CFB DFS Picks, Projections, Lineups & Stacks For 9/19: Week 3 Playbook

Week 3 brings the start of SEC play in full force, and the headliner is the Magnolia Bowl in Oxford: Lane Kiffin's return with No. 4 LSU against No. 9 Ole Miss in a game that could shape the SEC race for months. It's not the only marquee matchup, either. Kamario Taylor and Mississippi State travel to LaNorris Sellers and South Carolina in what a lot of national writers are calling the most underrated game of the week, and Ohio State looks to bounce back from its Week 2 heartbreaker against a MAC opponent. Let's dive into the top CFB DFS picks as you build lineups on DraftKings and FanDuel. In this article, we'll discuss the best plays at each position with CFB DFS projections.

As you read over our Week 3 CFB DFS Picks, take advantage of Fantasy Alarm's College Football DFS Ownership Projections for both DK and FD, plus our Weekly Player Projections and CFB DFS Lineup Generator.

CFB DFS Picks, Daily Fantasy Playbook & Schedule: Saturday, September 19th

DraftKings has a 12-game main slate built around SEC play (Arkansas-Georgia, Mississippi State-South Carolina, Texas A&M-Kentucky), Big 12 vs. Pac-12 in Utah-Utah State, and a trio of games exclusive to this site: Buffalo-Penn State, Kent State-Ohio State, and Duke-Stanford. FanDuel's 14-game slate spans the afternoon and night and swaps in five games DraftKings doesn't have, headlined by the LSU-Ole Miss night game, plus Auburn-Florida, Virginia-West Virginia, BYU-Colorado State and Michigan State-Notre Dame. For the write-ups, we'll focus on top players and value picks for games that overlap both sites, while calling out the DK-only and FD-only pieces separately below.

CFB DFS Lineups: Top Plays

Kamario Taylor, QB, Mississippi State

DK: $8,800 | FD: $10,400

Taylor was nearly flawless again in Week 2, going 16 of 22 for 227 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions while adding 86 rushing yards in a 38-13 win at Minnesota; he's now thrown for 581 yards and rushed for 145 with eight total touchdowns and zero picks through two games. He heads to South Carolina for the start of SEC play in a matchup national writers are calling the most underrated game of the week, going head-to-head with fellow dual-threat star LaNorris Sellers. Senior wideout Anthony Evans III (121 yards and a score in Week 2) gives him a proven top target, and this profiles as one of the highest-scoring games on the entire slate.

Nate Sheppard, RB, Duke

DK: $9,200 | FD: N/A (Duke-Stanford is DK-exclusive this week)

Sheppard is the highest-salaried running back on the entire DraftKings slate, and he's earned it: after leading the nation with 227 rushing yards in Week 1, he followed up with 147 rushing yards and a score plus two receiving touchdowns in Duke's comeback win over Illinois, good for 188 total yards. He now has 374 rushing yards and three touchdowns through two games. Duke hosts Stanford in a game that's DraftKings-exclusive this week, and Sheppard's workhorse role (24-plus touches in both games) makes him a premium play regardless of price.

Jeremiah Smith, WR, Ohio State

DK: $8,400 | FD: N/A (Kent State-Ohio State is DK-exclusive this week)

Smith finally broke his personal jinx against Texas, catching eight passes for 164 yards and a touchdown, with 110 of those yards coming before halftime. The catch: Ohio State still lost the game 24-23, and Smith went without a target over the final 23 minutes as the offense sputtered around him. This week brings a get-right spot against Kent State, a MAC team that should give Ohio State's top-ranked receiver a far easier path to volume than Texas' defense did. This one is DraftKings-exclusive, since Ohio State-Kent State isn't on FanDuel's board.

Trinidad Chambliss, QB, Ole Miss

DK: N/A (LSU-Ole Miss is FanDuel-exclusive this week) | FD: $10,800

Chambliss has been the best quarterback nobody outside Oxford is talking about, completing 71% of his passes for 561 yards and five touchdowns through two games and sitting at +1300 to win the Heisman. He gets Lane Kiffin's return to Oxford in the Magnolia Bowl, a game ESPN is calling the marquee matchup of the week, and his top target Deuce Alexander (13 catches on 15 targets for 235 yards and two scores) gives him a proven security blanket. LSU's defense is legitimately elite, but this game is FanDuel-exclusive, and Chambliss gives you access to arguably the best offense on the board this week.

CFB DFS Lineups: Value Plays

The strict $5,000 DraftKings / $7,000 FanDuel value threshold applies to running backs and wide receivers below, sorted by the slate's "Value" column (projected points per $1,000 of salary) rather than raw salary or raw projection. Quarterback pricing doesn't work the same way on a college slate, since the cheapest competent starters run $6,000+ on DraftKings and $9,000+ on FanDuel this week, so the QB value play below is picked on a looser "discount relative to the top tier" basis instead of the hard cap.

Isaiah Marshall, QB, Kansas

DK: $6,500 | FD: $8,700

Marshall was outstanding in his first career start (14 of 19 for 246 yards and two touchdowns, plus 49 rushing yards in a blowout of Long Island) but hit turbulence in Week 2, completing just 43% of his passes with two interceptions in a loss to Missouri, albeit with a highlight-reel deep touchdown mixed in. He's a genuine boom-bust dual-threat at a discount price compared to the $9,000-plus arms at the top of the slate, and Arizona State hasn't proven anything special on defense yet. This is a price-relief play with real ceiling, not a safe floor piece.

Dramekco Green, RB, SMU

DK: $4,300 | FD: $6,900

Green shared the SMU backfield in Week 1, leading the team with 13 carries for 33 yards in a win over Florida State as part of a two-back rotation with Kendrick Raphael. Coach Rhett Lashlee has praised Green's early-round NFL Draft upside, and the committee split means touches (and touchdown equity) tend to move around from week to week. At this price on both sites, he's a cheap way to buy into an SMU offense that projects to move the ball against Louisville.

Mazeo Bennett Jr., WR, South Carolina

DK: $3,100 | FD: $6,200

Bennett already has a receiving touchdown from LaNorris Sellers this season and gives South Carolina a complementary option alongside top target Nyck Harbor. His target share so far has been thin, so this is a lower-floor, price-relief piece rather than a proven volume play, but at $3,100 on DraftKings the bar for hitting value is low, and South Carolina's passing game projects to be busy against Mississippi State.

Core CFB DFS Lineup Picks: QBs, RBs & WRs

The tables below break down the Week 3 player pool by salary tier on each site. The strict $5,000 DraftKings / $7,000 FanDuel "Value Tier" cutoff applies to running backs and wide receivers, ranked by the slate's Value column (points per $1,000 of salary); quarterback pricing doesn't support that same cap on a college slate, so the QB value tier is instead the cheapest playable options relative to the top-tier arms. Use these tables alongside the write-ups above to round out cash lineups and GPP builds.

DraftKings

FanDuel