Pick 'Em & Rip 'Em sponsored by PrizePicks: Week 1

PrizePicks is your go-to stop for daily fantasy sports, and before you set your lineup for Week 1 of the college football season, our DFS expert Matthew Dawson offers you his insight on the best picks and plays from Texas A&M-Notre Dame and beyond! We pick 'em, you rip 'em!

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This week, a full slate of college football returns to our television screens. With games starting as soon as Thursday, here are the PrizePicks projections I have my eye on.

*Numbers are subject to change*

Aggie of the Week

RB Le’Veon Moss
MORE THAN 49.5 Rushing Yards
If you got this number at 48.5 earlier this week as I did, then great job! Introducing a gap scheme with Collin Klein will do wonders for the downhill runner. Last year, even Jimbo Fisher knew to run a gap scheme with Moss, running it 45.7 percent of the time when he was in the game to Rueben Owens’ 33 percent. Last year, 72 percent of Klein’s designed run plays were a gap scheme. With Owens missing time and a new offense, Moss is in for an even bigger role in this offense.

More on Texas A&M vs. Notre Dame

Jaden Greathouse, WR, Notre Dame
MORE THAN 36.5 Receiving yards

Lineup of the Week

Kaytron Allen, RB, Penn State
MORE THAN 0.5 Rush + Receiving TDs
Kaytron Allen has been one of the featured backs in this Penn State offense for two years now. New OC Andy Kotelnicki from Kansas is no stranger to spreading the ball around and finding creative ways to get his running backs in space. With the rest of the market offering this with an implied probability of over 56 percent, I will be throwing this one into some five-play lineups this week.

Bhayshul Tuten, RB, Virginia Tech
MORE THAN 78.5 Rushing Yards
Coming off of a season where he averaged 5.0 yards per carry on 173 carries, Bhayshul Tuten is in line to get a bigger workload this year. With an offensive line that returns a lot of its snaps from last year, this run game could improve for the 2024 season. Vanderbilt was also 122nd in the country in yards per carry allowed, with 5.2 last season. Even with Clark Lea taking his play-calling duties back on the defensive side of the ball, Vanderbilt is in for a rough one.

Joseph Manjack IV, WR, Houston
MORE THAN 61.5 Receiving Yards
Matthew Golden, Sammy Brown and Dalton Carnes are all receivers who transferred out of Houston. Willie Fritz isn’t known for having dynamic passing attacks, but Manjack is in for a big production bump this season after already having 500 yards on 46 catches just last year. While Barry Odom’s UNLV front seven could be decent, they had a very leaky secondary last season where they were 129th and 130th in opponent yards per pass attempt and yards per completion, respectively.

Ricky White, WR, UNLV
MORE THAN 88.5 Receiving Yards
Ricky White had over 1,400 yards receiving last year and broke this number eight times. Granted, all those games included eventual USC transfer Jayden Maiava starting at QB. However, between transfers Matthew Sluka (Holy Cross) and Hajj-Malik Williams (Campbell), there should be a capable player throwing the ball against a secondary that is replacing almost every in their rotation from the 2023 season. Also, some markets have his number set to 90+ yards... MORE THAN 88.5 yards seems to have some value.

Darius Taylor, RB, Minnesota
LESS THAN 68.5 Rushing Yards
Darius Taylor is an incredible running back. However, last week, he went down in camp with a hamstring injury, something that he dealt with for the majority of last season as well. Bringing in very good transfer running backs Marcus Major (Oklahoma) and Sieh Bangura (Ohio) makes this one of the deepest running back rooms in college football. It would be hard to imagine, given how important Taylor is to this offense, that P.J. Fleck runs him into the ground when he has great backs to spell him.

Other Dawson Selections

Jaden Bray, WR, West Virginia - MORE THAN 27.5 Receiving Yards
Harrison Wallace III, WR, Penn State - MORE THAN 37.5 Receiving Yards
Tyler Warren, TE, Penn State - MORE THAN 33.5 Receiving Yards
Donovan Smith, QB, Houston - MORE THAN 32.5 Rushing Yards
Arian Smith, WR, Georgia - MORE THAN 29.5 Receiving Yards
JP Richardson, WR, TCU - MORE THAN 46.5 Receiving Yards