Cornering The Market

“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” - Gordon Gekko

The draft strategy that Purple Reign hangs his hat on when it comes to College Fantasy Football is targeting specific coaching systems. It is a good strategy to target players that play in roles within their offense that have a history of good fantasy production. There are times when we know who the starter is going to be, but there are also times where we don’t. When fantasy owners don’t know which player will be “the man” they utilize the “Handcuff” technique.

Handcuffing a position is a way to “corner the market” on a specific position from a specific team. You want Texas’ starting RB but there’s two guys competing for the job, which guy should you draft? When utilizing the Handcuff technique, you’ll draft both. This ensures that whoever wins the starting job is on your roster.

If you want fantasy success just remember, “greed is good.”

**This article will be updated as position battles sort themselves out through the summer**

---

Joe Arpasi is hosting a special 52-Man league where you can have a chance to compete against four top names in the College Fantasy Football industry. The winner of the “2025 Battle For The Belt” league will take home an amazing custom championship belt. Click on the link below to find out more about this great promotion for 2025.

2025 "Battle For The Belt" 52-Man League Challenge

---

---

HONORABLE MENTIONS

COASTAL CAROLINA

• QB Emmett Brown

• QB MJ Morris

After an underwhelming offensive performance in 2024, Coastal Carolina hired Drew Hollingshead to take over the offensive coordinator duties. During his two seasons at Western Kentucky Hollingshead’s QB1 has averaged 297 fantasy points. The quarterback position was left wide open in 2025 for Coastal Carolina and the team hit the transfer portal to finds its next starter. Emmett Brown transferred in from San Jose State and would be the slight favorite in this position battle. But he was not able to pull away enough from Maryland transfer MJ Morris in spring camp, leaving this race open for fall camp.

FRESNO STATE

• RB Elijah Gilliam

• RB Rayshon Luke

Bryson Donelson looks to have a chokehold on the starting RB job for 2025. This Handcuff scenario is all about the RB2 position, which offensive coordinator Josh Davis showed can have fantasy value last season while at South Dakota. Elijah Gilliam has plenty of game experience and could set himself apart as the goal line/short yardage back in this offense. He is very limited as a receiver out of the backfield which does open the door for Rayshon Luke. Luke is a transfer from Arizona where he never produced much for the Wildcats. We will need to wait until fall camp to see how these two stack up against each other.

MASSACHUSETTS

• RB Brandon Campbell

• RB Rock Griffin

Offensive coordinator Mike Bajakian has shown from 2019-2022 that he is willing to feed a primary running back 200+ carries. The last two seasons at Utah and Northwestern have failed to foster such a RB1. Brandon Campbell and Rock Griffin are duking it out to see if one of them can earn that workhorse running back title. This position battle likely won’t hold any fantasy draft value until a clear starter has been named, and the coaches do not mention the dreaded phrase “split carry backfield”.

NOTRE DAME

• WR Malachi Fields

• WR Jaden Greathouse

If you ignore the historical fantasy performance of offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock’s 2023 season, his WR1 tends to top out its fantasy value around 160 fantasy points. I see the Notre Dame offense throwing the ball more this season with CJ Carr under center which means that the target share for the eventual WR1 should increase. Jaden Greathouse was the WR1 for the Irish in 2024 while playing in the slot. From 2023-2022 a balanced WR role was the WR1, meaning that Greathouse could potentially fill that balanced role in the offense. Malachi Fields transferred in from Virginia and is an outside receiver, which we see was the WR1 in 2018 and 2021. Greathouse had a great spring camp but you can’t ignore Fields’ past production and talent level.

OHIO STATE

• TE Will Kacmarek

• TE Max Klare

When Max Klare announced he was signing with Ohio State in the winter transfer portal everyone expected him to be the TE1. When spring camp opened Klare was running with the #3 offense and it was Will Kacmarek that was running with the #1 offense. Kacmarek was already in the program and likely started spring camp with the 1’s as a seniority thing, and Klare starting with the 3’s was probably a “earn your way” in the offense thing. By the end of spring camp Kacmarek was injured and walking in a boot. I still think Klare is the guy to bet on but we just didn’t get a good enough picture from spring camp to tell exactly where this position battle is.

UNLV

• QB Anthony Colandrea

• QB Alex Orji

My coaching historical database only goes back to 2018 which gives a limited sample of what head coach Dan Mullen has done with the quarterback position. Missing from the database are the amazing seasons of Dak Prescott at Mississippi State. But with the Florida data available we can see there is fantasy value in this offensive system. The biggest hurdle this season is the fact that the top two quarterbacks fighting for the starting job are one-dimensional, running quarterbacks. Both Anthony Colandrea and Alex Orji have dealt with interception issues in their careers and that could limit their fantasy value. I do see Colandrea as the favorite to wins this job.

To continue reading this article, sign up for a premium subscription today! Premium subscribers get year-round full access to everything that Let Purple Reign has to offer.