FCFI Week 4 Review and Week 5 Preview
College Sports Madness has three victories in a row in the Fantasy College Football Invitational with wins over College Fantasy Football Insider, SI.com and, most recently, CFFL.com. Solid showings by quarterbacks Case Keenum and Russell Wilson led to a pretty easy 153.30 to 121.30 win. Running backs Rex Burkhead and Chris Polk also had fine outings.
Yet, with conference play pretty much upon us, our roster is due for some shakeups as we head into our week five matchup against conference foe Sports Overload. Sports Overload is 1-3, but does not have a bad team. Even scarier, they have some nice matchups this week like quarterback Trent Steelman of Army hosting Tulane, running back Tauren Poole of Tennessee against Buffalo and wide receiver Ryan Broyles of Oklahoma against Ball State.
For us the second quarterback spot is up for grabs (we always start Case Keenum of course). Is Russell Wilson benchable? It seems a little crazy, but Wisconsin plays Nebraska. Surely, the Cornhuskers defense has been disappointing, but it has mostly been the rush defense. Our other option is Middle Tennessee State’s Logan Kilgore, who went nuts at Troy last week, throwing for 415 yards and five touchdowns. If he can do that at Troy, he can do more against Memphis at home…and I have a history of picking up players who play against Memphis and starting them for one week. For now Wilson is in the starting lineup, but Saturday morning the Madness brain trust will discuss that one.
At running back I have the same problem with Rex Burkhead going up against the Badger defense. This will either be a close, low scoring game or Wisconsin is going to welcome Nebraska into the Big Ten with a whooping in Madison. Thus, we’ll start our usual Chris Polk and Cierre Wood and also add in Middle Tennessee State’s Benny Cunningham. If Cunningham stays in our starting lineup, Kilgore probably will not make it. We already have two Washington players in the lineup. Putting all our eggs in the MTSU and UW basket is not very safe.
Hopefully the mess at wide receiver sorts itself out a little bit with the return of Dan Persa at quarterback for Northwestern. That should give our receiver Jeremy Ebert some more consistent catches. Our other wide receiver will likely be Jermaine Kearse of Washington this week. At tight end we are sticking with Deangleo Peterson for one more week before we toss him in waiver land to never be seen again. USF kicker Maikon Banani has been good to us during the last two weeks when the Bulls have been kicking a ton of extra points. That will not be the case this week against Pitt, but Bonani should be good for a couple field goals in that bruiser of a contest. And my favorite thing to do is pick up a crappy defense that is playing a crappier team. It worked well last week with Auburn. This week the lucky winner is Tennessee, who is hosting Buffalo. At the least they should be good for some sacks and hopefully a turnover or two.
Check back next week as we are hopefully 4-1 and have a huge, huge game against RotoWire, who will also likely be 4-1. Major playoff implications in that game, but our players aren’t looking ahead. This week it’s all about College Sports Madness taking down Sports Overload.
