How to start your fantasy college football league

August 8, 2008 by The Dude
Filed under: League Info

So you want to start a college fantasy football league. Wise decision. You will find by season’s end that fantasy college football is much more addicting than fantasy NFL. But how do you go about starting your new league? These 8 steps should get you on your way.

1 ) How many people will be in your league:

10-12 is desirable. The key in these leagues are quality over quantity. If you can get 12 solid owners…great, otherwise stick with 10.

2 ) What conferences will you use:

This will be debated, however you will find that if you stick with BCS-only conferences 1) your life will be much easier to manage and 2) you will have just the right amount of available talent for your 10-12 teams. There are so many quality fantasy starters that if you were to go with all conferences, you’d need about 30 owners to have a solid league.

3 ) How many players on a roster:

This number can be adjusted, however, we recommend using 15 players on your roster. This gives you plenty of talent on your roster and the waiver wire all while not stifling any trades in your league. If you want more trading in your league, increase your rosters…if you want less, decreasing your roster will put more roster-quality players on the waiver wire.

4 ) How many players should be in your starting lineup:

One of the beauties of the college game is seeing a team that runs 5 wide on offense matching up against a wishbone running team. Fantasy college football can mimic just that. We suggest starting 1 QB, 1 RB, 2 WR, 2 Flex (RB or WR), 1 DEF and 1 K. The 2 Flex positions give you the option of running a Georgia Tech-like wishbone or a Texas Tech-like run and shoot.

5 ) How do free agent pickups work:

Once a week, owners will submit FA requests to you (the commish). Based on a priority scale, the owners will be awarded their player. We suggest having a 2 round limit for FA pickups each week.

6 ) How should scoring be implemented:

This topic alone is the subject of one of our articles. Check it out.

7 ) Who is the champion:

What side of the college football fence do you sit on? Are you a fan of the BCS or a fan of playoffs? With fantasy college football, you can go about it both ways. A BCS scoring system could pit the top rated teams in a championship game at season’s end. You could divide your league into conferences and hold conference championships with the winners squaring off in the title game. You have many options. If you’d like more info on how a BCS score could be implemented, Ask The Dude.

8 ) Is there a service to help me with everything:

There are not a lot of options in this arena. The market leader is U-Sports. They will allow you to do pretty much anything you can imagine. A new contender in the field is Pro Pro Sports. They do offer a less expensive service, but their feature set isn’t as mature as U-Sports at this stage.

Have fun and good luck!

Email, Print, Share!