Chief Fantasy Officer Drew Smith’s eponymous fantasy college football draft preparation tool is live for 2010:

The Fantasy College Blitz Cheatsheet Customizer!

Drew ordered and projected over 1000 players for 2010 so you will not be left without names at the end of your draft!

Many of you personalize your leagues with unique scoring systems so Drew allows anyone to input their matrix so they can evaluate each of skill position!

Drew will update his projections constantly throughout August right up to kickoff – stay tuned for his updates and an tune to the podcast discussing our early August views for 2010.

Dedrick Epps is third on the team in receiving yards; 304 (thanks Icon SMI)

1.  Dedrick Epps – Miami – Epps brought in just over 300 yards receiving and 2 scores last year. As long as he is fully recovered from his knee surgery during the offseason, he should be a viable candidate to do the same thing again this year. Javaris James will be at the helm this year and to build confidence, the tight ends will be used early in games, or late in games if the Hurricanes find themselves down in points.

2. Greg Boone – VT – Boone will make an attempt to be the best TE in the ACC this year. He needs to go out in style as he is a senior and will look to raise his stock so that he can be drafted into the NFL next spring. He came very close to breaking 300 yards last year as he finished the season with 278. Add in the 2 scores and he is considered one of the top TE in the ACC. Read the rest of this entry →

Let us wrap up the Big East preview by checking out the always undervalued “other” group of tight ends, kickers and defenses.

TE

Shamar Graves, Rutgers – again I am trusting Schiano to make a good call with the QB. Graves is the same size as Terrel Owens and should complement Tim Brown nicely. Three TD on 16 rec in 2008

Nate Byham, Pitt – more of an NFL TE that is asked to block. Wait and see – do not draft.

Mike Owen, Syracuse – Here is a big boy who led the team in TD catches. With 2. New system and new QB should help. Wait and see – do not draft.

Ben Guidugli, Cincy – his brother Gino used to QB here, Ben is more of an H-back but could be active. Wait and see – do not draft.

Louisville TE - remember we used to think Kragthorpe loved throwing to TE? Maybe he just exploited the talent of Garret Mills at Tulsa. Stay tuned.

K

Jake Rogers, Cincy - double digit FG last 2 seasons and 3 of 4 from 50+ last season. That is a fantasy weapon.

San San Te, Rutgers - the always have uniquely named kickers in Piscataway. Te is more accurate than powerful.

Maikon Bonani, USF would have rounded out the Top 3 but he had this thing during his summer job…

D

Pitt – Wannstedt nows defense, remember offense has always been his Waterloo. Really good D-line should help with sacks and they get a very manageable September OOC schedule.

USF – another great September schedule to get you on the right foot plus you get to watch one of the great predators in DE George Selvie. You just cannot run on the Bulls.

Rutgers – I mentioned Rutgers as an excellent value defense and they settle in well here at #3.

WVU – they play the 3-3-5 and have lots of veterans returning, but the schedule isn’t as accommodating.

Syracuse – if for no other reason the Orange have one of the best DT in the game in Arthur Jones and a great KR in Max Suter.

In the next week or so we will release customizable cheat-sheets or what we at Fantasy College Blitz like to refer to as our ‘Cheat-Sheet Optimizer’. This year not only will you be able to customize your cheat-sheets based on the conferences and teams like last year but you will now have the added ability to create the rankings specifically for your league scoring.

Below is the Blitz Top 75 Kickers Rankings.

Read the rest of this entry →

Defenses and special teams – or as it’s seen in the Big 12, the guys who try in vain to stop your offense and the guys who come out after the inevitable touchdown to tack on the seventh point. Getting to the point, you are going to see a lot of defenses here appearing to underperform in terms of fantasy values because of the offenses, and a lot of kickers who might have average field goal kicking abilities with inflated values due to volume of touchdowns scored.  Also, while we are wrapping up the Big 12, let’s cover the one TE worth drafting and a couple of guys with potential.

Defenses

1. Texas

The Longhorns are returning their five leading tacklers from the unit that was (by a large margin) tops in the Big 12 a year ago. Texas should have a better secondary than last year by virtue of experience, with about the same level of production at LB and a slight drop off at defensive due to three starters graduating (although incoming freshman Alex Okafor was one of the nation’s top recruits at DE). Nonetheless it could be one of the top 5-10 defenses in the country, and the numbers will be helped by the fact that the conference isn’t quite as strong as it was on offense last season. Also, Texas has a passing offense that is more oriented towards high-percentage plays to sustain drives and control possession.

Additionally, Jordan Shipley had touchdowns on both kickoff and punt returns a season ago, which are typically counted towards a team’s defensive stats in fantasy leagues.

Oklahoma Sooners, Travis Lewis (courtesy ISM.com)

2. Oklahoma

Oklahoma will be returning their entire front seven and both corners in 2009, and don’t underestimate the impact of a healthy Ryan Reynolds returning as middle linebacker to compliment team-leading tackler Travis Lewis (144!) at the weak side spot. They had a solid defense last season, as evidenced by being the only team to hold Florida under 30 (a game that was 14-14 in the 4th). Ironically, their problem was that the Sooner offense scored so fast that it: a) got the defense back on the field quickly and b) forced opposing offenses to be more aggressive. In fact, on a yards per play basis, their defense performed slightly better than the Texas Longhorns, despite being ranked in the vicinity of 40 spots below Texas in total and scoring defense. We’re not sure how Oklahoma’s offense will look in terms of total points and yards compared to last season’s, but with the running game intact and the receiving corps a deep shade of green, we’re expecting a bit more ball control on the other side to help out a unit that was actually pretty good per play a year ago, and is returning 9 starters. Read the rest of this entry →