The B1G-MAC Fantasy Football Challenge: Week 4

Gooooooooooooooooood moooorrrrnnnnniiiinnnnngggggggg, Mid-Americaaaaaaaa!!!!!!

It doesn't matter if you're ranked or not; every morning can be a good morning when you're playing the #B1GMACFantasyChallenge with my good friend Jesse from Off Tackle Empire. In case you're new here, let me tell you how it goes. He and I have been going at it for the last three weeks in a fan-sided fantasy football *thing* where he picks players from the Big Ten, I take players that are pimping out the #MACtion, and go head-to-head in a goofy form of fantasy football. With certain limits of how often we can pick players, we're basically picking new teams each week.

I started the year on the wrong foot, but I rebounded hardcore in Week 2, winning by nearly 100 points. Let's take a look at how last week played out:

Alex: Jesse! Are you okay? Should I call nine-one-one?

Jesse: Seriously, this is just getting ridiculous. Of course, I remembered we didn't have a net punting category and understood that this entire enterprise is probably a losing effort going in. Gaudy numbers offensively? What do you think this is, the Big XII? We play real defense here... Except, the non-con has proven that maybe terrible offenses have something to do with it. By the way, for those keeping track at home, my fantasy team scored one touchdown. One. The loneliest number. This seems like a good time to talk about what we were going to give the winner. Like, do I have to change my avatar or something? Do you win a trophy? I feel like we didn't plan the stakes out nearly well enough.

Alex: THAT'S SOMETHING WE OUGHTA DO! We'll have to make some bets or something along the way. We can make the rules up as we go along, this is our baby anyways (okay this just got awkward...) ---

A N Y W A Y S, *cough* yeah, football. OH! Riley Neal. Yes, that guy. Well, let me speak football. Riley Neal isn't a guy, he's a dude. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised he played as well as he did against Eastern Michigan, but man, what a performance! He's gone without an interception in his first 47 passes as a true freshman so far and now he's on the road against Northwestern. I should be more worried, but I'm going to have fun with my chances here.

With him, I'm going to hope he hooks up with Jordan Williams for a few more touchdown passes. It takes a good receiving corps to help groom a young quarterback like him, so hopefully the youth and experience create some good chemistry at Ryan Field on Saturday. One of my other receivers will be Tajae Sharpe. The Massachusetts offense isn't blowing up the scoreboard and playing against Notre Dame doesn't make this seem like it's a "safe" pick, but he's getting all the balls thrown his way. 22 catches through two games, and this is an NFL prospect we're talking about. Great opportunity for him to impress some scouts and help me get to 3-1.

Jesse: Word. That sounds like a recipe for me losing. Which, I mean, three game losing streak and my hot seat is gonna get turned way up. I'd caution you. Northwestern's offense may consist solely of, "hey, we have a good RB and LOL what's a QB," but that defense is stingy. They are going to make like hell for Riley. At least I hope so.

Come see what 1-2 looks like

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If I need to counter, I guess I best start with my newest revelation at RB - Penn State's Saquon Barkley. He is a true freshman bruiser who is making Penn State's offense look competent, which is saying something if you saw the Temple fiasco. Barkley - in limited work across weeks two and three - is racking up the yards and I think he's going to have a great game against San Diego State. Oh, and Maryland is probably not a good football team, but I need receivers before the four week reset so I'm taking the Terps' DJ Moore. I figure West Virginia is due for a chaos game, right?

Alex: re: "Maryland is probably not a good football team" YOU GOT DAT RITE, FRAND. But on the real, I think West Virginia is going to be too much for Maryland to keep up with, just sayin'.

But whatever running back you stroll out, he's no Kareem Hunt. 129 yards last week against Iowa State, but now he gets to play another home game against Arkansas State. I'm not going to look up how the Red Wolves are doing because 1) if a player is good, then he's good no matter the competition and 2) the GoDaddy Bowl. You might already know this, but Hunt scored FIVE TIMES against Arkansas State in that bowl game. Yes, a complete handful!

I like our FLEX rule: we can use anybody we want. Who was that one quarterback that did better than half of your team last week? Yeah, I'll take him. Football Jesus, I think his name is? Or Jott Mahnson? I don't remember, let's just go with Football Jesus.

I'm sure your tight end will put up just enough points to counter this attack though.

Jesse: I'm going to lose by 100 again... That's fine. I have a couple of secret weapons you don't even know about. But you asked me a question first, and I am nothing if not happy to oblige. Yes, my TE is going to score #allthepoints, but really, I'll be happy with some semblance of a pulse. This week, I'm throwing Wisconsin's Austin Traylor out there. He's put up a TD in each of the last two games, Joel Stave is maybe not awful, and this is Hawaii. He is bound to be good, right? Like, I'm begining to wonder if I'm a bad luck charm or something.

Now, on to the real secret weapon. The most B1G weapon of them all. Iowa's Super Awesome Kicks Long FG Guy - Marshall Koehn. Kid is 4-4 on the season with a game winning 57 (!!!) yard shot last weekend over Pitt. I don't know if Iowa is back, but with a Kicker in their back pocket, who can really stop them. So how about you? What defense are you throwing out to get slaughtered? I feel like I really should have rigged defense better. Oversight on my part.

Alex: For like the one time all year, I'm going to use Bowling Green. I'm an Eastern Michigan grad and even I think Bowling Green has a [not good] defense. So why am I going to pick this D/ST?

Purdue.

Ah, and for our favorite part: the conference loser! Last week you picked Northern Illinois. In hindsight: still the right pick, but did you hesitate at all this week before making your selection?

Jesse: Purdue is not so good at football, and yet they were tied with Va Tech for almost a half, so maybe they're not as bad as you think. (LOL, they're totally as bad as you think)

As to my MAC Loser, I mean, after last week, I am a little gunshy and can you blame me? I get that it's a 31.5 point spread, but can Ohio State actually put out a legitimate offense right now? I have no idea what has gone so wrong. It may be the #TeamEmpire stink. I did pick Cardale Jones last week. But seriously, Western Michigan is going to get annihilated this week. Urban Meyer has no mercy on the Broncos soul and gets me to 300 points this week (or total across three weeks).

Thankfully we're playing with some super generous rules that allow me to play just about anybody in the FLEX spot. My player isn't announced on here for that though, you'll have to venture off to OTE to see who I picked to help get my win streak to three in a row. Be sure to follow Jesse on Twitter as he bites his nails watching Nebraska games and his site's account to read up on the bad guys.

Go #TeamHustle!