College Football DFS: Camellia Bowl Showdown Slate

Merry Christmas! Time to unwrap a college bowl gift that is the matchup between the Marshall Thundering Herd and the Buffalo Bulls. We'll examine tackling this game via the unique Showdown format.

SLATE OVERVIEW

Marshall vs. Buffalo (-4.5) O/U: 54

This is an intriguing match-up in Montgomery, Alabama between Marshall (7-2) and Buffalo (5-1), a couple of teams who were in the elite tier of their respective conferences this season. If this game was played a few months ago, Marshall likely would have been favored, but they have dropped two in a row against Rice and UAB. In those two losses, Marshall's offense was a no-show with a total of 13 points, including a zero against Rice. On the flip side, the Thundering Herd's defense has been legit all season while giving up just 12.6 points per game. Some of their stats are insane when you consider they gave up just four rushing touchdowns (ranks first in the nation) and eight passing touchdowns (ranks 19th in the nation) in their nine games. That will be a tougher test for Buffalo who is coming off their only loss of the season, faltering 38-28 to Ball State in the MAC title game.

Both of these teams feature their run games and the favored Bulls actually have the worse defense when comparing the two squads. There's also reason to believe that the C-USA is a tougher conference than that of the MAC, so I do think there's a sneaky way to look at this slate for construction purposes.

With that said, we're missing some key players in this game as Marshall's starting RB Brenden Knox, LB Tavante Beckett and OG Josh Ball have all declared for the 2021 NFL Draft and will not play in this game. Buffalo appears to be fully healthy and will have superstar RB Jaret Patterson who had to exit their last game with a minor knee injury.

LINEUP CONSTRUCTION

If you aren't familiar with the Showdown format, the roster consists of five FLEX positions and one Captain (CPTN) position. Any player can fill these positions. The CPTN position receives 1.5x of his score, but the player's salary is also increased by 1.5x when he is placed in that slot. While conventional wisdom dictates that your goal is to find the player who scores the most points and put them in the Captain spot, that is not always the case. That best player's high salary could compromise the quality of those FLEX positions.

Luckily for college football formats, there are a plethora of options and that's what I'm here to walk you through. For cash games, it's smart to go with players that have high floors and in tournament formats, you want to try to predict some players with low ownership that could have big days.

PLAYER RECOMMENDATIONS

Top CPTN Pick
Antonio Nunn, WR, Buffalo ($8,400, CPTN - $12,600)
The majority of players in both cash and tournament formats will go with Jaret Patterson ($12,800, CPTN - $19,200) as their captain because he's the highest projected player and he racked up 409 yards and eight rushing scores against Kent State. However, that's leaving you with scraps for the rest of your flex positions at just $6,160 per player for the remaining five spots. It would also make it impossible to play both quarterbacks without having to go minimum with your other players. Instead, I would go with Nunn who turned 17 targets into 13 catches for 182 yards in the MAC title game. I think this is a smart move as not only will it save you a lot of money (leaves an average of $7,480 per player), it also makes more sense with the potential game script since Marshall's run defense has been fantastic this year. That will allow for the use of other players with more realistic floors such as the following:

Kyle Vantrease, QB, Buffalo ($10,200)
Grant Wells, QB, Marshall ($10,600)
Artie Henry, WR, Marshall ($5,800)
Sheldon Evans, RB, Marshall ($7,600)

Fading Patterson in general could be scary with his breakout potential, thus, I would suggest if you do play him at the normal price of $12,800 with Nunn or a similarly priced player as captain to include some of the following value plays (also useful with players above):

Top Value Play
Xavier Gaines, TE, Marshall ($4,800)
Gaines is not your typical collegiate tight end as he is big and agile. He has at least four targets in six straight games and even had four rushing attempts for 22 yards in the C-USA title game. He also took a catch 70 yards for his fourth touchdown of the season. Let's say Buffalo does take a lead in this game, I would expect Gaines to get his usual dosage of targets which makes him an easy play at this price. He can easily be fit into almost any line-up.

Other Value Plays
Knowledge McDaniel, RB, Marshall ($5,400)
Jovany Ruiz, WR, Buffalo ($3,400)
Zac Lefebvre, TE, Buffalo ($2,600)

Contrarian CPTN Pick for Deep Tournaments ONLY
Kevin Marks, RB, Buffalo ($7,800, CPTN - $11,700)
There's a world where either Patterson re-tweaks his knee or Marshall is just not that motivated for the bowl game which would allow for the utilization of Marks who will potentially have low ownership and most likely will have close to no ownership at the captain position. This would allow you to play both Marks and Patterson for insurance purposes, but it does hinge in the belief that Marshall's run defense will give up more than the 88.9 rushing yards per game they have averaged this season. I think this is a true contrarian play and I would only deploy this in large-size tournaments. I do think Marks is safe to play in other line-ups as he does typically see double-digit touches with Patterson's heavy workload.