Welcome to the DFS Army College Football DFS 101!

One thing holding many people back from following college football (CFB) is not having an allegiance to a university or a team to follow. However, with CFB DFS, this is not a worry! CFB DFS players have the chance to root for many of the future stars of the NFL (or future bar trivia names!) without needing a team.

My name is Aaron aka @AFriedman15DFS on Twitter, make sure to give me a follow as I’ll tweet about all things college football and keep you up to date on the latest news.

Whether you are a new player or returning to College Football DFS, this article is for you! In this space, I will be breaking down the rules, lineup construction and strategy for cash games and GPPs.

How the College Game Differs from the NFL

130 Teams – College Football DFS can feature any of the 130 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), but don’t worry, most of the main slates center around the Power 5 Conferences, so you do get to know the players as the season goes on. With that said, there is a good amount of turnover every year. The roster turnover and new players mean that there is some time for the DraftKings and FanDuel algorithms to catch up.
Bigger Rosters – Most FBS teams have 105-man rosters including 85 scholarship players. This compares starkly to the NFL which features 45-man active rosters. One thing to note is that it is not possible for all the scholarship players can see the field, but still, there are more receivers and running backs in a college football offense rotation than in the NFL.
Depth and Diversity of Offenses – Let’s face it, inequality has to be considered when strategizing for college football DFS. Unlike the NFL where there is a salary cap which makes it difficult for teams to impose their will (“Any Given Sunday”), college football does not have salaries or measures to “level the playing field.” This manifests on the offensive (and defensive) lines that you will see across college football. There are simply not enough quality linemen prospects to go around, while skill players can be easier to develop. The only way for teams to combat this is through schemes, so there are a lot of different offenses you will see at the college level, most notably the triple option run by Army, Navy, and Air Force.
More Plays – Excluding games with a triple-option offense, college football games generally have more plays than an NFL game. One cause of this is heavy use of the QB in shotgun spread offenses. Another important differentiation is that the clock in CFB stops on first downs until the ball is reset on the line of scrimmage. CFB games take longer and there are more plays than their NFL equivalents.

In addition to CFB DFS, we also have CFB Betting experts over at our sister site Beat the Bookie.

Our CFB Betting experts will provide their recommended bets and you will have access to our Machine Learning College Football Betting Model. There are synergies between sharp betting and DFS. The machine learning model has more accurate projections than Vegas for scores and team totals, so you can use that knowledge to take advantage of and be over or under exposed to teams.

And Beat the Bookie is hardly just CFB! Beat the Bookie covers all the major sports including NFL, NBA, and NHL. Do not miss this opportunity to check out all the Beat the Bookie offers before the NFL and CFB seasons.

Format:

FanDuel and DraftKings have different positional requirements when building CFB DFS Lineups. Just like the NFL, DraftKings CFB has a Flex position allowing you to select a third RB or WR. A key difference from the NFL is that BOTH sites have a SuperFlex position in CFB. A SuperFlex can be used for any position category, QB, RB, WR, or TE. It is very common to use a second QB as the SuperFlex, but this will be discussed more in-depth later on in the article.

Flex = RB or WR/TE

Superflex = QB or RB or WR/TE

With these definitions out of the way, here are the lineup structures:

DraftKings: QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, Flex, SuperFlex

FanDuel: QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR, Superflex

CFB players will roster 7 CFB players regardless of site, however, FanDuel requires a third WR while DraftKings has the Flex position.

Scoring:

Scoring is pretty similar between the two sites, with salary and the aforementioned lineup structures being the big differentiators. Like the NFL, DraftKings CFB does have yardage bonuses for reaching key milestones, such as 300 passing yards, or 100 rushing or receiving yards that FanDuel does not have. Here is a table of point values for the two sites:

Lineup Building Considerations:

Implied Team Totals:

Players of every DFS team sport can use implied team totals to guide their research processes. Implied Team Totals (ITTs) are what sportsbook makers project each team to score based on the spread and the over/under of a specific game. To figure out an ITT, you divide the O/U total in half and add half of the spread to the betting favorite’s “half.” Then you make sure the difference between the two teams is the sportsbook’s spread.

Here’s an example: Let’s say Alabama is favored by 2 (-2) to beat Clemson (thus, +2) and the O/U is 50. Each half would be 25 and the two-point spread would yield implied team totals of Alabama 26, Clemson 24, equaling the 50 point O/U.

Like anything, ITT is just one metric to consider, but it can help you identify high scoring games and good games to target or stack for DFS purposes. If you consider the three-game slate example below, Miami and Wisconsin were meeting in the 2018 Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium in late December in New York. It was cold, both teams were having disappointing seasons, which yielded just a 47 point O/U from the sportsbooks. Consequently, I wanted very little of this game, if nothing at all.

In general, average college football games have an O/U between 50-60 combined points, while anything below 50 can be troubling for DFS purposes or above 60, beneficial for DFS purposes.

Comparing the QBs:

When building lineups, especially on a smaller slate, the first thing I like to do is compare the QB pricing between the two sites. Even if you are only going to play on one of the two sites, there is still merit to looking comparing the pricing to see what the respective algorithms over or undervalued. The example below is from a Saturday during bowl season where there were three games. My two favorite QBs were from the 2018 Texas Bowl (Baylor vs. Vandy). With the SuperFlex, you could play both, of course, depending on salary restrictions and how strongly you felt about the other positions. On FanDuel, it is much easier to play both Baylor’s Brewer and Vandy’s Shurmur given the tighter pricing. On DraftKings, however, I would give Temple’s Russo a long look here at SuperFlex because the salary savings are pretty drastic on DK. On FD, there was no need for Russo, unless you want to differentiate in GPP. Duke’s Daniel Jones (now of the NY Giants), profiled well on FanDuel given his almost $2,000 in savings down from Brewer.

DraftKings: Shurmur, Brewer, Russo (primarily as a SuperFlex option)

FanDuel: Shurmur, Brewer, Jones (primarily as a SuperFlex option)

CFB Lineup Strategies:

For those new to DFS, I cannot recommend enough to read our DFS Ladder System article which provides overall strategy guidelines and detailed definitions of cash and GPP contests. And if you are new to DFS, look no further than DFS Army, where you have experts in every sport, a variety of coaching channels, including beginning coaching channels and a friendly community willing to help new members.

Cash Considerations:

In cash games, where more than 25% of the field gets paid out, you are looking for high floors throughout your build. I almost always use two QBs, taking into account the pricing comparisons between the two sites, the implied team totals, and how the game will fare. Here are some key characteristics that are important to consider while building your CFB cash lineups

Cash Must Haves:

Two QBs one in the QB position and one at SuperFlex – Like in the NFL, QBs have the highest floors, so you will virtually always want to use two QBs in cash.
Running backs that are not touchdown dependant – For cash, look for RBs that get a healthy amount of carries. You don’t want to use a Fullback who lucked into the endzone twice as that sort of repeat performance (and floor) is very difficult to predict.
At least one WR to stack with one of the two QBs – Look at one of the QB’s most heavily targeted WRs. You don’t necessarily need a WR for each QB, but having two “naked” QB’s will limit your floor.
WR with consistent amounts of targets – This is a little harder to do at the beginning of the season, but in cash, you will want to use WRs that have a consistent amount of targets throughout the games they have played in. Touchdowns can be fleeting for receivers, but players who get a solid amount of targets are likely to get the floor you need in cash games.

Cash Nice to Haves:

Two Dual Threat QBs – Ideally, said QBs are dual-threat, with the capability of collecting passing and rushing fantasy points and touchdowns. Accordingly, these players can be priced up, so it’s not always possible to get two dynamic QBs.
RB’s that are also involved in the passing game – Penn State’s Miles Sanders was one of my favorite cash plays last year. Penn State tends to ride their lead back, and like Saquon Barkley before him, they love to use their backs in the passing game. Last year, Sanders was 5th on the team with 34 targets and grabbed 24 passes.

GPP Considerations:

Consider Use 3 WRs on DraftKings – Receivers are by far the biggest risk/reward position in CFB DFS. While it is safer to use an RB, using a WR in the DK Flex position will give you a better risk/reward lineup that you need to get to the top of a GPP.

Consider ditching the 2nd QB in SuperFlex for a WRs – You can absolutely win a GPP with two QBs, but one strategy for GPPs is to ditch the 2nd QB and use 4 WRs on both sites. For one, Passing TDs are worth 4pts compared to 6pts for a receiving TD. Likewise, receiving yards are worth more per yard than passing yards. WRs on a given team can have a big pricing discrepancy but there are $3,000- $5,000 WRs that have 30 DK point upside if things break the right way. One of the benefits of MME is that you can take a flyer on a number of different secondary WRs and one may lead you to the winning lineup.

Key Additional Resources:

Depth Charts:

Depth charts are more important in college football than the NFL given the roster sizes and fleeting nature of college football careers. There are a few websites out there that collect depth charts, but I go to the school’s official football webpage for the most accurate depth charts. Most FBS schools will either publish a depth chart within their weekly media game notes or they will have a separate depth chart link, where they post a PDF of their first and second team depth chart. The game notes and/or depth chart will be contained within the team’s official football website. As a general practice, these are available by the Tuesday prior to the game.

Phil Steele’s College Football Preview Magazine:

Phil Steele’s College Football Preview Magazine is the gold standard of the college football preview magazine for many dedicated followers of the sport. Each team from Alabama to San Jose State gets the same two pages completely jammed with position notes, records, matchup information, and depth charts. For hardcore college football fans and media members, it is a rite of passage to open this 300+ page magazine during the summer as a personal “start” to the college football season. I love to highlight and take notes in my copy and I’ll reference it throughout the season.

College Football Reference:

Entering the start of the 2019 CFB Season, there is not much to look at yet, but throughout the course of the season, they have some great resources. My favorite page is the Team Defense leaders, which I use to reference the good and bad defenses for DFS purposes.

DFS Army CFB – College Football DFS 101