The CFB Degenerate's Newsletter: Season Recap & Offseason News

It's that time of the year again--coaching and transfer portal news is heating up; plus: VP covers some of the biggest lessons learnt in 2024 in regards to CFF drafting and player acquisition.

Even the fattest pig knows when the trough is empty; so too must we seek a feast for the spirit when the heart grows hungry.

- Anonymous CFB Wiseman, origin unknown

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Pigs, welcome back. As I’m sure you’ll all agree, it has been yet another joyous season of collegiate football, and seeing as how the college fantasy football scoring period is over, I figured now’s a good time to reflect on some of the things I learned in 2024 (there were a lot).

Before diving into that, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you for all of your support. This year has been an incredibly trying period for me in my personal life, and it’s within the realm of college football and this newsletter that I seek refuge from the madness. I hope that you found some value in the works that Joe (Purple Reign) and I did earlier this year, and in the waiver wire/rankings reports I published on my own. Full disclosure, I have been dealing with various health issues throughout this season, and thus I’ve felt that I wasn’t able to give the full effort that I had hoped to. My resolution for 2025 will be to put forth a stronger effort for in-season content in the fall.

More importantly, I would like to announce that the Black Friday discount I provided last week has been opened again and will be available to all into the weekend. If this is of interest, please feel free to take up the offer.

Similar to last year, I will be posting less frequently this month as we come to a close on the CFB season (and I need a break). Starting in January 2025, I will begin with the regular schedule of offseason content that I know many of you look forward to. Without further ado, let’s get into this thing.

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Coaching Carousel/Transfer Portal

I will continue to do updates regarding the relevant transfer portal and coaching news as the offseason goes on. Some notable coaching headlines so far:

• UCLA fired their OC, Eric Bienemy

• UNC fired head coach Mack Brown

• UCF HC Gus Malzahn resigned and will take over as OC at FSU

• Texas Tech hired Texas State OC Mack Leftwich

• Fresno State hired USC LB coach Matt Entz as head coach

• FAU hired Texas Tech OC Zach Kittley

• OU hired Wazzou OC Ben Arbuckle

• App State fired head coach Shawn Clark

• Temple hired Sam Houston HC KC Keeler as their head coach

• WVU fired Neal Brown

• FIU fired head coach Mike MacIntyre

• Oklahoma State fired their OC

• Kennesaw State hired Jacksonville Jaguars RB coach Jerry Mack

• Purdue fired head coach Ryan Walters

• Rice hired Davidson head coach Scott Abell

• Houston fired OC Kevin Barbay

• ECU promoted Blake Harrell to HC

• Tulsa fired head coach Kevin Wilson

• Charlotte fired head coach Biff Poggi

• UMass fired head coach Don Brown

• Ball State fired head coach Mike Neu

NOTABLE TRANSFER PORTAL ENTRANTS SO FAR:

• QB John Mateer, Wazzou

• RB Lee Beebe, UAB

• WR Raylen Sharpe, Fresno

• RB Malik Sherrod, Fresno

• QB Mikey Keene, Fresno

• QB Jackson Arnold, OU

• QB Reese Poffenbarger, Miami

• WR Trech Kekahuna, Wisconsin

• QB Ashton Daniels, Stanford

• QB Noah Fifita, AU

• WR Kobe Prentice, Alabama

• QB Connor Weigmann, A&M

• WR Cyrus Allen, A&M

• WR Christian Leary, GT

• WR CJ Daniels, LSU

• WR Joseph Williams, Tulsa

• RB Kanye Roberts, App State

• QB Kaidon Salter, Liberty

• QB Miller Moss, USC

• WR Eric Rivers, FIU

• QB Keyone Jenkins, FIU

• WR Jaquaize Pettaway, OU

• WR Micah Hudson, Texas Tech

• WR Omari Kelly, MTSU

• WR Kevin Concepcion, NCSU

• QB Bert Emmanuel, CMU

• QB Mitch Griffis, WF

• RB Jaylon Glover, Utah

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Recap of 2024 — Lessons/Hits/Misses

2024 was by far the worst CFF season of my career, as I failed to make the playoff in my home league, finishing with a 10-14 record (play two opponents/week). This is the only team I’ve ever had that finished with a losing record.

In the other league I participated in (CFFNate’s Dynasty league), my team finished with a record of 21-9 (play three opponents/week), making the playoff and winning the first round before falling in the second round. The dynasty team I think actually over performed, but my home league performance was shocking (though a bit unlucky). That is in part due to my success in finding competitive CFF players and filling the league with these types, but also because of my failures. Giving away as much information as I do probably also plays a part.

Nonetheless, in failure is when we learn the most, and I’ve learned plenty. In fact, there were many lessons that I already knew, that for whatever reason I forgot this year, which cost me in my home league in particular.

The first is specific to FAAB budget formats. In year one of Nate’s Dynasty league, I adhered to the philosophy of finding bargains. I felt that it was better to not overpay, or not pay a huge amount, for one individual player. This line of thinking brought me cheap/free waivers that included Rutgers’ Kyle Monangai, Sam Houston’s Noah Smith, and Memphis’ Roc Taylor, among others.

This year was the first season in my home league where we used FAAB. The lessons that I adhered to in Nate’s league were abandoned by yours truly and I ended up emptying the clip on players that were not worth the cost (e.g. Blake Horvath, when Bryson Dailey was available and cheaper the same week). Generally speaking, I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to spend 25% or more of your budget on one player. Even if the player turns out to be good, there’s usually others you could have gotten cheaper that would be similarly productive.

Another philosophical discussion is whether it is time to rethink how we approach true freshmen in CFF. I don’t know the answer yet; it’s too early to make any determination, as we only have a one year sample with what the 2024 class did. CFB is very different now compared to even a few years ago, so while this year is an outlier on the grand scale of things, there’s also reason to believe that this will be a trend going forward. It’s too early to tell, but I think at the very least I will be more open to the idea of drafting true freshmen players in the back half of drafts. In fact, I drafted Jeremiah Smith at the very end of the Golden Pig Invitational draft, but I dropped him before week one of the season (had to drop two players for K/DEF).

Additionally, 2024 provided some food for thought when it comes to the relevancy of service academy players. Typical wisdom says to avoid these players lest you get bitten by their volatility, but Army’s Bryson Dailey was pretty consistently productive this year. Outlier? Probably. But something to monitor.

On one of my runs with my friend Henri, who is a participant in my home league, and who actually finished first in the standings in back to back years, he mentioned something interesting to me in October. He said that he took note of the fact that it seemed like a lot of the guys who stayed at their programs, got rewarded. Nick Nash at SJSU, Tre Harris at Ole Miss (came back when he was expected to go to the NFL), Ashton Jeanty, were a few names that stood out.

I quipped back that for every Ashton Jeanty, there are Ollie Gordons, there are Ricky Hunts, and there are Ismael Mahdis. Point being, while at the very high end of CFF it may have seemed that the guys who came back were rewarded with volume, I think that was more so a coincidence as there are more of those guys than transfers/incoming freshmen.

Oh, and here’s one that is huge—that I seemingly learn every year—and then re-learn the next year: DO NOT OVERREACT TO AUGUST DEPTH CHARTS. Say it out loud if you need to while you read that one for it to land home. Iowa’s Kaleb Johnson is probably the best example to exemplify this point. He was listed as third on the depth chart, with Kamari Moulton listed as the starter just weeks before the season. Well, we all know how that turned out (yea, with VP blowing $60 FAAB on Moulton while rejecting a trade offer for Kaleb Johnson, yikes).

In terms of some specific misses, some players that come to mind:

• RB Kaedin Feagin, Illinois

• RB Gavin Sawchuk, OU

• NC State’s entire offence

• Fading Travis Hunter, thinking that he’d play more DB

• Fading Jordan James

• Valuing Ollie Gordon over Ashton Jeanty (to be fair, this was 50/50)

• RB Cam Cook, TCU

• WR Evan Stewart, Oregon

• QB Garrett Greene, WVU

• WR Noah Smith, SMHU

Some hits:

• WR Denzel Boston, UW

• WR Josh Kelly, Texas Tech

• WR Pat Bryant, Illinois

• WR Jaylin Noel, ISU

• WR Andrew Armstrong, ARK

• WR Amare Thomas, UAB (two outlier games vs. Rice and Navy hurt his PPG numbers)

• Waiting to draft Kalel Mullings over Donovan Edwards at UM

• Avoiding OSU RBs

Oh and by the way, I wrote a column for John Laub’s annual College Fantasy Football Awards (2024) article on Fantrax. You can find the contents of my section below:

CFF Freshmen of the Year

I have dubbed 2024 as the official ‘Year of the Freshman’ in college football and the tightness of this year’s freshman of the year award I think further demonstrates this. Last year, Kevin Concepcion ran away with the award with 25 points to the next closest contender’s eight. This year, two true freshmen RBs collided at the top, with ULM’s Ahmad Hardy receiving an almost unanimous vote at 28. His next closest rival was Lousiville’s Isaac Brown with 18, and then Ohio State’s version of Julio Jones, the one and only Jeremiah Smith at eight.

Hardy is a player that probably surprised some by his numbers at season’s end, as he outscored the likes of Jeremiah Smith, Ryan Williams, and Isaac Brown (among others). He was not one of the glitzy five star prospects coming into this year, nor was he a hot name among CFF drafters in re-draft and dynasty formats alike. The largely unknown commodity out of Mississippi emerged basically in week one, where he led his team in carries with 19, of which he rewarded the Warhawks staff with over 100 yards and a score. We knew the Bryant Vincent (ULM head coach) RB1 could be valuable in CFF, we just weren’t sure who that player would be. Hardy answered the bell without question, finishing the year with over 1300 yards and double digit scores. He was my vote for freshmen of the year.

Louisville’s Isaac Brown was not far behind Hardy in terms of production. This is another system under head coach Jeff Brohm that has a history of CFF success at the RB position, but like ULM, CFF drafters were not sure who would emerge as the top tailback for the Cardinals this year. Also like Hardy, Brown opened the year with a strong performance, but his touches didn’t start consistently growing until around week four. Even then there were some ups and downs; one can’t help but wonder if Brown received a steady diet starting earlier in the year, if he wouldn’t have surpassed Hardy’s production and won the prestigious CFF freshmen of the year.

OSU’s Jeremiah Smith needs no introduction. His pedigree coming into the year was unmatched, and he was generally the first freshmen player taken in any sort of dynasty CFF format. At the redraft level, he was an immediate impact contributor for any squad as he finished the year averaging 18.2 PPG in 1PPR formats. He was better at the beginning of the year; unfortunately his second half of the season let him down a bit.

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Poll of the Week

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