Thursday, Jul. 30, 2009

Fantasy experts favor Boise State QB Moore

By Eric Degerman, sportstricities.com

Last fall, I wondered if any folks in the Mid-Columbia played fantasy football with the pool being from the Columbia Basin Big Nine.

Last week, Rotowire.com's Jeff Erickson devoted about 30 minutes of his July 22 Fantasy Focus program/podcast on college fantasy football.

And according to Erickson and his panel of experts, Prosser grad Kellen Moore — Boise State's sophomore-to-be quarterback — deserves a lot of attention.

Erickson plays in a "pretty insane" 30-team college football keeper league. He drafted Moore in the third round because of "Boise State and the great schedule. And he's keepable for a couple of years."

One of Erickson's guest for this segment was Vince Mullins of FantasyCollegeBlitz.com. Mullins must have done his homework last fall on BSU and Moore.

"I took him last year with an 18th-round pick, but (as a keeper) I didn't think he was worth a first-round pick," Mullins said. "He's probably going to be a good NFL quarterback, but I thought I could get a better fantasy quarterback (this season)."

Mullins launched his site in 2005 because "I didn't think there was anyone covering all 120 teams with the proper amount of depth."

I did not know this until last week, but University of Houston junior Case Keenum is viewed as the No. 1 fantasy football QB.

According to Mullins, Keenum is a product of the program's offensive approach.

"It seems as though every coach that comes out of Oklahoma as a coordinator and moves on as a head coach elsewhere is just fantasy gold, and Kevin Sumlin is doing that in Houston right now," Mullins said.

Erickson added, "One of the things that we always have to preach in college fantasy football is that systems matter so much — more so than the players."

That's a key reason why quarterbacks at Texas Tech, Hawaii and Southern Methodist pile up stats. Portland native June Jones was the head coach/offensive genius at Hawaii and moved to SMU last season. Mike Leach reportedly was interviewed for the Washington opening before staying at Texas Tech.

Another factor is the style of play within each conference. These fantasy experts said Conference USA gets a great deal of attention from fantasy folks. Both Houston and SMU are members of C-USA.

"There is very little defense," Erickson said, who referred to Rice's 56-42 win at Houston as "beautiful." Mullins said he still has that game on his TiVo.

Fantasy experts also closely monitor the high-flying Pacific-10.

"Chip Kelly is taking over at Oregon and produced great offenses wherever he's gone," Erickson said. "They should be a lot of fun."

However, Mullins said he's downgrading Oregon tailback LeGarrette Blount on his draft board because "there's so much upheaval on the offensive line." Indeed, the Ducks depth chart shows little depth across the line and no experience left guard.

John Halpin of FoxSports.com talked about Joe Montana's son, Nick, committing to the Washington Huskies. Fantasy players should also take notice of USC backup QB Matt Barkley, Halpin said.

"He's second on the depth chart as a true freshman," Halpin said.

When it comes to college football blogs, Erickson plugged Eric Hinton's "Dr. Saturday" on the Rivals/Yahoo site and Clemson's live blog.

Just think, football season is just days away.