As fantasy college football fans, we don’t necessarily care about the Heisman Trophy.  The won/loss records of most teams aren’t so interesting either.  In fact, do you even know how many wins Rice had?  Do you even care? This leads to the question that matters: Who is the Fantasy version of ”Most Outstanding” Player of The Year (FPOY)?

The official Heisman Trophy has been handed out in one of the tightest three man race in the history of the award. Sam Bradford beat out Colt McCoy and Tim Tebow to claim the award for the most ‘outstanding’ player in the nation.  As I broke down in my previous article, based on the criteria used by the Heisman committee, Bradford was indeed the most deserving of the award.

Many think this question is as easy as crowning the athlete with the most fantasy points(FP) on the season as the best fantasy player.  While FPs are ultimately the most important factor, I think it is often misleading.  Under most scoring systems, the QB position will almost always outscore all other positions.  Does that mean a non-QB will never be the top player?  The answer is obviously no and in fact I will argue that a QB, despite always outscoring the other positions, will have a more difficult time claiming the honor (I know, the picture gives it away).

The first factor in which I like to judge a fantasy player is by comparing them to the top backup in a standard league of 12 teams. For example, I will compare the top quarterbacks to the stats of the 13^th ranked QB and the top running backs/wide receivers to the 25^th ranked RB/WR.  By doing this, any player can be compared to an ”average” player, which I have determined tobe  the top backup.  If the top QB scored 500 FPs but the 13^th QB scored 420 FPs, you can see that owning that top QB didn’t really help win games over teams starting an average QB.

The next factor is the scoring consistency from the player because this helps fantasy teams win games.  We can quantify this by determining the average FPs per game for the 13^th QB and 25^th RB/WR and then see how many games potential FPOY’s produced below that number.  To put it another way, how many games did the player not even match a backup’s stats?

Let’s look at the Finalists for the Fantasy College Blitz 2008 Fantasy Player of the Year.  Some of these names shouldn’t come as a surprise as they won Fantasy Player of the Year for their conferences:

QBs:  Chase Clement, Rice and Case Keenum, Houston

RBs:  Javon Ringer, Michigan State and MiQuale Lewis, Ball State

WR:  Austin Collie, BYU

Some readers will be screaming about James Casey of Rice not being on the list.  However, with too many leagues not requiring a TE position, he had to be grouped with the WRs.  This left him a little short in the stats department.  With that said, in leagues that require a TE, Casey is the undisputed FPOY. Casey averaged a massive 15 ppg more than 13^th best TE and nearly doubled the #2 TE in fantasy points.

Here are the raw numbers used to arrive at the list of Finalists:

Looking at the stats, it is clear that Clement, Keenum, Ringer and Lewis deserve to be a finalist but the 5^th spot is one that is much more debatable.  Or maybe debating over who should finish 5^th is not worth debating at all.  Regardless, Collie gets the nod because he was incredibly consistent at a position notoriously inconsistent.  He had four games under the average 12.8 scored by Marion but those games were 8, 11, 12, 11 compared to Bryant who had games of 9,0,4,7,8 and Dillard who had games of 12,4,4.  I would gladly exchange a point a game for a season in which my receiver was under 10 points only once.  With Collie getting the nod over the other receivers, it then becomes a discretionary choice in selecting him over Harrell and Bradford.  To me, 7.2 ppg over the average player is much more valuable from a receiver than 7.7 ppg from a QB.

Chase Clement clearly had a better fantasy season across the board than any other player in the nation.  His one knock was his three games below Chase Daniel‘s average of 24 point.  However, those games barely missed the mark at 22, 16, 23.  Additionally, those numbers are not significant enough to outweigh the 12.1 average per week.  Clement had the most fantasy points on the season, averaged more over the ‘average’ player at his position than any other player and was consistent throughout the entire season…making the choice an easy one as…anti-climatic drum roll please…

Fantasy College Blitz presents the 2008 Fantasy Player of the Year award to Chase Clement from Rice.

The final results…

1) Chase Clement – Rice

2) Case Keenum – Houston

3) Miquale Lewis – Ball State

4) Austin Collie – BYU

5) Javon Ringer – Michigan State

Related posts:

1. CONFERENCE USA 2008 ALL-FANTASY TEAM
2. FANTASY COLLEGE BLITZ 2008 PRE-SEASON ALL-AMERICAN TEAM
3. Fantasy College Blitz Experts QB Top 20 List
4. 2008 Fantasy College Blitz Owner’s Playbook
5. 2008 TOP FANTASY QBs…So Far

Tags: All-Americans