SAN
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2012
EDED PRESS Center (54) and on Saturday,
and three first half in going to ig because with high lay"
d of atti-
so was also
he Horned
-0-1 season
in the
PAGE 9B
ingest team with his 110thsssed Dutch winningest
not to lose
hyped up
linebacker
t week was
24 consecuu-
but all of
mountain West
league's title
filed his peti-
request with-
6-month fed-
Oklahma. He
convicted
sell Jayhawk
FANTASY FOOTBALL
th, Jones had
d a poor job.
dense attorney
operating with
investigation.
did cooperate
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Who to start and sit down
Quick Note: All fantasy advice is doled out as of Wednesday. Pay attention to fantasy football news throughout the days leading up to Sunday to ensure your players will be active for their respective games.
Week one of the fantasy football season is officially in the books, and if there is one thing I have learned about this strategic game in my seven years playing it, it's that a matchup is never over until the last second ticks off on Monday night. My heartbreaking 1.74 point defeat last week is evidence. One would think a 17-point lead heading into Monday night's game, with only a kicker going for the other team would be a comfortable position to be in for an opening week "W" in fantasy. Nope. San Diego kicker Nate Kaeding put my opponent on his back and carried, rather kicked his way to an improbable come-from-behind win, putting me in an early 0-1 hole and wondering how everything fell apart at the last minute.
I'm sure everyone has similar sob stories, and believe me, I've played enough fantasy football to know that kickers are easily capable of 20-point plus
performances.The lesson here is keep the overconfidence to a minimum, no matter how much you are up on your opponent heading into the final NFL games of the weekend.
Enough of my week one lamenting, let's get to this week's very first "startem/sitem" post.
START'EM
Robert Griffin III, Washington Redskins QB
If you've paid any attention to the opening weekend of the NFL, you'd know that RG3 put up an incredible fantasy point total for a rookie starting his first game. 320 yards and two passing touchdowns plus 40 yards rushing is a solid fantasy performance for any fantasy quarterback, let alone a rookie. Griffin isn't likely on the waiver wire after his breakout performance on Sunday, but I'd start him over the likes of Michael Vick, Tony Romo and both the Manning brothers. Don't let that scary Rams defense deter you from starting Griffin this weekend.
C.I. Spiller, Buffalo Bills RB
Bills' starting running back Fred Jackson confirmed what his fantasy owners had feared this whole off-season; he's fragile. After accumulating 15 yards in the first quarter, Jackson went down with an apparent knee injury. Word coming out of Buffalo is that Jackson should be back in 3-4 weeks, but in the meantime Spiller made the most of his opportunity, rushing
for 169 yards, including a 56-yard touchdown scamper against an above-average New York Jets run defense. Start him with extreme confidence this week against Kansas City.
Reggie Wayne, Indianapolis
Colts WR
Thanks to Peyton Mannings absence last season, Wayne was a non-factor in the fantasy football realm. Anyone having Curtis Painter chucking passes their direction is likely to take a production hit, and Wayne was unfortunately in such a position. This season is different with the addition of number one overall draft pick quarterback Andrew Luck. Luck didn't look particularly impressive in his debut, but Wayne showed that he has plenty in the tank at age 34, as demonstrated by his 135-yard receiving effort in week one. Luck will progress throughout the year, and I fully expect Wayne to be the direct beneficiary of Luck's improvement.
Michael Vick, Philadelphia Eagles QB
SIT'EM
Let me start by saying, if Vick is the only realistic starting quarterback on your roster, you have to roll with him. I'm operating under the pretenses that if you drafted Vick, like I did, you drafted some insurance for him in the later rounds. Vick faces a stout defense in Baltimore, and Ed Reed sure looked like his old self against the Bengals
on Monday night. If the Ravens can contain A.J. Green, what do you think they'll do to the smaller and easily pushed around DeSean Jackson? With Jeremy Maclin in serious doubt to miss this weekend's game because of a hip injury, Vick simply doesn't have the offensive firepower to compete with the Ravens' secondary and safeties.
Kevin Smith, Detroit Lions RB
Smith almost single-handedly carried me to two victories in fantasy last weekend against a porous Rams' run defense. That will all change this Sunday when Smith squares off against what is arguable the best run defense in the past decade. No one runs for big games on the 49ers, and if Smith is to get any fantasy value, it will be through the air, not on the ground. Too risky for me, and there are plenty of other running backs facing much easier matchups that you could start in place of him.
Mike Wallace, Pittsburgh Steelers WR
Wallace went predictably high in fantasy drafts this year, and I am one of the fortunate owners to not roll the dice on him. Wallace is the prototypical "boom-or-bust" wide receiver. There are games he'll get you 28 fantasy points with long touchdowns and dazzling speed to go with it, but then there are the games where it appears as if Wallace isn't even on the field.
- Edited by Ryan McCarthy
NFL PREDICTIONS
Padway's picks of the week
CHICAGO BEARS @ GREEN BAY PACKERS (-6):
Everyone knows that the Packers strength lies in the passing game, and that the rest of the team, aside from Clay Matthews and his luscious, glorious, golden locks, really hasn't lived up to the level of greatness exhibited by Aaron Rodgers. Da Bears on the other hand started out slow but picked up their play in the second half, stomping a terrible Indianapolis Colts队. It's a short week, and with how bad the replacement of officials calls have been so far, there's no way either team will find much breathing room in this one.
NEW ORLEANS SAINTS (-2.5) @ CAROLINA PANTHERS
No one would've thought each of these teams would open the season with losses. Maybe Cam Newton scammed Carolina fans into thinking he's better than he is, but more likely he's in a sophomore slump. And seeing that he couldn't spend more than one year at a single institution, I'm willing to venture that he doesn't have experience getting out of these slumps.
Pick: New Orleans Saints
KANSAS CITY CHIEFS
@ BUFFALO BILLS (-3)
MINNESOTA VIKINGS(-1.5)
@ INDIANAPOLIS COLTS
Despite winning last week, Vikings fans should be very concerned that they let Blaine Gabbert put up 23 points and a 96.1 passer rating. Luck might be a rookie that threw three interceptions last week, but I still would rather have him starting than a Missouri graduate.
I don't think either of these team's fan bases are too encouraged after they both allowed 40+ points in their season openers. This game probably will have significant implications as to the draft order this coming April. It's almost a shame this game is being played so early in the season, fans are being deprived of the hype that would surround a "Matt Barkley
bowl" if these teams were to meet in December.
Pick: Buffalo Bills
Pick: Da Bears
Pick: Indianapolis Colts
could regain his status as the best unibrowed athlete by guiding the Ravens to the Super Bowl this season.
BALTIMORE RAVENS @ PHILADELPHIA EAGLES (-2.5)
I have no idea how the Eagles are favored after Michael Vick threw four interceptions against the Cleveland Browns last week. Flacco became the nation's second most prominent unibrow after the emergence of Anthony Davis on the basketball scene. Flacco
Pick: Baltimore Ravens
MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL:
DENVER BRONCOS @
ATLANTA FALCONS (-3)
Maybe ESPN gave credit to the wrong person when they professed their love for Tim Tebow last season. Perhaps the magic really belonged to Vice President of Football Operations John Elway. The last four seasons that Elway was officially involved with the team, they've made the playoffs-and won two Super Bowls.
Pick: Denver Broncos
- Edited by Ryan McCarthy
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hubert a key part of K-state success
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS @
NEW YORK GIANTS(-8.5)
Kansas State's red-zone scoring formula was on display again Saturday, when Klein scored three touchdowns rushing — two of them from a yard out — in a 52-13 romp over the Hurricanes.
The Giants became the first defending Super Bowl champion to lose in the NFL kickoff game since it became a yearly addition to the NFL slate in 2004.
"I set my goal to get a thousand yards," Hubert said after the Miami game last weekend, never mentioning anything about scoring touchdowns. "That's what I'm going to do."
Getting the Wildcats to that point, however, fell on the shoulders of Hubert.
He doesn't get there all that often.
While words like "shifty" and "elusive" tend to describe running backs of a similar stature, that's not necessarily the case with the Wildcats' junior ball carrier. Many of his yards come after first contact, and it's not uncommon for several defenders to gang up in bringing him down.
Even in postgame news conferences, the scrum of TV cameras usually disbands from Hubert the moment that Klein steps to the podium. Hubert is left with his hands in his pockets, talking to a few reporters straggling behind the rest of the pack.
"We give John a lot of grief," tight end Travis Tannahill said with a laugh. "He always runs the ball and always gets pushed out at the two or the one, and then, oh, let Collin get another QB sneak." He gets quite a bit of grief for that."
The 5-foot-7 running back ran for 970 yards last season, but he rarely reached the end zone — hallowed ground belonging to quarterback Collin Klein, the quarterback-turned-battering ram who racked up 27 touchdowns rushing during the Wild-cats' 10-win season.
Judging from his appearance on Saturday Night Live last spring, I'm not sure Giants quarterback Eli Manning is capable of showing emotion, but if he is, you can bet he doesn't want to start the season with back-to-back losses.
Last season, Hubert had three 100-yard rushing games, and he already has two this season: He
MANHATTAN, Kan. — When John Hubert scored on a 95-yard run in No. 15 Kansas State's season opener, nobody could blame him for chirping the moment
ran for 152 yards in the opener against Missouri State, highlighted by the second-longest run in school history, and went for 106 yards against the Hurricanes.
Pick: New England Patriots
He'll try to make it three straight Saturday against North Texas.
"He never stops," Klein said. "He runs extremely hard. Sometimes he'll bounce off two or three people and just keep motoring right along. He will punish you." Sounds a lot like Klein too.
Hubert wasn't hotly recruited out of Waco, Texas. He showed up simply trying to make a name for himself, and wound up earning the startup job last season over Bryce Brown, the heavily touted Tennessee transfer who eventually left the program.
"When you see John out there, running a guy over, stiff-arming a guy, that gets the team going a lot," Sexton said. "John's not a big guy, but he runs big. When you see John run a guy over who's twice his size that kind of gets the team's juice flowing."
"The coaches have a lot of faith in him," Tannahill said. "Since he got here he's just been putting confidence in the coaches' eyes. They're the ones who make the call and obviously they see something in him that they don't from the other guys."
The Cardinals haven't said who will start at quarterback this week, but they managed to reignite their preseason quarterback controversy after starter John Skelton went down. Honestly, it doesn't matter who starts for them, because neither one deserves to keep Tom Brady's Uggs warm, let alone play on the same field as Brady.
Watching Hubert battle through much bigger players, powerful legs churning furiously, often inspires his teammates. Wide receiver Curry Sexton compared the momentum generated from Huber's carries to the adrenaline infusion the team experiences when defensive players get sacks.
Pick: The New York Giants
ARIZONA CARDINALS @ NEW
ENGLAND PATRIOTS (-13.5)
HOW MUCH IS ONE BEER REALLY WORTH?
$300 fine and $150 court costs.
20 Hours of community service.
Drivers License year suspension.
Loss of all scholarships.
NONE OF THE ABOVE.
DCCCA: Providing alcohol and drug abuse prevention, treatment, and recovery services for almost 40 years. We also provide Alcohol information School and evaluations to meet the requirements of MIP/DUI diversions.
Contact: www.dcccca.org or 830-8238
APPLY AS A REPLACEMENT SENATOR
JOIN STUDENT SENATE
Replacement Apps are due this Friday. Get your applications into the Senate office for your chance at representing your fellow students. Seats are currently open for: CLAS, Engineering, Law, Pharmacy, Law, Graduate Students, and Non-Traditional Students.
JOIN A LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE
Every student at KU is guaranteed a vote in the Senate Legislative Committees. Next meeting: September 19 at 6:00 in the Union to make your voice heard.
YOUR CHOICES
1
YOUR VOICES
YOUR CAMPUS
@kusenate
STUDENT SENATE
/kustudentsenate