Yahoo finally put college fantasy football on the site, drafts open August 3rd, and I already know exactly how your league is going to go. Everybody opens the app, takes the first eight names off the default list, feels great about themselves, and then it gets to pick 140 and the whole room goes quiet because nobody has any clue who any of these people are.
That back half is the part I actually care about. Eighteen roster spots is a lot of roster spots. So I went looking for late round college fantasy football sleepers, guys who are completely off the radar from the main stars in college football, and I want to be honest with you up front, these guys won’t win you a championship, but they can help. Right now they cost you nothing, which is the whole point.
Every late round college fantasy football sleeper on this list was buried last year
And while I was digging all this up I noticed something I wasn’t looking for. Not one of these guys started last season. Not a single one. College sleepers don’t work like the NFL where you’re squinting at some second year receiver hoping he finally pops. In college a dude changes his address in January and he’s the starter in September. Every name below was buried behind somebody. Now they’re not.
Lincoln Kienholz has a national championship ring and one career start
Three years at Ohio State stuck behind Kyle McCord, then Will Howard, then Julian Sayin. That’s a rough draw. The one time he actually got the keys was the 2023 Cotton Bowl and he went 6 of 18 for 86 yards in a 14-3 loss, so I’m not going to sell you on the arm here.
Draft him for the legs. Ohio State used him as their short yardage guy last year and he ran for 66 yards and two scores while going 11 of 14 through the air, and Jeff Brohm keeps saying the same thing about him at Louisville, which is that he’s the best athlete on the field. Brohm said when they do conditioning drills Kienholz is out front of everybody. Everybody! A quarterback who runs in college fantasy is basically a running back who happens to throw, and Louisville went and got him specifically because Brohm has never had that.
Oh, and per Pete Nakos at On3 he just signed a six figure NIL deal with adidas. Six figures. This man has thrown 35 passes in his college career.
Ty Clark III got exactly one start and put up 164 yards in it
Wake Forest lost Demond Claiborne to the Vikings in the sixth round, which means the job is open, and Clark was the guy sitting behind him all season. 323 yards on 75 carries, 17 catches for 209. Perfectly fine backup numbers, nothing that makes you sit up.
Then they finally start him in the bowl game against Mississippi State and he goes for 91 on 17 carries and catches 3 of 4 for another 73 and a touchdown. 164 yards the first time anybody handed him the thing. Wake was 7-1 last year when they ran for 130 or more, they know exactly what they are, and Clark catches the ball out of the backfield, which matters in a format where every reception is points.
Fair warning, they lose their top four offensive linemen. I’m not pretending that away. But somebody is getting those carries and it’s him.
Re’Shaun Sanford II caught 18 of the 19 balls thrown at him
Let me get the bad news out first because you’re going to look it up anyway. Makhi Hughes is the starter at Houston. Same guy who ran for 1,378 and then 1,401 at Tulane for Willie Fritz, and now Fritz has him again. Sanford is RB2 and I’m not going to sit here and tell you he takes that job.
Here’s why I still want him with one of the last picks. 18 of 19. He caught everything they threw at him as a redshirt freshman and led every running back in the Big 12 doing it. Hughes has 32 catches in 32 career games. Those are two completely different players. Sanford then missed all of last season with a knee, which is the only reason nobody in your league will say his name out loud.
Nitro Tuggle was doing 107 miles an hour and now he’s your WR4
I have to tell you this part first because it’s too funny. His name is Nitro. In March of last year the police clocked Nitro Tuggle at 107 in a 65 outside Athens, per the incident report ESPN got, and Kirby Smart suspended him. He was out of the jail in under an hour on a $26 bond. I’ve paid more than that for parking.
Anyway. He ended up at Purdue, caught 34 for 500 and four touchdowns for a team that could barely move the football, and now he’s at South Carolina with LaNorris Sellers and a brand new Kendal Briles offense. Go look at that receiver room past Nyck Harbor. Nobody knows. Analysts have been saying it all offseason, they don’t know who the second guy is over there. Somebody’s going to be that guy, and Tuggle is a four star on his third school who really needs it to be him.
DJ Epps had one catch for five yards in his entire career before last season
One catch, five yards, and that was the entire resume three years into being a college football player at Troy.
Then last season happened and he caught 47 balls for 512 yards and five touchdowns and added 554 kick return yards, which put him in the top ten in the country. From one catch. And after all that, 247 still had him ranked as the 808th best available player in the transfer portal. 808th! Rich Rodriguez went and got him anyway, and at Big 12 media day Rodriguez said the receiver room is the group on his team with the most improvement coming and then named Epps as the reason why.
If you only take one guy off this whole page, I think it’s him. Somebody in your league is going to burn a pick on the eighth best quarterback in the SEC instead, and that’s fine, that’s their business.
