Veltkamp x Messer: This FAU Stack Combo Will Feed Families in a Recession

Leverage is a dirty word—but it doesn't have to be. When applied correctly, it's one of humanity's greatest tools for augmenting value.

Soros has taught me that when you have tremendous conviction on a trade, you have to go for the jugular. It takes courage to be a pig. It takes courage to ride a profit with huge leverage.

- Stanley Druckenmiller, investor and philanthropist

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I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Stanley Druckenmiller—it does take courage to be a pig. Even more so in a bear market, which is what it’s looking like this April with the transfer volume among G5 CFF assets. Gio Lopez… Damien Taylor… Harrison Waylee… this is a bloodbath. The type of carnage that will give you flashbacks to the Great Recession of 2008.

However, even amidst the deluge all hope is not lost. There is, in fact, a lifeline to grab a hold to. And you would think that double dipping on a G5 roster during this time of great uncertainty may not be the wisest idea, but the truth couldn’t be any more to the contrary.

Leverage is somewhat of a dirty word in investing. It can be a powerful tool for value creation, but it can just as easily ruin you with one mistake. I’m sure you’ve heard the conventional wisdom to ‘always diversify your portfolio’.

The same logic applies to investing in CFF assets. In general, it is a good idea to diversify your exposure, whether that be in the same draft when considering drafting players from the same team, or across multiple drafts when considering acquiring shares of players you haven’t drafted yet—or simply avoiding drafting a particular player because you already have several shares elsewhere. It’s a good mechanism to insulate yourself from the risk of things going against what you think will happen (which tends to happen a lot in CFF).

But there are exceptions to every rule, and in CFF this is true as well. One of the strongest tools in building a successful portfolio of CFF assets is through stacking a QB/WR pairing.

I could just leave it at that but for those interested in more details, I’ll be even more specific: it should be a non-mobile QB in an air raid offence and preferably with a slot receiver who’s the go-to guy to move the sticks. The latter part of that preference isn’t as important as the former in my opinion. You can, of course, stack rushing QBs with their go-to WRs and that can work sometimes too, but it is not as potent in my experience and the hit rate will be lower.

Personally, I’ve gone out of my way to try to find stack pairings in every league I’ve participated in since 2021 when the duo of Bailey Zappe and Jerreth Sterns—who were the inspiration for today’s article—finished as the CFF QB1/WR1 on the year. I don’t think that duo will ever be topped because 1) they set a bunch of records that are hard to break, and 2) (more importantly) they were each cheap CFF assets to acquire.

Drafters, including myself, acquired both around the 9-11 round range in most leagues. That isn’t the case currently if you want to acquire former WKU OC Zach Kittley’s new duo of Caden Veltkamp and Easton Messer. I also personally don’t think both of these guys are as good as Zappe and Sterns. But that’s OK, they don’t have to be.

One of the foundational mechanisms that allowed the Zappe-Sterns connection to flourish in 2021 in my opinion was the lengthy experience the two shared at the FCS level. That combined with a familiarity with the system under Kittley after moving on from HBU allowed them to hit the ground running immediately.

Veltkamp and Messer have an element of that after being together for four years at WKU. Both spoke about what it means to reunite at FAU here:

“He’s my best friend, and we’re super excited to be here and excited to play our first game together,” said Veltkamp.

“Caden is someone you want to look up to in a lot of different ways. He’s a natural leader … he’s a strong individual, strong with his faith, which I look up to,” said Messer. “He’s just a good guy all around; all the great qualities you look for in somebody, he’s definitely got them.”

“I’ve had my best friend here with me, which is great; we’re fortunate enough to have each other,” said Messer. “It’s made it so much easier since going in as a new guy is nerve-wracking, even with your friend, but just being able to know that you have each other to balance it out is really good.”

Now it should be noted that neither of these two players played under Kittley. They were both recruited by Kittley but he moved on to Texas Tech before they arrived on campus in the class of 2022.

No matter—the spring game provided enough of a glimpse for me to raise my level of optimism about this duo. Messer finished as the top receiver with four receptions, 101 yards and two scores. Here’s Kittley speaking about the connection after the game:

Zach Kittley on the connection between QB Caden Veltkamp and WR Easton Messer: "Being able to be around each other for 4 years now, they have an undeniable chemistry, and I think you can see he's a guy we're going to go to quite a bit."

“Caden's extremely comfortable with him, and he's a heck of a player. Those two guys are awesome. They bring a lot of energy to the team."

Veltkamp and Messer linked up four different times on Friday night for 1o1 yards and two touchdowns on the night, a performance that harked back to the three seasons of production they had together at Western Kentucky.

There, the two developed a bond as kindred spirits where "football is all they really care about. They live and breathe it," said Kittley, and that relationship allowed them to put together 55 catches, 793 yards and four touchdowns worth of production in 2024, which earned Messer a C-USA Honorable Mention.

As for me, I hope that by the time this article reaches the public I already have close to half a million shares of this duo in the bag (“BLOW ‘EM AWAY OLLIE” I shout at the Fantrax app as I acquire another share)…

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Coaching & System

PPG AVERAGE — QB: 22.5 — WR1: 15.4 (five point passing / half PPR)

Yeah, the numbers up top won’t blow you away. That’s partly because Kittley’s been ‘running’ an offence lately that featured one of my all-time favourite fat pigs at RB in Tahj Brooks. Indeed, the Texas Tech was a departure from what we saw Kittley do at WKU. There is probably no other variable better to describe this shift than the pass/run ratio.

At WKU, Kittley’s offence averaged around 67% pass plays. With Tech this number fell to 52, 49, and 53 in 2022, 2023, and 2024, respectively.

This was probably due to the head coach’s influence. We don’t have to worry about that now as Kittley is not only the head coach at FAU, but he is the only official play caller as there is not an OC listed.

The WRs coach had some notable names at LSU in the 2000s, but not any notable statistical outputs.

So if it’s alright with you I’m just going to focus on the 2021 data from WKU for the purpose of today’s discussion. The one data point that actually didn’t change much from WKU vs. Texas Tech was the pacing of the offence. WKU ran 74 plays per game in 2021, while Tech ran a high of 84 players per game in 2022, and an average of around 78 plays per game during Kittley’s tenure.

The seconds per play data of these squads always hovered in the low 20s, making them one of the fastest offences in the FBS each season.

You know, just like how there are dual threat QBs and then there’s dual threat QBs… there are air raid offences, and then there are air raid offences. This 2021 WKU team was a legit, old school Big-12, Mike Leach-esque throw it 50 times a game Air Raid offence. During that season, Zappe attempted 686 passes in 14 games (average of 49 per contest).

Rotowire has Sterns at around 200 targets in 14 games, or an average of 14.2 per game. He was the CFB triple crown winner that year leading the FBS in receptions, yards and TDs receiving, becoming only the third player in CFB history to do so (joining Michael Crabtree and Devonte Smith).

What’s more, not only did Sterns tear up the CUSA, his wingman Mitchell Tinsley caught 87 passes for 1402 yards and 14 scores himself. Those numbers would be good enough to make him the surefire WR1 on 90% of other programs in a given season.

The point being, there is potential for not just one but a second receiver to be a CFF-viable, or even a strong CFF asset in 2025 as well. At the very least, there should be at least one viable CFF asset in the WR room, whether that be Messer, or someone else.

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Closing

I have to be careful not to let my nostalgia get the best of me here. Seriously, how many of you remember the Michigan State vs. WKU game in 2021? Now picture watching that game as a shareholder of MSU RB Kenneth Walker, with both WKU QB Zappe and WR Sterns all starting at the same damn time. Christ AlMighty, it’s hard to not to feel like you’re the George freaking Soros of CFF when games like that happen.

As for 2025, I’m not expecting a like-for-like replacement out of Veltkamp and Messer, but that doesn't mean that they can’t be exceptional CFF assets. I love that there is the chemistry factor once again between the two players; this was even mentioned by Kittley, who himself undoubtedly understands the significance of this connection. It’s a rare thing in today’s college football to have an advanced level of continuity between QB and WR.

So that chemistry is an ‘X’ factor in my mind that is unique and hard to find elsewhere in the CFF ecosystem right now. That makes it worth prioritizing this stack if you’re going all in. Messer is typically taken in the second or third rounds now in Bestball drafts, while Veltkamp can be had much later, usually around the 10th round range. ◾

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