Welcome to Week 9 DFS pick ’em predictions.
We stayed hot last week, hitting on 2 picks — the third was voided as Kansas State quarterback Avery Johnson was ultimately ruled out. Dating back to Week 6, that’s 8 consecutive hits for this column.
Let’s dive into 3 more DFS pick ’em predictions for this week’s slate of games.
DFS pick ’em Week 9
All picks via Underdog:
Ole Miss WR Deuce Alexander lower than 87.5 receiving yards
Deuce Alexander has not cleared this projection in any of his last 3 games. The Ole Miss star has put together a few big games, but he doesn’t have a huge share of the targets in this offense at just over 24%. He’s catching roughly 68% of the targets that he does get (9 per game), which is good but not elite. Alexander is also not exclusively a deep threat — his average depth of target is about 10 yards and his explosive reception rate is below average at 19%. Alexander has been responsible for under 30% of Ole Miss’s receiving yards in 2 of 5 games. In 2 other games over the span, Alexander’s receiving yardage total still came in lower than 87.5 yards.
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Iowa State RB Aiden Flora lower than 81.5 rushing yards
Aiden Flora is having a tremendous season, but his totals are inflated by performances against truly terrible defenses in West Virginia and Bowling Green. Over 400 of his 716 yards this season came in those 2 games alone. He averaged 4.7 yards per carry against Iowa, 4.2 against Utah, 5.1 against BYU and 3 against Arizona. Oklahoma State’s rushing defense isn’t great, but it’s not close to the WVU or Bowling Green tier (both outside of the top 100 nationally in EPA-per-rush allowed). If you project about 4.5 yards per carry against OK State, he’d have to get 19 carries to go higher than this projection — a mark he’s hit in just 2 of 7 games this year. That’s partially because quarterback Jaylen Raynor soaks up a lot of Iowa State’s rushing usage (45 true rushes this season). That fact is even more problematic when accounting for the Cycles as a 9.5-point underdog, which implies they might be forced into a pass-heavy game plan in the second half.
Mississippi State RB Fluff Bothwell lower than 66.5 rushing yards
Fluff Bothwell is an excellent running back but this is a tough matchup for him and Mississippi State, particularly without Kamario Taylor. The markets imply about 15 projected points for the Bulldogs, which doesn’t leave much room for significant offensive production from Bothwell or any of the other Mississippi State players, frankly. Texas also has an elite rushing defense, so it’s plausible the Longhorns could hold Bothwell closer to 3 yards per carry rather than the 5.6 he’s averaged this season. Bothwell has also been on the injury report this month, which makes me question whether he’ll still be getting carries in the second half if his team is down by 20+ points.
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Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
