Above is a picture of Seth Russell running the ball. A split second after this photo was snapped, the Baylor Bears’ season took a turn for the worse. Not to say the stud freshman they have backing him up won’t step in and perform but he’s got biiiiig shoes to fill. With no Russell, we lose the quarterback that has consistently topped our Expert Consensus every week. Baylor has an off week this Saturday before travelling to Manhattan, Kansas next Thursday night. If they survive that, they will be undefeated heading into the final gauntlet of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and TCU. My money is on them being unscathed heading into the OU game; however, my money is also on them not surviving those three games unblemished.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t touch on the terrible tragedy that took place in Stillwater last Saturday. Tragedy has become a common occurrence at my alma mater. I was in Stillwater for Homecoming on Saturday and as word started trickling down about what had happened, you couldn’t help but shake your head and think “Again?! Really?!”. Oklahoma State University has proven its resilience and strength in bouncing back from tragic events…unfortunately, we will have to show that again.
For the second straight week, the experts took it on the chin. Newcomer Rob O’Conner, of venoDFS.com, took the honors as high scorer this week with a 5.0. Our very own Daily Overlay Power Five was nipping at his heels with a 4.63. As for our season-long Daily Overlay CFB Scores, the fellows at RotoGrinders continue to dominate the top of the leaderboard. Let’s take a look at how the Consensus performed in Week Eight.
Quarterback
Highly Touted
C – Seth Russell (9x)
D – Greg Ward (8x)
D – Baker Mayfield (7x)
Recommended
D – Marquise Williams (5x)
Suggested
A+ – JT Barrett (4x)
A+ – Luke Falk (4x)
C – Brett Rypien (3x)
D – Patrick Mahomes (3x)
D – Jerrod Heard (3x)
F – Chad Kelly (3x)
Running Back
Highly Touted
B – Derrick Henry (9x)
D – Saquon Barkley (8x)
Recommended
A+ – Shock Linwood (5x)
C – Leonard Fournette (6x)
F – Justin Jackson (5x)
Suggested
A+ – Jeremy McNichols (3x)
B – Alex Collins (3x)
C – Elijah Hood (3x)
D – Wayne Gallman (3x)
F – Kareem Hunt (3x)
F – Nick Wilson (3x)
Wide Receiver
Highly Touted
A+ – Gabe Marks (10x)
C – Corey Coleman (8x)
Recommended
A+ – Tajae Sharpe (6x)
B – Aaron Burbridge (6x)
C – Roger Lewis (6x)
Suggested
A+ – JuJu Smith-Schuster (3x)
A – Laquon Treadwell (3x)
C – Tyler Boyd (4x)
C – River Cracraft (3x)
D – Demarcus Ayers (3x)
F – Sterling Shepard (3x)
F – Dom Williams (3x)
F – Rodney Mills (3x)
A bit of a lower score than normal for the Consensus. The top of the QB position did not do the Consensus any favors with one “C” and three “D’s” from the Highly Touted and Recommended section of the position.
This was easily the worst week of the season for our experts with only one person finishing with a score of 5.0 or better. That score belonged to a newcomer. We had a total of three new experts this week and they spread themselves out rather evenly with one good, one so-so and one bad. Let’s take a peek at the top scores for the week.
Rob O’Conner (venoDFS.com) – 5 – Rob makes a splash in his first week in our scoring. He scored a “B” or better with six of his eleven picks including four “A+’s” from Connor Cook, Christian McCaffrey, Taywan Taylor and Gabe Marks.
Daily Overlay Power Five – 5.56 – Stephen used three “A+’s” from both the quarterback and wideout position to vault himself back in the thick of things.
JMBWngFN (RotoGrinders) – 4.44 – No surprises. Same big names as every week; however, the Grinders guys will have to find a QB to replace their usual top pick, Russell.
EMAC (RotoGrinders) – 4.44 – Same as above. Same names, different week.
STLCards (RotoGrinders) – 4.44 – Ditto.
The next tier of guys featured six experts that scored between 3.0 and 3.56.
Daily Overlay Consensus – 3.56 – Very similar to last week. As I mentioned at the top, the QB position hurt the Consensus in Week Eight.
Fantasy Alarm – 3.19 – Twelve of their 32 selections finished with a failing grade. The only expert to have Clayton Thorson, DaeSean Hamilton and Jake Maulhardt, all of which scored “A+’s”.
a25smith (RotoGrinders) – 3.13 – Some good and some bad. The running back position killed him this week with a “C” from Leonard Fournette being his highest score at the position.
DailyRoto – 3.06 – A very evenly spread week of grades. The only site to select Thomas Sperbeck with an “A+”.
DailyFantasySportsRankings.com – 3.00 – A rare bad week from DFSR.com. Outside of an “A+” from Gabe Marks and a “B” from Aaron Burbridge, it was a really poor performance.
Derek B. Davis (venoDFS.com) – 3.00 – Another newcomer this week. He made some perplexing picks that really hurt his score. Selecting three running backs from the same team is usually not a wise play.
For the first time this season, we had four experts score below a 3.0. Some we’ve grown accustomed to seeing at the bottom but this is new territory for a couple of guys.
DailyFantasyWinners.com – 2.95 – Over half of their picks finished with a “D” or lower.
RotoCurve – 2.49 – A ridiculous volume of selections with 57 in total. Of those, 35 of them finished with a grade of a “D” or “F”.
Hester’s Bargains (RotoGrinders) – 1.36 – Look who didn’t finish in the basement for the first time all year!!!
headchopper (RotoGrinders) – 1.33 – Only one grade higher than a “C” all week. This week really hurt his overall standing for the season. He’s been fairly consistent to this point so I think was certainly an outlier.
After a couple of down weeks, the experts will try to bounce back in Week Nine. The fun starts tonight with six games and plenty of cash to be had on the DFS site of your liking. I’ll be back Friday with this week’s Consensus Picks write-up.
Follow me on Twitter at @mbutlerOK.
