FCFI Week 10 Review and Playoff Preview
After a thrilling, and narrow, 147.00 to 145.55 victory over Fantasy Football Brothers, College Sports Madness has made the playoffs in the Fantasy College Football Invitational. We are the #4 seed in the eight team playoff field. Take that CFFinsider, CBS Sports and SI.com. All those experts are watching the playoffs from home…or however that saying works in the fantasy world.
This week we take on a new opponent in #5 seeded theCFFsite.com. Making the playoffs is nice, but now it is time to step up our game. And to do so, we’ll pretty much do nothing and ride our usual players. At quarterback Case Keenum has a Thursday night game at Tulane and Russell Wilson travels to Minnesota. If we’re looking for bad defenses, we found them with Tulane and Minnesota. Hopefully Keenum and Wilson will stay in past halftime.
At running back Chris Polk, Rex Burkhead and Cierre Wood should do the job. There is little reason to play Wood anymore, but the Irish play Maryland and we expect Wood to get some carries. Polk can put up good numbers against anybody, but the USC defense will certainly provide a test. Burkhead also faces a tough defense in Penn State. That should be a nice grind it out game and Burkhead has been nothing if not consistent.
Wide receiver Jeremy Ebert is coming off of a nice week. This time around Northwestern takes on Rice. That is a nice matchup. Washington should probably be behind most of the game at USC, so Jermaine Kearse will get some opportunities. Duke tight end Chris Helfet has not been too exciting, but he is pretty steady for a tight end. Houston kicker Matt Hogan gets the nod over Clemson’s Chandler Catanzaro in the battle of who can kick more extra points. For the defense, we are going back to Temple despite their awful showing last week. Why? Because it gives us something to watch for during MAC Tuesday and Wednesday, although by Wednesday basketball will take up most of the televisions.
The competition has some tough decisions to make, presumably. Quarterback Tajh Boyd will likely get the starting nod, but the other quarterback spot could be filled by the suddenly hot Braxton Miller, Riley Nelson with a nice matchup against Idaho or Austin Davis against a tough UCF defense. Running backs Cameron Marshall and Marcus Coker are a scary duo, especially with their matchups this week against Washington State and Michigan State, respectively. New Mexico State wide receiver Taveon Rogers is also scary. He has been great during NMSU’s last two WAC games. Last week he struggled against Georgia. Unfortunately for us, the Aggies don’t play Georgia this week.
I predict another close game this week in what should be a wide open playoff race. Two teams finished the regular season with 8-2 records. Two other teams, including College Sports Madness finished with 7-3 marks and four others were at 6-4. No single team has been that dominate during the regular season and our four game winning streak heading into the playoffs has the whole crew at College Sports Madness full of high hopes that may soon come crashing down. Check back next week to see if we get to play another game.
