Can QB Dominique Davis shine his fantasy star in conference play? (Icon SMI)
QB:
If you haven’t heard, ECU’s Dominique Davis perplexing stat line of last week was not because he left the game due to injury. He was flat out benched after throwing his 3rd pick, making for a very Garcia-like 8 INT in only 10 quarters. HC Ruffin McNeal has since come out and stated that Davis is still the unquestioned QB, so don’t worry too much (but then again, don’t they always say that?) In truth, the game was already well out of hand, and the benching was probably just a cold glass of water to the face, because Davis definitely seems to have sleepwalking through portions of this season. The good news, Memphis is up this week, and they cant stop anyone. The bad news, although they cannot consistently stop the pass, they aren’t too shabby at picking them off every once in a while, with 7 on the year so far, good enough for a middle-of-the-national-pack ranking in that regard. But at the end of the day, Davis could throw 3 1st half picks and the game would still be very winnable, so I would expect him to play all game no matter what. And that benching might have been just what he needed to finally cut down on the INTs this season. Read the rest of this entry →
Fantasy heavyweights Case Keenum and Dominique Davis face off head-2-head as ECU travels to Houston. I believe the O/U on total passing yards for this one is somewhere in the 900 yard range. Keenum has been razor sharp thus far while the only knock on Davis has been the INTs.
Elsewhere, QB Taylor McHaruge should be in for a nice day as Rice takes on hapless Memphis.
Speaking of Memphis, they seem to have found a QB that works in freshman Taylor Reed. Memphis plays catchup from the opening kick almost every week, so he might not be a bad pickup this year and is almost certainly a keeper prospect that ought to be worth a look with the no-huddle roots the Tigers are sowing now hopefully taking hold and paying some dividends in 2012. Read the rest of this entry →
QB Case Keenum...back in the saddle again (Icon SMI)
Houston:
Whoever landed the #1 pick in your draft in 2010 sure got screwed as nearly-unanimous #1 pick QB Case Keenum went down hard and was lost for the season after only 2 starts (in which he still amassed almost 700 total yards). After torpedoing fantasy title chances across the land last year. Keenum is back and supposedly 100%. However, after major reconstructive surgery on his knee you have to wonder if Keenum will be as apt to take off from the pocket as he was pre-injury. In 08 and 09, he had 130+ carries and 13 TDs on the ground and those stats might be gone for 2011. The good news is who cares about his drop-in-the-bucket rushing numbers? Let me expound: with Keenum out, true frosh Dave Piland took over and still piled up almost 2,700 yards in only 8 games. That is still an amazing 4,000-yard pace over a full season, for a true freshman that caused the staff to dial back the offense (run/pass percentage basically dropped to 50/50 with Piland at the helm, versus 66% pass in the Keenum’s last full season as a junior in 2009). In short, even without the rushing numbers, Keenum should easily eclipse the 4K mark and could easily go 5,000 or better. Read the rest of this entry →
Three-yards-and-a-cloud fans will want to avoid CUSA as the conference is going to be lighting it up all year long, featuring some of the best offense and worst defense in college football for 2011.
East Carolina QB Dominique Davis should be a top 5 fantasy player in 2011 (Icon SMI)
When it is all said and done, the conference might be home to 5 of the top 10 QBs, 4 of the top 10 WR, a few 1,500 yard rushers, and a guy out West who could rewrite the TE record book. On the other end of the excellence spectrum, it is entirely possible that at least half the league will finish 100th or worse in either rush defense, pass defense, or both.
Even middling guys who will not even smell a professional team south of the Great Lakes could put up decent numbers on par with the household names from some of the other power conferences just by virtue of the wide-open nature of offenses in this conference plus the generally putrid defenses, on top of the obvious stars this season, there will be lots of great value picks that will likely be around later in your draft.
