I mean I'll take that day. 52 catches on 88 receptions. A rare receiver who is hitting the 1,000 yard plateau on less than 90 targets. And so efficiency-wise, that's exceptional. 144 passer rating when targeted, I think 158 is perfect. So he was exceptional at Liberty, but now he's at LSU, and you're in a wide receiver. And like you said, Amad Anderson, Hilton, Kairn Lacey. he's already established himself as a star receiver given he's the slot.

But hey, he's there. Even though, I think that there's always this period in the early part of drafts, because we just hit April, that things are still settling in. And with CJ Daniels as a fifth rounder, I think that everybody looks at the numbers from last year, plug-in plays it, assumes that that's just how it'll be where, oh, this guy had this number, the last, this numbers last year, we can just plug that into LSU. And as we know, that's not always the case, you know. I like Newsmeyer, I think that that passing attack is going to pick up right where it left off. And as you know, I picked Caleb Jackson in the, I believe, 10th round.

I was going to let Ambridge get him again. He got him the 11th in the first champion series. I was not going to allow that. Not on my watch. I think that's a smoking pick. So little in that room to really challenge him right now. Totally agree. So I love him. I think he's one of the best undervalued backs right now. So I think there's a lot to what you're saying. And look, we have to read the tea leaves here. Every year, everything resets with the transfer portal, with graduations, with early declaration, coach movement. You have to read the tea leaves and follow what's happening in these camps and you're going to benefit from it. And that's what makes CFF so much better in my opinion and

different than the NFL is if you study, you get good grades. and you can win these leagues with superior information and knowledge and application. Yeah, just to add on to that quick, Kairn Lacey is a guy that I feel like is going right around where I'm usually starting to think about him. I feel like that's about where he's kind of fallen on my radar. C.J. Daniels, the one thing about him, that concerns me a little bit outside of he's running with the twos right now, that we're just finding that out. but usually that step up from the G5 to the power 5,

we kind of see a bit of a drop-off. So that's always kind of scared me away with him going round 5, right? It just seemed really early. But I think Froton's right, where the trend in a lot of these early drafts, and you'll see this with guys that are starting to really drop in their ADP, is guys that we know that performed last year that might have transferred, we're picking up a little bit earlier. And now they're starting to follow one guy's Curtis Rourke, right?

people were drafting him a little bit earlier because of that name, I think, in what he's done in the past. And now you're kind of starting to see that correct itself a little bit. But then Chris Hilton, where you can essentially get him for free and he's running with the ones right now, I love taking a shot on him late in those drafts. That's great value. And I would expect with more reports like that, his ADP is going to rise. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, one interesting thing about Chris Hilton, you know, he came in with Malik Nabilia.

and, you know, and Brian, um, Brian Thomas. He was in that same, same class. He got injured quite a bit, but he was every bit the prospect that they were coming into college. Um, and in the bowl game, he had four catches for 54 yards in a touchdown with Ms. Meyer as the quarterback. So in, you know, it seems like they have some chemistry in camp. They had some chemistry in that game. Um, so it is something it's intriguing to me, you know, because so much to me of, you know, a wide receiver production is the chemistry with a quarterback. And who do they like, right? Who do they favor?

And, you know, it could be Chris Hilton. They also are moving Chris Hilton around like they didn't leak neighbors last year, both in the slot and outside, basically trying to get him matchups. So we'll see, you know, we'll see what happens. But I wanted to bring Chris Hilton up because I think he's a guy that we need to be paying attention more. Second thing I want to talk about. We want to travel over to Las Vegas and talk about some UNLV spring news.

So not usually a hot place to go for CFF News, but we got a potential quarterback battle brewing over there in Las Vegas. So there's a new quarterback in town there named Hage Malik Williams, and he has been killing it in camp. The word on the street is that he's impressing both coaches and teammates with his leadership, off the field and then on the field with his play. And he was actually a pretty good quarterback at the FCS level. the top 15, great according to PFF.

And so he was a good pickup coming out of the transfer portal this spring. But they also picked up another FCS quarterback named Matthew Sluka, who got a lot more hype, was a lot more popular with people. But Matthew Sluka is not coming in until this summer, right? And so, Haj Malik has a little bit of a step up on Matthew, a little bit of a head start, if you will, and he's winning teammates over. Do you guys think there's actually a QB battle here that we need to be concerned about with Matthew Sluka? Or, like, should we just keep drafting him with confidence?

This is really a question for me because I'm the only one really drafting him. And so should I be concerned about Hodge Malik Williams? I thought I saw Katz take Sluka this recent draft. Was that you? He did. Yeah, he did. Okay, good. So both of you sweating this one out.

Good. Well, as it comes with these QBs, you know, same thing as C.J. Daniels. All right. We'll see how Matthew Sluca handles the jump up. I think a lot of Matthew Sluca is he has the Luca Donchitz sort of appeal to him, the Sluca. He's got a cool last name. That's obviously a factor that comes in. And he goes into the go-go offense with Brennan and what have you.

So over there at UNLV, now remember that offense. put up 34 and a half points per game last year, went to the Mountain West Championship game. Year one, I mean, kind of frankly, a magical run that I don't think anybody was really expecting this year. And look, that's 35 points a game. That's what gets your attention in fantasy. That is where you want to be shopping in, the dominant offenses. Now, who Jade Maiden out, can they, or Maiava out, can they just plug and play in on the system? It has happened before.

I mean, I believe in Brennan Marion. So this is a battle you have to watch. I'd be concerned if I'm a sluke owner. You have to, there is no established pecking order in that quarterback room yet. We've seen it time and time again where you think, oh, well, this guy comes in and he's just going to take it. Seth Dagey going to Western Kentucky. Oh, he's just going to take it. It'll be all set.

Well, no, he didn't take it as Addison Reed. And that's happened time after time. Washington State. Look at Anthony Gordon, you know, when he came in that year. It was supposed to be Anthony Gordon. He waited his turn. It wasn't supposed to be him. You know, he was, I forget the guy's name who was even the first guy. He left for the dustbin of CFF history. So just because a more slightly heralded guy is in there in camp, there's no established pecking order. Do not, you have to be concerned. You have to go with what the reports are in an unsettled room. So good, good. Throw you, throw your draft picks away. Throw those.

Ross your spots away, Josh. Yeah, I love that. And, you know, Haj Malik, I did some more research on him. The dude's like 24, 25 years old. Actually, he came out and, yeah, 2017, and he went to West Point and went to their prep school. You know how they all go to basically a year of prep school before they go into the academy. And then he decided, hey, West Point Army is not for me. So he dipped out and went to Campbell and then played five years there.

So he's on his seventh year out of high school, right? And we've seen guys really succeed with that amount of time out of high school. Guys like Michael Pennix and Bo Nix had quite a few years in college. And so, you know, you never know. I mean, this kid, it's not like this was like just like, you know, has been at the FCS level. He was a really good. He was a freshman All-American, got hurt a couple years and then had a couple really solid years these last couple of years where he's really good. So again, Matthew Sluke got all the hype, but Hajmoleek Williams is the name that we should have on radar.

For me, you know, I'll just be, I'll probably just double tap, right? The things that you have to do in best ball drafts. So this is a basketball drafts. If we're talking best ball strategy here, yeah, you have to double tap. I get it in the wide receiver and the running back rooms. We all have to do that at times of, man, it's tough burning that extra quarterback. Because you only get generally six, maybe seven. Right.

You go down in the five. rooms and if one of them gets hurt one of the other four you're thin you're you're right you know you need to have a real impact top three if you're going to be doing that sort of a thing so yeah yeah yeah the one thing with it though is like if you're doing it and you're getting 25 points a game out of that yeah if you know you're getting out of that cubie room it has to be a lock down cuby room that's what you know how many of there are there how many of those yeah yeah is what it would it may have a put up uh points per game basis last year I haven't here It says it's 17, according to four-point passing touchdown, Archaic crap scoring system.

Well, that's the problem right there. That's the problem. At least you agree. But I mean, I'm looking at his game chart. You put up 20. Well, I mean, that was the bull outside of the bowl because I hate counting bowls. Right. And you can't count.

Boise Stunk. He was pulled from that game. 14, 25, 29, 22, 19, 13, 21, 21, 16, 10. And so, you know, you're looking at four 20-point games out of about an eight-game, nine-game stretch. Yeah, bad. Not bad at all, you know, from that. So, but is that worth burning to best ball spot? Especially, we have 30 rounds.

Some of the best balls that you run, like Joe used to be from the CFF site was ruthless. Remember you would have 26 rounds? Yeah. I'm like, yo, what do you? Like, 22 round, I think, a couple years ago. I was like, what are you doing once? with 22 rounds, bro. Right, right.

You ever heard of it's a best ball? Yeah, you got to get every pick right. Yeah, you have to absolutely bullseye everything. But, you know, it's a suicide. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And 30.

Okay. All right. All right, Josh. I'll allow it under special circumstances. And only if it's late. Like you got to be getting fluke at a nice discount. Like a 25, 30 double tap, round 25, round 30. that's why I think you'd have to be when you get these sort of reports.

Yeah. And I think we talked last week on the show about doing double-tapping with Washington State, right? Because that's another room that you can get quite a few out of. But you can't double-tap two different quarterback positions, right? Then you're wasting four roster spots. No, no, no, that's a hard no. Hard. No, nobody does it.

Otherwise, then you've got to go up to seven. You know, you're probably, you're not going six. You're going to seven QB spots if you're doing that. You have to. Heck, you might even go seven QB spots. if you're double-tapping anyways, and you're going to leave yourself, you're going to, in that instance, get three badass tight ends. Right.

And that's kind of what I did in the last one, where I went, Mason Taylor, Cole Taylor, Mitchell Evans, who, I mean, I'm thrilled. Dude, I think Mitchell Evans got light up. He was awesome until he got hurt later. Right. But I went with three guys. I felt like in a one tight end league, all right, I got three. I'm okay.

Then you can, you have that one extra spot of movability. I chose to go with extra running back just to beef that up. But, I mean, in that scenario, you're going QB. You're going to set up to QB. Yeah, no, that's a great point. You know, really my whole goal here is a devalue Matthew Sluka. So hopefully he just drops. Right.

And we're good. Mission accomplished. I do have. What happened the last time? You know, from the last draft, a couple of guys. Tyler Van Dyke, I got in the 29th round. He went in the 14th, Heath Boy, I was extremely. extremely upset by that, that 15 round jump by Heath on that.

And of course, our boy, the great Lee Beebe. Yes. We saw Lee Bebe go from a 27th rounder to 13th round, right? So a major, major jump for my boy. I even have like, I mean, I have a song ready for Lee Beebebe. I'm all excited about Lee Bebe time. You ready? Do you know what my song is?

Do you know what it is? I have no idea. What's your song? I'm just going to, I'll just give you the hook. It's the Temptations tune. I know, I know we're keeping it relevant in the 2000. Yes, the temptations. The temptations.

But, ready? Libby, I need your running. Got to have all your production. Look at that. Dude. That. That was amazing. That was amazing.

I was a workshop in that. How many rounds do you go up now because of that? I'm thinking he could. How 10 round player now. Oh, dude, we've got some really good running backs. I think, you know, maybe around 11 floor. I don't think he hits single digits, though. There you go.

Even with the temptation behind. I mean, since, you know, it might be the blessing of Eric Froton. Because since we talked about him, Isaiah Jacobs was out for spring. Or Marty Goodwin is out for spring. That's right. The last man standing in that back. The true heel. Always the heel.

J.D. Yonkey took Isaiah Jacobs, I think, in around 25, 26. Yeah. Just to be a Lee Beebeater. Because that is J.D. Yonkey. J.D. Yonke is always playing the heel, it seems like. J.D. Yonke had a second kid, and he hasn't paid attention to college football since. So you got to give him a break. I respect the heck out of that.

Yeah, he is doing formula. He was telling us he's up early. So, yeah, can't be too hard on JD, even if he's fading my boy, Lee Bibi. Come on. There we go. There we go. Well, all right. Well, let's hop into our main.

segment here tonight. We're going to talk about the top 10 QBs, our QBs, top 10 running backs. Our consistent consistent is top 10 running back. So we picked the top 10 running backs from us three. And then, then we kind of put them in a little, little algorithm and spit out our top 10. So we're going to go through this and look at our top 10 guys and then kind of walk, walk through that list, walk through their profile, maybe a little bit of their play callers or team situation. And then have a little bit discussion on each of them. So looking forward to this. The first player up,

this should be no surprise, is Ashton Genti. So Ashton Genti, he's 5'9, 215, which he gained like 5 or 6 pounds. He's getting to that range for me. That's a little heavy. His BMI is like 31.7. So I'm curious, I mean,

if he's able to do what he does at 215, that's incredible. I mean, it would be great weight for the NFL. So we'll see. But last year, I mean, he was dynamic, right? He had 28.3. fantasy points a game had, what, 1,300 yards rushing, had 43 catches for 589 yards receiving.

Nikki had 19 total touchdowns. He was a beast last year. Seven games without Halani, basically to be in the year because Halani got hurt from the Washington game. Up through, I think it was a Colorado State game. Action Genti was averaging 34.1 points per game, right? And then he got hurt, he had a knee injury, set out for a couple of games, and then he played four games with Halani.

and he still averaged 23.8 points per game in those four games. So this guy, man, he's unbelievable, right? He's got Dirk Cutter coming in. He lost Bush Hamden, his pay collar, went to Kentucky, but Dirk Cutter came in. And Dirk Cutter was amazing a couple years ago when he came in and took over over the last couple weeks when they fired their O.C. And he did them a favor. And then he's coming back this year and he's taken over again. I'm pumped to have Dirk Cutter.

and he loves to feature his RB1. He gives him a 45.7% carry rate, which is around like top 10 and in running back usage rate for OCs, our play callers. He loves to target his running backs quite a bit. In college, he had a 56% run rate when he was with Boise in 2020.

In the NFL, he was at a 60% pass rate. So almost the complete opposite, but it sounds like he just goes with, you know, whatever his team strengths are. Team situation, new QB coming in, Malachi Nelson, right? Transferred him from USC, former five star. Two new wide receivers, Cam Camper and Chris Marshall come in. And then he's returning four of his five O-line starters from last year. And then they added in a massive Juko offensive tackle to replace the lost one. So my question for you guys is we have Ashton Jensi projected at 27.8 fantasy points per game.

So barring injury, if Jentzy doesn't hit 27.8 fantasy points per game, then what went wrong? Got hurt. That's it. Yeah. Only way imaginable. I mean, obviously it's a lofty standard. But part of that prognostication is, and you didn't get into it, but his receiving ability, Ash and Gentie led the nation with 578 receiving yards last year,

caught 44 passes on 48 targets, 3.2 yards per route. That is a wide receiver level yards per route. That is such a high yards per route that it is literally double the yards per route average of the next closest player of the top 100? or so. Yeah, the top 76 is how far this list goes. Of the top 76, he doubled the number two receiver in yards per route. It is zero drops. Everything. Everything. It's, it's, it's, it's, he does it all. So I don't know. His advanced metrics are absolutely nuts, right? Whether it's yards per out, run for a running bag or his yards per contact after, you know, yards per tent after contact. Like,

He's just like obliterating everybody. It's crazy. Yeah, his yak, four and a half yards after contact, number one in the country. I mean, I can go down the list where he's just the best in all these insane performance metrics. And keep in mind, in comes Malachi Nelson. Right. Camp camper, you know, he comes on in.

You know, I mean, Boise rebuilds. They reload. They don't rebuild. They reload. Bye-bye Halani now. There's no more George Halani who is a multiple-time thousand-yard rusher in the same backfield. He's gone. And you even see, you know, his backup coming in Dunbar getting drafted now in the late 20s of our best ball draft.

So that is that position in the two plus decades that I've been doing college fantasy football, dating back to Brock Forsey. We're talking about a honeyhole, a. legacy position, the Boise State running back. And this is no exception. He may be the best of all time. Yeah. Yeah.

What are your thoughts, Zach? Yeah. I mean, to your question, what would have to go wrong outside of injury? You know, Proton nailed it. If they don't use him in the passing game like they did last year, that's the only thing I can really see because everything else points to him having a big year. And I think they are going to use him in the passing game. I think that's the only thing that could maybe, if he sees a little bit of a decline, that drops.

But, you know, I just don't see. To me, it's pretty interesting because I feel like we have a really solid RB2 this year as well, that in most years would probably be an RB1 if Gentie was not here, right? And just the way that they used him last year and just what he was able to do. It's really hard when I was doing that projection, it was hard for me to keep it. where it was because I'm like there's so much potential here. I feel like he could have an even bigger year. I mean, we've seen some of those boys of running backs hit over 30 points a game, right?

So it's like this could even be, it feels like on the lower side for what Gentie could potentially do this year. So yeah, yeah, it's, to me, it's, you know, there's RB1 and I don't see how he's not by the end of the year. That's a good segue into RB2 now, isn't it? Let's go. Yeah, Ollie Gordon, so Oklahoma State, like I said, this is a guy that in most years would probably be an RB1. I mean, when you look at what he did last year, he ran for 1, a little over 1,700 yards and 21 touchdowns. He also had 39 receptions for 330 yards and a touchdown. So he's a guy that they used in the past game as well.

The thing that really stuck out to me, though, I don't know if you guys remember or not, but Ollie Gordon was on nobody's radar through the first three weeks of the year, right? I mean, nobody was touching him. If you drafted him, you probably dropped him because he, I don't have it right in front of me, but I think he didn't have more than 13 attempts in one of the first three games. It was, there just wasn't much there. He came in the nine games in the rest of the regular season. He ran for 1,400 yards, 1,470 yards, which is 163 per game.

18 touchdown, so two per game there, and he had 27 receptions for 227 yards, so about 25 yards per game in the passing game. So he did that over nine games, and over that span, seven times he was a top 30 running back. Six of those, he was top 12. He was top, top RB1 of the week, like four times. He, RB2 once, RB12. So, I mean, he just tore up. If you got Ollie Gordon last year, after that very slow start when I think that that offense was just trying to,

I don't know if they just didn't know what they had with Gordon or what they were doing, but once they got with Gordon and stuck with him, he really took off. He did have a couple of duds last year, the Texas game, but it really coincided with the usage, right? The games where they just didn't use him much, obviously he's not going to have a big game, but the games where they decided to run the ball and get him the,

ball. He never really had a too bad of a game there. So just a giant year from him last year. A couple other things I really like about what he has. He has all five starters back on the O line, which for running backs, that's pretty huge coming off of a season like he had. And he really has most of, if not all of the top offensive players back from last year, right? The receivers are back. he has Presley Owens stripling her back right so um i just this offense to me i just feel like they found something when when they really went with with allie last year and i don't see them really moving away from that this year um you also don't have Texas and oklahoma uh who Texas is one of those games where he struggled last year right so to me there's um just kind of like

Gentie, right? I don't know what would cause him outside of injury to not have that big year. We have seen at times where that we would get kind of a big year from an Oklahoma State running back and that next guy kind of falls off not to what we expect, but we saw what Gordon did last year. I don't know, this might not be a great question for you guys, but just considering the top two guys we have, is there even any thought to put him ahead of Gentie or is it Gentie one, Gordon, two? Because I think only one time this year, Gordon went ahead of Janty in the draft that we have. Every other time it's always been Janty. It seems like that's kind of the consensus of everybody.

They're usually the top two guys drafted. Salter gets thrown in the mix every so often he might go first or second. He's seen him go a couple of times. But Gordon is typically following Janty in every draft. any thought that he might push Gentie for that RV1 or you think it's pretty clear cut between the two. For me, the usage is what could tip the scales considering Genti as a new staff coming in. You know, that's the one thing. Because if you look at it, as you mentioned, the leading returning rusher in terms of attempts is Ollie Gordon.

He was third, but he was, you know, 10 carries off the pace. He had 285 carries last year, which is, just a ridiculous workload. As a result, led the country in 15 plus yard breakaway runs with 31. You know, next close was RJ Harvey with 26. After that, 23. So, I mean, that's a significant amount. And also in the receiving game, you know,

that's an absolutely pivotal part of every single running back's profile that you evaluate. I want to know what is he getting for touches. in the receiving game because he caught 39 of 50 targets. Now, keep in mind, Genti, 44 or 48. So he actually got more targets than Genti did because he was on just the field all the time. And 330 yards with 0.9 yards per route. Now, important with him, dropped four passes. Okay, that's not what you want to see on 50 targets.

Now, it's about an 8% drop rate, which isn't too bad in the grand scheme of things. But, hey, you know, that's not ideal. But that is the one thing that I look at with Gordon. It's still very projectable in terms of what I see from him getting in terms of the work. But on two more targets, he had 240 less receiving yards. So that's such a weapon for Gentry. I mean, and you watch him do it. It's clear.

Like, you've got to get the ball in his hands at all. But if there's one way, that's it. It's volume. Gentie 217 last year. Gordon 285. he had actually two more targets than Gentie. At some point, it just becomes an avalanche. And just to touch on what Zach had mentioned too earlier about workload,

just because they got it one year, I mean, are they going to get the same? Sometimes coaches look and say, whoa, okay, 285. Let's keep it to 220, 2.30 this year. All right, we got a little out of hand. And you'll see that kind of catch up too. So that does make me a little apprehensive about the workload injury factor because the more toads, the more opportunities you have to get injured. Yeah, for sure. And the one argument that I had too with that is that Ollie Gordon's ceiling was a little bit higher than Genties last year in the sense of like he had two 50 point games and three 40 point games where Gentie had I think three 40 point games and 139 point.

I mean, we're splitting hairs here. But maybe like in this world of like if they disqual. decide that Dubar is really good. And they're like, hey, we want to preserve Genti or we're blowing out teams. So we're not going to like play him as long. Like maybe his ceiling isn't as high as Gordon. And I think only place out, I would I would say in best ball, I could see an argument for Gordon and redraft. No, I'm going to take Gentie every time just because he's so consistent with what he's going to give you. But, but yeah, that's the one argument I would have. It's like, man, that ceiling was just crazy. Especially when he hit.

46, 52, and 43, three straight weeks. It's just like, this is absurd. And, yeah, he had, what, 285 carries and what, another 39 receptions? I mean, he just, the workload was absolutely insane. But we'll see. But you, like, look, pro time, man, you're up next with our, he may be third on our list, but I think DJ Giddens might be the favorite in all of our hearts. So I'll let you take it from here.

this is really the beginning of the list. You know, it's Gentie, Gordon, who's number three? Right. On our list, it is DJ Giddens. 223 carries last year, 1226 yards, 10 touchdowns, 5.5 yards per carry. But he had Trayshon Ward there. And Trayshon Ward is now at Boston College and went UDFA in each of the first two Champions League basketball drafts through 30 rounds.

So I don't know, man. I had him in my queue. No love for Trayshon Ward over there in the Heights. Cleveland Circle, my home stomping ground. I lived there for a little while over there on Eupus Street. Props. Love it. Anyways.

So that's just the Russian production. You look over at the receiving. And once again, you know, 40 targets. That is ninth in the country. 30 receptions. That is tied for 10th. And what people have to remember, you hear 30 receptions. You don't think much if you're translating that for NFL time.

Hey, that's five touchdowns. PPR scoring that you're not getting from some guys you just don't catch passes. And when you convert it for 326 yards, hey, that's pretty damn good. He's averaging over 10 yards of catch. You're doing your job as a running back for doing that. 1.3 yards per out. That's 21st out of 48 qualifiers. Not bad.

Hey, he's on the upper, you know, on, you know, that half. When it comes to production wise, like I said, 30 receptions. That is the benchmark. If you look at my running back column last year and I'll put out another one. that's updated this summer, the 30 reception mark is rarefied air. And that is what catapults running backs from being like, all right, they had a good year the year before to having an excellent year. And being in that top 25 or so of starting every week running backs, that receptions,

key, key reception point of 30 receptions is an important metric for me. So he hits that. He does the 30, 30, 30, does the 300. does the 300th receiving yards, 30 receptions, bang, hits both of those marks that I covet. And then you look behind the numbers, some good and some bad, right? In 2022, 3.9 yards after contact, excellent, 89 carries. This year goes down to 3.25, right? That's 44th in the country.

Not incredible. Always like to see, you know, if you can get over 3.5 yards as close to 4 as possible for, that's what we're looking for. That being said, broke 69 tackles. That's eighth among returnees of FBS. 31% broken tackle rate. That's solid. You want to see 30% or more is excellent, rock solid. It's where you want to be. 25% or less, I feel like you need improvement. His breakaway rate, though, 29.5% breakaway rate. That was 61st out of 75 qualifiers, you know, and then 30% the year before. doesn't exhibit that home run ability, right?

Because he hit 40 runs of 10 plus yards, but only 16 of 15 plus. You know, so that's 24 yards where he's not hitting the next level. That being said, 89th percentile run grade, 13th among returnies, solid, 59th percentile PFF receiving grade, 35th out of 48 running backs with 30 plus targets. So he's getting the volume, but Gentie had a 91st percentile receiving grade, you know, for perspective. He's a freak. He does it all.

So you can't look at Giddens like that. He's not that guy. That being said, on the other side, you know, there's the good yin and the yang. His 1.8-a-dod average target depth, pretty good third out of 48 qualifying running back. So he's actually doing some down the field where he's catching some of those wheel routes that is how you rack up over 10 yards for catch like he has. 1.233 pass rating when targeted, that's third among returnees. So even though he's got that 59th percentile PFF receiving grade, there are also metrics to counter that. And, you know, I tend to I tend to like the raw data as opposed to the conjecture by other people.

So I'm on the receiving tip I'm in. On the coaching front, Colin Klein's off to Texas A&M. He was their OC for two years. In comes Connor Riley, internal hire. He was the interim OC for the bowl. I think he's his fourth year on staff. Same, boom. Classic Chris Clyman.

He was classic Kansas State. You can carry over the year-to-year stuff because, like, I mean, as I can probably articulate a little better than I can since he is the spreadsheet wizard. you can project Kansas State year over year on their Russian stuff. For instance, average 204 yards for game last year, 32 touchdowns, year before, 209 yards per game, 32 touchdowns. Five yards per carry, 5.1 yards per carry.

Welcome to Kansas State, everybody. So I feel like you have the track record's there. You know what you're getting into. You have his number two who was the nominal co-number one coming in the season, you know, and then he moves off because DJ Giddens went and ran him off. I like what I see here, maybe a little bit more explosiveness. You know, as we talked about, five games of 14 plus points. Is that great?

He has the 61 point week against UCF in week four. But, you know, actually he hit, so he was a little, a little tilted by that 61 point game. But that being said, his high-end. wasn't meteoric outside of that, but 17 points or more in six of his last seven was a steady, solid contributor down the stretch. It makes you feel good about coming in this year. I'm okay with DJ Giddens being the running back three. However, I do understand if other people have differentiating opinions. This is really the great question mark of the running back class, at least at the very top end. Yeah. Do we have any thoughts? They brought

and Matt Wells too. He's co-o-c. I think he's just going to be coaching quarterbacks. I don't know who's going to be calling plays. I assume that they're going to keep going K-State as they have always under climbing, right? But the Matt Wells hire, I thought, was interesting. And my hope is that he just doesn't come in and destroy what would come to love with Kansas State running backs. Well, you know what I look at with Wells is the QB, right? Look at him. What is he known for? As we know, he's chucking. ball around. So what do they have in a QB? I'm not worried about Avery Johnson's running acumen. I think he checks that box. I think we're okay with that with Avery Johnson. What do you need help

with? As I illustrated in our first thing, man, he needs some help throwing the ball. He needs some help passing out of, you know, in structure out of the pocket and feeling comfortable with it because he's not there yet. He's young. He's got all the tools, but like he needs a lot of work on his passing. I think that could be that spengali for Avery Johnson. as opposed to affecting the actual play calling. That's my personal gut. Yeah. And Matt Wells was the head coach at Utah State when Jordan was there, right?

When Jordan Love was there. Yeah. Yeah. He was bringing it. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I think that's a good point. I do think Connor Riley is going to be calling the plays. I read an article where he said he's trying to simplify the offense.

They did too much last year. He's like, hey, we just want our playmakers to get the ball. Yeah. Yeah, what that means is you don't have Will Howard, a fourth year guy who started for three straight season. Yeah, you know, they don't have him under center anymore. That's what he means. You can't run the same stuff with Avery Johnson. He knows it.

Right. And, you know, I think, too, what DJ Giddins did in the bowl game last year, I know, you know, for the time you mentioned not wanting, you know, not counting bowl game stats. But, but NC State, right, they're a good defense. and DJ Giddens had 100 and what, 88 yards against them, two touchdowns, really was wide open on the throw because Avery Johnson just pulled the defense up. I mean, I think you did see him be a bit more explosive in that game. And I wonder if it's because Avery Johnson just created some more, you know, opportunities for him with, you know, defense is worried about him.

So, yeah, I'm curious, man. And I think that's part of for me. I don't know if any running back has, I got him in a very early mock that we all did in the third round. And now he's going like mid-first. I mean, I don't know if anybody's taking quite the leap in people's eyes as DJ Giddens. And I'm happy to see that people are recognizing,

I think, what we all are seeing too, that this guy is really talented. He's got a good opportunity. There's not really a lot of competition in that backfield for carries. And so we can see him get volume this year, and that could be really fun. Right on, my brother. Next up. All right.

Next up, we got Omari and Hampton. Man, this is a dude that I've loved for years. Omarian coming. Omar coming. I love him. I love him. All right. Those fans of the wire.

Do you guys see the wire? Come on. No. Of course you don't because you didn't pop for Omaha. Baltimore, man. Everyone out there knows, oh, my coming. Man, the wire is the show that I, that I missed that I wanted to go back and watch. of you.

You know, I love both of you guys. I'm from D.C. too. I should Baltimore, I should watch that. Oh, you see him from D.C.? I haven't seen the wire? I know. I understand Zach, Nebraska boy here, but Josh, you got up your game. I even know one of the actors in that show.

So, true story. Who do you know? Please tell me it's my guy, McNulty. Please tell me. I don't know. It seems to Moore. I don't even know what role he played on the show. I hope it's funny.

I lived in L.A. for a couple of years. I have a lot of random connections in the acting industry. That's crazy. I didn't realize you were a part-time West Coaster back in the day. You know, man. Yes, sir. Okay, well, we dug your rest. All right. O'Marty Hanton, six foot, 220. Dude rushed for 1,500 yards last year. We know what he did. 29 catches for 22 yards, which is a welcomed addition to his game. He was fifth in FBS and rushing yards, rushing yards per game at 116 and fifth, also in yards from scrimmage. So rushing and receiving yards combined at 100.

33 yards per game average 22.8 fancy points per game play caller wise we got chip Lindsay the QB killer back I didn't realize you know I kind of called things out earlier in the offseason last year going like man this guy might kill Drake May's value and like Drake May you know he he he wasn't quite as good um with our boy chip Lindsay there could have been another factor 100 correct 100 correct it's been a as I've been immersed in NFL draft talk like the 22 tape and the 23 tape I've actually gotten to look at it. His footwork was so much better on the longer.

It's like Chip Lindsay didn't even care about it. It's like, ah, we're working. We're not going to teach footwork. The Cubie Killer. We got that big arm. We're going to use that big. I got it. Nobody, nobody has done less with more than Chip.

Yeah, less with more than Chip Lindsay has done. The talent that he's been given. He took over for Mike Norvell in Arizona State and just completely wasted that opportunity, but he somehow parlayed it in Detroit. and then he went to be the OC at UCF. Yeah. It's incredible.

Some guys are just great interviewers in life. And that's Chip Lindsay because I can't wait. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I can't wait for my boy TVD in Villalongo system. Now I'm going to have to come up and take him in the 14th round ahead of Heath Boyd. Taking my boy TVD. I can't wait to see what he can do. His arm is so big.

I have had a love affair with him. He's got to make it. Yes. Sorry. Back to Omar. Look. as a former Miami guy, I'm pulling for him. All right, back to our boy.

All right. So a little team situation here, right? We don't have Drake May anymore running the show at QB. We got either Max Johnson or Connor Harold, and we saw what Connor Harold did in the bowl game against West Virginia. It wasn't great. Backup running backs, though, this is a positive. Like, it's Caleb Hood, who's always hurt in Darwin Barlow,

who, you know, he's been at USC, TCU hasn't really done much. So here we are at UNC. So there's not much competition for carries. This starting O-line last year was bad. They were replacing three of their starters. So I don't know if it can get much worse, but they are replacing a budget talent there. So here's my question.

Well, here's my statement. Bad O-line, potentially bad passing game, probably a bad passing game. West Virginia held Omar in Hampton 19 carries for 62 yards. Is there any concern with teams just stack in a box against Hampton and potentially shutting him down this year? Or is he matchup proof because he's so talented?

Well, I do think in the ACC, sure, they're losing Drake May. If anything, I think that means he'll even lean more on Hampton. Keep in mind, he was, I believe, eighth in the country. And, yeah, ninth in the country, 254 carries last year. Yeah. So he got a heavy, heavy load. And to his credit, he deserved it. I mean, we talked about yards after contact.

and that blessed four yards after contact mark 4.2, fifth best in the country, third best amongst returnees, you know, on that front. That's what I want to see. One of the best in the loosenness rate. 29 of 32 receptions, 22 yards, no drops. Give it to me. Like, I like what I like what I see out of O'Mare in Hampton on, you know, pretty much all those fronts. And watching him, sure, is he going to be a, you know, 4.4. You know, is he, is he Jalen right running the 4.38? Nah, no. No, we saw him get flagged down by by Wiggins. Nate Wiggins really past, though. Man was that, oh yeah, he ran a four, what are you running a 428 maybe? 426, I want to say he ran Wiggins. Yeah, you went to 426. I mean, what do you want? But, you know, like he's, he doesn't have the long speed quite like you want

to, but hey, look, he smashes people. And he, he, He is, I mean, in terms of watching him, I'm an O'Mari and Hampton fan. I think he's a good running back in terms of his skills and what he can do, 220 pounds. So I believe that he can do it. I have shares of him. I'm invested him in C2C as well as in CFF dynasty formats, like a couple of them. So I happen to be a pretty ardent supporter of Mr. O'Mary in Hampton. Yeah, that's good.

What about you, Zach? Yeah, the other thing that really sticks out to me with Hampton, and we saw it last year, but Chip Lindsay, he likes to get his running back touchdowns, which you don't always want to rely on that in fantasy. But I think that's one thing where he's going to use him. He use him down there, which is always a little bit more comforting, especially when you're a little bit concerned about what the offense could possibly look like. I just think his usage, especially down there in the red zone, it's going to be solid. So there could be, you know, a bit of a drop off.

Chip Lindsay doesn't have an amazing track record with running backs as far as what they've done in season. But he's had some really good ones. I mean, obviously Hampton last year. So it wouldn't surprise me if there is maybe a bit of a drop off from what we saw. But again, just where they use him and how they use him. I just think this, you know, in the top 10 or top five, you know, that's exactly where I have him. So, yeah, I think he could be in for another really solid year. I liked what they did with him in the past game as well last year.

Yeah, and to your point, Zach, Isaiah Bowser, who was a pretty average running back at UCF, at 16 touchdowns, a lot of those around the goal line. So that's a really good point, man. What's interesting, I'd have to go back and look, but Kamani Vidal is. one of his most underperforming running backs when he was at Troy. I mean, we kind of saw what he could do, right? But it's just when you're looking at kind of what he's done, it's like, man, how did you not use him better when he was down there?

Yep, that's a really good point. I'll leave that there because I love Kamani Vidal, and that still makes me very upset that he just wasted with Chip Lindsay for two years. So, but hey, Zach, why don't you take us over to Phil Mafa at number five? Yeah, consensus to running back number five, film office. So we haven't projected as running back number six right now, 18.3 points a game. I think we all pretty much had him in the top five. ADP, he's going 19th overall right now, so ninth off the board.

So considering where we have him ranked, that's a pretty solid value. You're still, it's not a huge shift, but if you can get him as the ninth running back, that's pretty good. and he's typically going in round two right now, and that's been pretty consistent. One thing that when you look at his stats last year, 179 attempts, 965 yards, 13 touchdowns, 21 receptions, 108 yards. He did that all splitting carries with Shipley, right? Shipley had 167 attempts for 827 yards. He outperformed Shipley.

He was only averaging eight attempts in the first seven games. So in this next five games, he's getting 22 rush attempts per game at 107 yards and a touchdown the game. So I think for Oton, you might have been on him early last year. But he's a guy that I feel like we really saw the potential of what he could be this year when he's not splitting time with Shipley. Pretty excited about what he's going to do. Running back splits for Riley are typically. Typically, RV1 is getting anywhere from 38 to 41% of those attempts, which is pretty solid. Last year, it was 34 to 32 between running back 1 and 2.

So we really saw that true committee last year. I think this year we end up seeing a lot more Maffa, and I think he, you know, top five is in the cards for him, especially with what we've seen at that position at Clemson and then with Garrett Riley, too. I think there's, you know, potential to have that top five. So I love his value. I love how you can get him a little bit later. You could grab that a top wide receiver in the first round and come back and get Mafa and who could end up being a top, you know, a top three running back this year.

You know, the one thing is going to be, dude, on my assumption is there he's going to get that 40% rush usage right this year. is there any world where you guys see that they stick with maybe not using him as much or is it his year is it to go? I couldn't imagine a scenario where you have a guy like Will Shipley and I actually happen to go to UNC Clemson at Clemson, which was Senior Day. And on Senior Day, the first guy to come down that hill, and I know because I was filming it as it happened, right there on the goal. goalpost was Will Shipley, even though he was a third-year player. He was the first guy to come down that hill on senior day. So, as you know, he has been a golden boy from day one as a prospect. Five-star recruit out of high school. Him and Maffa were out of the same class. You know, Ma'Fa was coming back for his fourth year, but, I mean, they were neck and neck. And Maffa was

a little further down the trophy. He was, I believe, R.B. 16 out of that class. But you know, Shipley was the five-star guy. Look at the running back room that we're dealing with now with Shipley. Yeah. Out of there. Yeah. Bro. Keith Adams Jr.?

No. You know, Jarvis Green, Tristan Rigby, Jay Haines. These are the guys. Now, the dark horse, as we all know, is going to be the true freshman. I don't even know how to say his name. Azamoumae, yeah. Eziumuma. David Azimumumumet.

and that's going to be the guy, but he's a refreshment. You know how this goes down in Clemson. Daveo, you got to earn Daveo's trust a little bit. I'm not saying he's not going to get carries. I think he does, but we've seen, quote unquote, the Mafa man, establish himself as the dominant primordial beast, as I like to refer to him. You know, when I was mocked and ridiculed, as to borrow a phrase from our friend, uh, Felix Sharp by Nate Marquis, who it was just, just,

throwing slander at Phil Maffa. You know, I was expecting more out of Nate, but you know, it took him a while to see the light. Now he does, to his credit. But last year, you know, ever since I first saw him as a true freshman, I knew that Phil Maha Mafa was destined for this time. It is his time. Four years in, it is his backfield. He will hit the 40% mark.

Dude, I, yeah. I mean, when a true freshman is going to be your RB2, that's all you got to say, right? Phil Moff is the guy. He's going to get the carries. This is this year. I could totally see him ending up as RB3 this year. I mean, this is a guy that you guys want to be getting him. And look, you've been on a photon for a long time. Mike Bainbridge was picking him in the first round very early on. He ought to be ashamed of himself for trying to co-opt to Phil Moffa from me. I love Michael, but that's out of balance. It's very shameful. He took it too far. Took it too far. Exactly. We'll give him a pass as long as he comes back on the show at some point. Yeah, at some point. I know. He's got a wedding.

He's got a wedding. Look, man, he's still missing in Miami. We'll see him at some point. Well, dude, I was going to say, we're already pretty much what? We're at the 110 mark and we've already got, we're like halfway through. Dude. If we have one more voice, how bad would it get? All right.

Exactly. You're up, man. Darius Taylor. Oh, beautiful. Let me try to be quick for a change and try to a little whip through these. Darius Taylor, obviously we're working with a small sample size here. So much projection and when we're dealing with the top 10 running back, there's got to be numbers to back it.

But look, it's the PJ Flex show, right? Minnesota last year, let me put into perspective just how out of character the Minnesota run game was last year because we only saw Taylor really playing at four and a half games. he got hurt and then it was pretty much it in terms of the regular season. Then he came back for the ball game and went buck wild. But regular season, we didn't get much out of them. So if we're looking at Minnesota, you know, over the course of 2023, they only scored 13 rushing touchdowns in 13 games.

This is the Minnesota Golden Gophers, okay? To put that in perspective, they scored 33 in 2022, and they scored 27 in 2021, all right? Their 2048 to 2048 rushing yards last year is the lowest of PJ Flex career to date, all right? Despite an inexperienced QB, they actually threw 312 passes, which they threw 281 year before and 257 the year before that with Tanner Morgan. So this is a desperate Minnesota team once Taylor went down. Like they had a hard time trying to make chicken salad out of what they were handed out of that backfield. So for his part, Taylor, only five games of extended carries, like I said, really four and a half because you got injured, you know, after 16 carries in week eight.

In the four full games, we'll call it, you average 30 carries for 184 yards and a touchdown, all right? 3.8 yards after contact, 14th among all FBS qualifiers. The 25% mistackles rate, you want to see more, you know, it's not ideal, but that's life. But still, his offensive grade, PFF grade, 10th among returning running backs, rock solid, caught all 11 of his targets for 92 yards. It didn't get a lot, but I mean, hell, 11 targets, four games. If you extrapolate that out, you know, that's 33 catches. That's in the 30 catch plateau. 1.4 yards per route would have been 16th out of 48 qualifiers.

Look, it's all there. And we know what PJ Fleck wants to do to the extent that when I was at the Combine, I was watching the QB running back wide receiver session on the field at Ford Field where it's got. I forget what it's. But I'm there in the stadium and I'm watching the game and for four hours, not just the game, watching all the practices, four hours I sat there and talked with Mike Sanford, who is the former offensive coordinator of Minnesota and was actually the acting interim head coach for

Colorado after Carl Dorel was fired for the remainder of that season before Dion came in. And he's actually doing radio work. So I was talking to him. And naturally, I'm talking to Mike Sanford. Hey, let's talk about the offense you ran over there in Minnesota. And he just basically gave me the, yeah, well, if you like running the ball, you know, that's the place to go to be an offensive coordinator. If you like running the ball, 65, 70% of the time, that's the place to go. I was like, that sums up how I feel about Darius Taylor right there. I'm going to give that the outro. Thanks, Mike Sanford. There you go. You know, and it's interesting, right? I mean, he had whatever, 38 carries against, whatever he had against Bowling Green.

And Jordan Nubin was not playing bad in that game. They just wanted to feed Darius Taylor. And I think that's very indicative of how they feel about him. Also, my man played at 195 pounds last year. He's already up to 210 this year. I think that's going to help. Yeah. I didn't realize he was at 195.

I said that he was in 210, you know, this year. Yeah, which, I mean, you talk about the broken tackles. Like, I think that some of that could have just been, he's a true freshman. It doesn't even barely have any time in the weight room yet. And so I think at 210, he's going to be able to break a lot more tackles. I mean, he's got a wrestling background. So I definitely think those guys usually have very good contact balances. One of the things coming out of high school that, you know, they really loved about him.

Sure. and they got four new defenses coming in that, I mean, are you afraid of UCLA or USC or Washington's defenses this year? You know, Oregon will be solid. But, man, the other three, that's, those are dream matchups for Minnesota. Oh, Minnesota against USC, yep, but schedule it. Yep. No, that's really good. That's good.

All right. For the sake of time, I'm going to transition over to RJ Harvey. R.J. Harvey is a running back. He's 5'9-205 at UCF. Average 22 points a game last year, had 226 carries, which we'll get into here in a minute, for 1,416 yards and 16 touchdowns. Average 22 fantasy points per game. Actually, of the last four, though, he averaged 30 points a game. So he saw an uptick and usage.

Those are also victories, which is a theme of last year. And the games they won, he produced. And the games they lost, he did not. But this is really what I want to talk about. Gus Malzahn is the O.C. there. He's had three years of allowing running backs to have 40% of the rushing usage in the offense that was Cameron Artist Payne at Peyton Barber and then Kerry on Johnson. And then last year with RJ Harvey. So he's had four years, right? But there's a good six year gap between

RJ Harvey and the rest of those guys. Now, when the running backs have had a 40 plus percent rushing usage rate, they have averaged, what have we got here? 20 fantasy points per game and then 25 fantasy points per game and then 15. And then every other year is under 15% or sorry, 15 fantasy points per game. And then you have RJ Harvey who had 22 fantasy points per game. And so my question for you guys, we have RJ Harvey projected at 36% rushing attempts or rushing usage rate this year. You know, if he doesn't garner 40% of the rushing attempts,

is this man, is he like screwed? Is he, is he potential bus potential, RJ Harvey of all the guys we talked about? Does he have the highest bus potential? Oh, Zach, why don't you take this? Yeah. No, so it, you did a good job covering kind of what Gus has done. And it's more of an anomaly what we saw last year. I went more conservative with that projection for sure.

I just don't know if they're really going to want to use him like they did last year, and maybe they will. I definitely took the conservative approach. And I think he's a guy early on when we first started drafting. I think I took him in the first round in the first draft I did. And he's one of those guys where the more we go along, I'm just like, I just keep looking at what that production has done. been and I just I'm not convinced that we're going to see the same production that we saw last

year with RJ Harvey. And I think the other thing too, where you're bringing in KJ. Jefferson, I think he could take some of those goal line carries away as well where a big part of RJ Harvey's success last year was 16 touchdowns, 16 rushing touchdowns. And even if he does have the same rushing usage. I don't know if he'll have the same goal line usage with KJ. Jefferson there. He possibly could. But that was one of the concerns that I had with it. It's just that touchdown piece.

I mean, very rarely, I mean, we saw with Bowser the year before where he also had 16 touchdowns, but that's more of an anomaly in the system. And so I aired kind of on the lesser side there, and I took out some attempts. as well. So he's a guy that I started out higher on and I've kind of come down a little bit just as as we've gone for not really anything other than gut when I look at kind of what what's been happening in that system. Yeah. And, you know, they bring over Miles Montgomery from Cincinnati. Johnny Richardson's there, DeMarcus Bowman. I mean, you have guys there. I mean, Miles Montgomery is really talented. I mean, they loved him at Cincinnati. I'm surprised they

even let him get away. You know, is he talented enough to take the back from from RJ Harvey? No, but is he talented enough to get a good chunk of carriers that they want to go the running back via committee route? I think so. So it does concern me a little bit. Fruton, you got any thoughts? No.

For the sake of probity, I think you guys did a great job. There we go. Zach, Jaden Ott. All right, Jaden. So he's RBE 8 right now for us. Projected at 19.7 points per game. His ADP is currently at 23-tenth running back off the board going about mid-round two. Last year, 245 attempts for 1,300 yards, 12 touchdowns, 26 receptions, 196 yards and two touchdowns there.

So pretty solid season. He had five games over 100 yards rushing in eight games with over 20-plus attempts. So, again, a guy that was – they really started to rely on there last year. But interesting that so spavidol's gone, which I think we were all a little bit worried last year anyways with him as the O.C. And what, what Outs would look like there, I think he performed better than at least I thought they used him a little bit more. They got Mike Flesch coming in who he was the old line coach last year. His running back one averages usually around 17 points a game. You know, he's getting, he likes to feed that running back 308 to 4.

44% of the carries. So I don't feel like there's going to be a whole lot of drop off. He did have 245 attempts last year, maybe is slightly down this year. They have three starters coming back on the offensive line. And the thing that, one reason why I think they're going to continue to rely on is I don't, they've lost a lot on that offense as far as they got questions at quarterback this year. Chandler Rogers is coming in, Mendoza, is that his name?

He played a little bit last year. He's there. They lost Jeremiah Hunter, their best receiver, right? He's gone now. I think there's a lot of question marks at receivers still. Brazil should be back in the slot. They have Mikey Matthews, Jack Andrews at Tide End, who I actually kind of like this year with where he's going in drafts.

But there's just a lot of questions on this offense outside of J.N.A. And I feel like last year, I didn't get a watch at ton of Cal football. but when that offense was at its best was when Jay not had the ball in his hands and I don't feel like they're going to go away from that too far so um real really feel like there's going to be a similar similar season um to to what we saw last year where he he was pretty solid um and got a little bit of usage in that past game as well yeah what I liked about what ought kind of did from 22 to last year is he had a real boom or bust element to his games, five games of 10 points or less in his freshman year,

and then he had six games of 20 points or more. So it was literally it was a feast or famine, like best ball type of a thing, whether he's playing or he's not. But if you had to figure out when you're going to start him from week to week, it was, what am I getting under this Cal offense? And you saw, like you mentioned, with Jeremiah Hunter, very talented,

your receiver now at Washington. There, I mean, especially who, what was the, I forget his name, but they actually were seeding carries and almost splitting for a while with his backfield made. And after the running back two got hurt, he saw him just started a ton of carries. Like from October 28th on, 21, 20, 27, 36, 21, you know, through the rest of, the regular season and he's just pumping 100 yard games out there and it was

the exact opposite. He only had one game last year where he was under 13 points. So that consistency brought that. Obviously what Jack says about what we're getting out of the Cal, you don't really know. They are

moving in the ACC. So that's going to make some interesting cross-country trips, I think is fair to say, which will work both ways, I guess, when they're playing against teams but I got to think he's going to his role is going to be massive. Why wouldn't it be? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. What I love about guys like Jay Not too is that they can win in so many different ways, right? I mean, the guy had what 40 plus receptions, his freshman year and then comes

back next year last year, it's 25 plus. So even if, you know, if they're getting blown out in game, so he can still catch balls out of the backfield, right? He's got the PPR ability. So they're not going to just rely on them in one phase of the game. And so, yeah. Yep, love all the outs that he gives us. And he's a guy that, you know, I've seen him rise. His ADP solely rise, and I like it. I like the consistency there. So, Proton, give us our next one, Devin Neal.

All right, try to keep this as brief as possible. Devin Neal, 203 carries, 1, 280 yards, 16 touchdowns. One of those players where you're getting a lot of value there out of what he's doing, you know, and then the touchdown front for Lance. Leipold. Their offensive coordinator, Andy Kotlenicki, Adios, Andy Kotlnicki. He is gone. A long time lieutenant of our friend. They really did a great job over there for his first two seasons, I believe. In comes Jeff Grimes. Infinite Grimes, isn't he? Everyone. Last year did not do Baylor any great shakes, but that kind of downturn was a little bit out of character.

To my point, 1,378 rushing yards cumulatively in 2023 for Baylor. That is a laughably low total to put in perspective way out of character for Grimes' offenses. If he did anything, you had to give them the last couple of years he had at BYU at the very least. To put in perspective, 2,371 rushing yards in 2020. that's a full thousand yards more, and that was at Baylor. The previous season, 2021 at Baylor, they had over 3,000 rushing yards. So that's 1,378 rushing yards, massively out of character. I double-checked that, too.

I thought it was like a most 1370. No, man, Jeff Grimes pitched the 1378 on the ground. That being said, too, you look at what his previous three seasons were with BYU, 2281, 2,000, and 2,000. So look, I think we could expect that you're not going to get that poop fest that we got last year at Baylor, especially with Lance Lippold still as the figurehead here, you know, extremely successful coach. At every level he's coach coming over from Buffalo really turning this program around. I feel good about it. Obviously, Dominic Poonie, he's looking like a day two selection, their left tackle and was left guard.

Whatever they needed to do, he did everything. He's gone, which, you know, is too bad for the. offensive line, but I don't think there's too many defections. I did not exactly look at that. But Kansas itself, 38 carries per game last year. Pretty good, 38th out of 133. 206 rushing yards per game. Top 10 in the country. Ninth. I don't know what more you want. 2678 rushing yards. So that kind of tells you that's literally twice as many as Jeff Grimes had last year at Baylor. I feel like, you know, he's stepping into. with situations pretty much ready made.

Yeah. We saw him go for 3,100 at Baylor in his first year where that was kind of ready to go. I don't think there's any reason to doubt Devin Neal upon that switch. It could be wrong. 3.6, yeah, really good. 14th amongst returnees. That's up from 2.9 yards after contact in 2022. I mean, a noticeable, solid improvement. That's what you want to see, of course. and that's kind of what we're hoping for with guys like Myron Hampton, you know, a couple of the other younger players, Gary's Taylor in particular. Hampton was better than that.

60 missed tackles forced. That's 14th in the country. 30% broken tackle rate will take it. 113 elusiveness rating. That's up from a 69 elusiveness rating in 2022. Wow. That is huge. Can't say enough about how he's looking.

48% breakaway. it's about right. And then through the air, 25 of 31 targets. He's brought home 217 yards. Fine. I think he's reasonable to think he could see that 30 target share. Who knows, 1.1 yards per route, as long as he's over that one yards per route. I feel like he's checking all those boxes. Looking at it as the ninth running back in what is now a stable program at Kansas, even with a coordinator switch. I'm still feeling pretty confident about that. 511 210, I'm feeling good about Devin Neal here at this 910 spot where Yeah, I love it.

And, you know, Lance Leopold is about the most plug and play running back system that you can get, right? Jeff Grimes, he's not going to get free reign to go do whatever you want. So he's going to run the Lance Leopold system. And it's going to be Lance that is, you know, pulling the strings behind the scenes on that. So I totally agree. That's how we like it. That's how we like it for our Devin Neal ownership without a doubt. Yeah.

And honestly, like what I've been doing at the late in drafts is I've been drafting a lot of Daniel Highshaw. Just because like, man, if Devin Neil gets hurt. You get him at this last one? I saw him go. He was in my cue. I'm not. I'm not. The only thing about Highshaw, if you look at his last run of games, I don't have it up, obviously.

But like, right. He was low single digits for that run after he got hurt. It's like, right. I try to differentiate between those first four games. Because so often you see the number one running backs kind of not coming out of the barn just so they're easing off them. And then once it's showtime you get into the conference play, it's on. Like for high shot, five carries, five carries, nine carries, 13 carries for 35 yards, nine carries for 29 yards. That's his last five games.

Right. You know, it's 12 carries 51 with an eight for 24. Right. You know, that's, that's the entire second half that just isn't much. Didn't score a touchdown in any of his last five games. Didn't break 35 yards any of his last five games. It was on 13 carries. You know, I mean, that's, that early season burst that we saw out of him.

It just, it wasn't there at the end. He just wasn't getting the work, which I will say that, yeah. I kind of backed off in the 30-round format. Yeah, I think, though, I think we've seen High Shot be pretty explosive over. a couple seasons. Sure. Like he was pretty good, you know, two years ago. So I do chalk that up to, like, injury.

And, like, he just wasn't the same after that. But we'll see. The same thing, though, with Devin Neil, it's like, you know, either one of those running backs, the other one gets injured. It's kind of like when Jared Patterson went off, when I can't remember the other running back, right, got hurt. So. Kevin Marks. Yep. That's right. That's right.

So both of those, look at you, man, carrying the team over here. But yeah, so either one of those, I think, with Kansas, right? They have a backfield that if they don't split, then one of them's going to go off. Yeah, from a dynasty perspective, Hysha's money. Yeah, why don't you? Daniel Hysha, maybe you go and cash it in this season.

If you don't, you sit tight, and then you cash in year two. That's, I mean, what more could you want unless there's a regime change, but can't do anything about that. Right, exactly. All right, well, let's wrap this up here with Taj Brooks. He's our number 10 running back here for consensus. He's 5 foot 10 to 30.

This dude had 290 carries for 1,541 yards. And, but he only had 10 touchdowns. He had 29 receptions for 69 yards. I guess one of the weirdest stat lines in college football. So they gave him a lot of receptions. He just, you know, a lot of us behind the line, I'm guessing. Yeah, yeah. Somehow Baron Morton was so ill.

equipped to play quarterback that he turns Zach Kittley into into a option offensive coordinator. Here we are. Here we are. Yet he's still getting drafted. We're still drafted. We're still drafting Baron Morton. I don't know man. I don't have a lot of faith.

That's Mike Bainbridge right there. That's his voice. I know it's Bainbridge. I know. I wish he was here. He wasn't slacking off. I know. I know. I mean, you just brought up the great point, right? Zach Kittley has never had this type of usage rate as the OC, right?

I think the highest before this is 38% and that running back, that was 2020 COVID. That had 40 carries, right? His running backs have never gotten over 148 carries. That was Todd Brooks two years ago, who had a 28% rushing usage carry rate. And then he had 61% with Todd Brooks last year. That is just absurd. Now, this guy ends up as RB29 last year. at 19 fantasy points per game with 320 touches, basically.

So my question is, can either one of you talk me into Taj Brooks matching that production in 2024? Like, how does he do it? Like, I mean, on top of it, okay, real quick, Josh Kelly's coming in, Caleb Douglas, and Micah Hudson, who's a five-star stud is coming in at wide receiver. This guy is getting personnel to run his system. I don't know.

Like, how does Taj Brooks, how does he match this? and how does he be a top 10 running back for us, even though we all have them in our top 10? You know my favorite Dodge Brooks you've gone through? He caught, he was out there all the time. He caught 28 passes on 34 targets for 70 yards. 70 yards. Oh, what's going on here?

What happened? He only dropped one pass. It's just, he's, I mean, he's catching it so far behind the line. he just ain't doing anything with it because he dodged 90 tackle, 96 tackles in those 292 touches. It's like, that's pretty damn good. Right. And 92 run grade, I mean, that's pretty solid.

What more do you want? Right. And 3.4 yards after contact. Yeah. I mean, you'd like to see more out of that. But, you know, Dems is the breaks. It's the 29% breakaway rate, though. There it is.

There's Todd Brooks. He's good, solid. 10. You want 15. Probably going to have to look elsewhere, you know, but he's going to get you that 10, and to the credit of the Texas Tech offensive line, you know, he's a lunch pail kind of guy. But like you're saying, you watch Taj Brooks and he's, he finishes runs, you know, to his credit, like he, he certainly is all of that 230 pounds, but like he's a pounder. He's not looked at in the NFL draft really circles in terms of Debbie. I'm not looking at him as being like, oh, well, hey, two in a 2025 clasp.

You got Taj Brooks coming in. Like, nobody's saying that. Because he's 510, 2.30. And while he's got quick feed and, you know, he finishes runs, there are limitations to him. So I think that, like, I don't have any shares of him in my early best balls. Because of that, I've kind of actively kind of try to avoid him. Yeah. Because it's, you know, the Lou Nichols theory, shall we go with it?

You get a ton of carries one season and next season. is it all you know does it always maybe I'll write a column well I hope people stick around for this last conversation because it's actually really good it's worth uh worth us having this Zach you had anything to add to this uh the only thing I really want to add to this is um Taj Brooks stole moddy's spot in the top 10 because Josh ranked Mottie so low thank you And if he wouldn't have ranked him at 19, we would be talking about Monty right now and how he's going to have another great year instead of Kentaj Brooks getting 292 carries. Hey, why aren't any of you guys talking about why Burgess and Hankins came over to Texas State with their offensive coordinator? Man, I don't know if Marty's going to get the volume that he needs to do what he did last year.

so we can talk about that if you want. That's why I ranked them so long. I'm officially worried about this. You know, I've got a Mahdi song, right? Let's go. Let's hear. This is how we're ending the show.

Right here. I can give you the whole thing. I'm workshopping it. But, you know, it's a pretty, it's a pretty catchy hook. I can give you the hook. Give the hook. Hook right now. Let's go.

Mati, Marty. We likes to potty. My moves cause trouble. I run over somebody. Dude. Thank you. We have began this. show and we are ending this show.

Good one. Oh, yeah. Great one. Both of them are incredible. Yeah, we're definitely clipping these. These are gold for social media, so I appreciate this. Whoa, we're putting this on social media? I didn't know.

Oh, whoa, hold on. Is that who we do with these? Yeah, yeah, you know, shape up. Yeah, yeah. The chair is squeaking and everything. There we go. It's perfect. Perfect.

Yeah. There we go. Showtime. Well, hopefully people stay around to the end for that, because that was worth this whole hour and 40 minutes that we have been together. Especially because Zach's right about Mottie. He should have been number 10.

Yes. Yes. You guys are right. I have my RB 19. You guys all had them way higher than that. So we can revisit that. Yeah, because Tosh Brooks should not have been on top 10. That was my bad.

I'll put it on me. I'll take ownership for that. But here we are. We came to the end of our show. Fellows, that had so much fun. Thank you guys. Listening to us tonight. We really appreciate you guys supporting us.

we would love if you could continue to support us by liking, commenting, subscribing. Look, anything that, any kind of engagement you all want to have, like, we would love to interact with you guys. And so please do that, like, comment, subscribe. We'd love to hear from you guys. Next Thursday, we're going to be talking about our top 10 wide receivers. And hopefully somebody like Ishmael Mahdi does not get left out of our top 10 wide receivers. Until then, do small things with great love.