Sit down. Week 10 Tailgate, the 11/7 main slate, twelve games. I’ve got the box scores, I’ve got the model sheet, and I’ve got a fresh pot of coffee that somebody owes me money for.
Here’s the one-liner before we get into it: our guy had the best play on the entire slate at the top of his card, and then he spent the rest of the afternoon paying for Kansas State like it was a timeshare. Some money came in. Some money went out. Lemme tell you where it went.
What if the card has problems? We handle the problems. That’s the service.
THE GOOD
Caleb Hawkins ($9500 – Oklahoma State)
“Best player on the slate in the best spot on the slate. Lock him in.” So we locked him in. 20-175-3 on the ground, 6-71-1 through the air, 57.6 DK points. Number one running back on the slate at 33% ownership, and the model had him number one too, projected at 31.7 with a 40.4 ceiling. He beat his own ceiling by 17. Hawkins paid. Hawkins paid with interest, and he brought a dessert. You don’t get extra credit for agreeing with the model on the chalk, but you get full credit for building the whole card around the one guy who deserved it.
Bo MacCormack III ($4900 – Boston College)
The value call: “FSU can’t stop the run.” Turns out FSU can’t stop the run. 16-105-1 plus three catches for 24, 24.9 points, fifth-best RB on the slate at the fifth-cheapest price a real back goes for. That’s 5.1 points per thousand. The model had him 18th at RB. Our guy had him in the VALUE box. That’s a beautiful thing.
Jackson Harris ($6900 – LSU)
Honorable mention, “LSU’s top target.” 11-166-0, 30.6 points, second-best receiver on the slate. No touchdown and it still cashed, because 166 yards is 166 yards. The article said “one-offs only, LSU’s receivers” for this game. That’s exactly the right way to play a game you don’t trust.
Amare Thomas ($7300 – Houston)
“The guy Weigman looks for when it’s time to take a shot.” 6-78-2, 25.8 points, sixth at WR, only 5.4% owned. Thomas was the ceiling piece in the Houston stack and he was the piece that delivered.
Mazeo Bennett Jr. ($4800 – South Carolina)
Light, “he’s scored in three straight.” Make it four: 3-66-1, 15.6 points. The model projected him at 6.7 and ranked him 37th. Our guy saw a streak and the streak held. Small money, but money.
THE BAD
Junior Sherrill ($6700 – Vanderbilt)
Tailgate Play of the Day. 7-41-0, 11.1 points, 37th at WR. Here’s the thing: the model had him second-rated at WR, projected 17.5, and he was 15% owned. So this wasn’t our guy going rogue. Everybody liked him. The Mississippi State secondary that “ranks 128th against the pass” held a Vandy offense to 25 points and Jared Curtis to 168 yards with no touchdowns. Right call, wrong day. It happens. Nobody’s getting whacked for that. But it was the Play of the Day, and the Play of the Day returned 1.7 points per thousand. That goes in the book.
The Kansas State side
This is where the money walked out the door. Josh Manning ($4900, “the cheap K-State bring-back”): 1-7-0 and a rush for 4, 2.1 points. Joe Jackson ($5100, “the easy throws are going to him”): 4-8-0, zero catches, 0.8 points. Jaron Tibbs ($5400, “the guy getting those targets”): 6-42-0, 10.5 points. Blake Barnett ($4500, “the cheapest way into the best game on the slate”): 7 of 17 for 106, one touchdown, two picks, 8.5 points. Barnett was 38% owned, the single highest-owned player on the slate, and he finished 23rd of 25 quarterbacks.
Now, process. Our guy’s own writeup said K-State was on its fourth quarterback in four weeks and that the Cowboys would turn it into a ground-and-pound game “which probably fails.” That’s the correct read. The game went 66-28. So why are four Wildcats on the card? Because “they have to throw to stay in.” They didn’t stay in, so they didn’t have to throw. When your own game script says one side gets buried, you don’t buy four pieces of the side getting buried. That’s a process error, not variance, capisce?
Ashton Daniels ($9000 – Florida State)
“Pricey, but his legs pay off even if this game stays low.” 15 of 26 for 178, no passing touchdowns, a pick, 10-38-1 on the ground, 15.9 points. Seventeenth at QB at the second-highest QB price on the board. The model had him fourth. Both wrong, and the article at least hedged it as “worth noting.” Outcome miss, but at $9000 you need a reason beyond “he finds the end zone,” and he found it once.
Trent Walker ($4800 – Houston)
Heavy, core play, “the cheap piece that pays for the whole stack.” 4-57-0, 9.7 points. Didn’t sink anything, didn’t pay for anything either. Two points per thousand is a shrug.
THE AMAZING
Drew Mestemaker ($9800 – Oklahoma State). 22 of 28 for 313 and four touchdowns, a rushing score, and a receiving score. 45.1 points, top quarterback on the slate by six, and 6% owned. The model had him tenth by rating and second by projection. The article’s game one writeup said “Oklahoma State should be ahead all day” and then named the Cowboys quarterback exactly zero times. Our guy built a 66-point game script and left the quarterback of that game on the shelf. This guy threw four touchdowns in the exact game you told everybody to target. What are we doing here?
THE UGLY
Blake Barnett at 38% ownership. The article pushed him, the model had him third-rated at QB, and 8.5 points later everybody who listened to either of us is holding a losing ticket in the one game where the other quarterback went for 45. A chalk QB busting is the most expensive kind of bust in this format because every other QB on the slate who hit, hit against you. The under call on the whole K-State side would have been the cheap, obvious hedge. Nobody took it. This one stinks and I’m telling you it stinks.
THE MODEL
Plain talk, no accent.
RB was the model’s week. Rating-to-actual correlation of 0.68, projection 0.70, and the top ten rated backs averaged 21.8 actual against 18.4 projected. Hawkins number one and 57.6. Bo Jackson sixth and 28.0. Dilin Jones fourth, “doesn’t need 100 yards rushing to pay off,” 17-56-1 plus 7-36-0 for 22.2 at 16.6% owned. That’s the article and the model agreeing and both being right. The model’s RB misses: Jamal Roberts, second-rated, 19-66-0 for 6.6. Wayshawn Parker, third-rated, 7.1. The article didn’t touch either one. Credit.
QB was a coin flip and the coin landed on its edge. Rating correlation of -0.04. Negative. Top-ten rated averaged 20.1 against 22.1 projected. Weigman was number one rated and did fine, 17 of 24 for 227, two touchdowns, 26.1 points, fourth at QB. Fine at $8600 and 29% ownership is not a win, it’s a push. Barnett third-rated, 8.5. Jared Curtis fifth-rated, 7.9. Mason McKenzie second-rated, 19.4. Meanwhile Mestemaker (10th), Devon Dampier (15th, 38.9 with two rushing scores on 20 carries) and Ty Dieffenbach (20th, 27.8 at $5100 on 0.3% ownership) finished one-two-three. The article did say “Dampier naked is fine,” so give it a half-credit for that one. It also said Bear Bachmeier naked is fine. Bachmeier threw four picks and scored 16.8.
Cole Tabb. The article put him in FADE: “don’t take the cheese.” Model had him fifth at RB. He went 12-60-0 plus 3-34-1 for 18.4, eleventh at RB at 16% owned. He didn’t bust, he didn’t pay. At $7800 the fade was closer to right than the model, but it wasn’t the knockout the article wanted.
Slate winners nobody mentioned. Aidan Mizell, UCLA, $3200: 2-150-2, 32.0 points, best WR on the slate, rated 85th, 0.3% owned. Nobody sees that, including the model. Derrick Salley Jr., K-State, $3700: 3-100-2, 28.0 points, fifth at WR, rated 45th. That’s the K-State receiver who actually produced in the game the article loved, and he wasn’t on the card. Raleek Brown, Texas, $7300: 17-85-1 and 6-48-1, 31.3, second at RB, rated tenth. The article wrote “Wingo and Mosley, nothing else” for Texas, and the Texas back outscored both receivers combined. Legend Glasker, BYU, 28.3 at $5800, rated 20th. Umari Hatcher, Syracuse, was the model’s third-rated receiver and went 2-12-0 for 3.2. The article never mentioned him. Credit.
The core. Sellers 22.4, Hawkins 57.6, Walker 9.7, Mosley 12.5. Mosley (5-85-0) and Wingo (6-53-0, 11.9) both landed inside their ceilings and outside anything useful. That core lived on one player. Good thing it was the right one.
THE BETS
Oklahoma State -6. Final 66-28. Cashed by 32. Moneyline, spread, whatever you had. Easiest money on the card.
Cincinnati/Houston OVER 62.5. Final 24-31, 55 points. Lost by seven and a half. The article said Weigman “has this one handled by halftime.” Houston won by seven and covered nothing. Process was fine (Cincy was 134th against the pass), outcome wasn’t.
Florida State/Boston College UNDER 52.5. Final 31-24, 55 points. Lost by two and a half. Pablo Pledgescobar had the same under and lost the same way. The article’s logic was “the defensive collapse before a firing doesn’t carry over.” FSU gave up 24 and scored 31. The under was alive until it wasn’t. Variance, mostly, but the article’s own game note said MacCormack would run on FSU all day, and he did, and that’s points.
South Carolina -7. Final 9-17. Covered by one. Sweating a -7 in a 26-point game is no way to live, but a cash is a cash.
Two and two. Over the number, under the number, lost both by a field goal or less. The sides both hit. Nobody’s getting rich at 2-2, nobody’s in the river either.
THE VERDICT
Grade: C+
The top of the card was right. Hawkins, MacCormack, Harris, Thomas, Bennett: that’s five plays that paid, and two of them were cheap. The bets split. That’s a B card.
What drags it down is the Kansas State pile: four pieces of a team the article itself said would get run off the field, with the highest-owned player on the slate in the middle of it, plus a Play of the Day that returned 11 points. Next week, when the game script says one side gets buried, play the side doing the burying and the quarterback doing the throwing. Mestemaker was sitting right there.
And when the model says QB rho is negative, that’s not the model’s problem that week, that’s everybody’s problem. Pay for one quarterback, not two.
The books are closed. See you after the next one, and bring the vig.