The FCS is the world’s most immersive fantasy football league with a rich history of iconic franchises, tantalizing title games and a detailed offseason like no other. The league is made up of twelve teams from across the country broken down into two conference with two divisions within each conference. You can view that breakdown here. The FCS regular season is thirteen weeks long with the first five weeks consisting of non-conference matchups and the remaining eight weeks consisting of only conference matchups. At the end of those thirteen weeks, the FCS Playoffs are set to begin with six of the twelve teams making the cut.

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1A. FCS Playoffs

 

Three teams from each conference are awarded a spot in the playoffs with the two division leaders being given an automatic bid. The division winner with the better overall record is dubbed conference champion and given a first round bye and receives an automatic bid to the conference finals. The last remaining wildcard playoff spot is given to the remaining team with the best overall record from each conference. Tie-breakers to decide participants and seeding is decided in the following order: 1. overall record, 2. conference record, 3. division record, 4. head-to-head record, 5. overall points scored.

 

Once the order is set, the Wildcard games are set to play out during week fourteen. The following week will pin those winners against the conference champions in the Conference Finals to decide who will move on to the Victor Bowl title game. The Victor Bowl is a two-week championship series to decide that year’s champion. The owner who accumulates the most aggregate points during those two weeks will be crowned Victor Bowl Champions.

 

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2A. Roster Construction

 

Your active roster is made up of sixteen players, eight starters and eight bench players, with a few exceptions. You are also granted one IR spot solely reserved for players who are designated to the injury reserved list, as well as two practice squad spots set aside for rookies. Both the IR and practice squad spots do not count toward your sixteen man roster, but the IR spot does still count toward your overall salary cap while the practice squad does not.

 

 

2B. Practice Squad

 

Only rookies are permitted to be on your practice squad. If you would like to acquire a rookie assigned to another owner’s practice squad, you can either trade for them or ask the current owner if you can sign them to your active roster. The current then has to decide to either allow that players to sign with your team or decline and in turn call that player up to their active roster. Once a rookie has been called up to an owner’s active roster, they cannot be demoted back to the practice squad unless they have been dropped and resigned on the waiver wire. Practice squad players do not rollover from year to year. At the end of each season you will have to decide to contract them, trade them or drop them.

 

 

2C. Starting Lineup

 

Your starting lineup is structured as follows: 1 QB; 2 RB’s; 3 WR’s; 1 TE; 1 DST. Your bench unit can be made up of whichever players you choose.

 

 

2D. Trading

 

To acquire new players, you can attempt to trade with other owners. We do not have a veto system for trades so make sure you have fully committed to a deal before you sign off. The only obstacles that could prevent a trade from processing would be if that trade allows an owner to exceed the minimum or maximum trade dollar threshold (-$30 to $30) or allows an owner to exceed their in-season salary cap ($284). Aside from players, you are also permitted to trade for money for your franchises’s budget as well as draft capital for our annual FCS Rookie Draft.

 

 

2E. Waiver Wire

 

An alternate route is the waiver wire where you can sign free agents to your active roster. At the beginning of each season, you are given $100 for the wavier wire, also referred to as the WAB (waiver acquisition budget). You can use these funds to submit a silent bid for free agents during the season. If your bid is the highest, that player is designated to your active roster and replaces the player that you chose to drop in return. Also note that the amount that you bid to acquire that player then becomes their value that applies to your salary cap.

 

 

2F. Contracted Keepers

 

Once you have your complete roster where you want it, you can begin the process of deciding which players you might want to retain long term. Each owner is permitted eight keepers that carry over to the following season. These eight can be of any position you choose. To make a player a keeper, you must give them a contract. The cost to keep them will be taken from either their assigned value based off where they were selected during the FCS Rookie Draft, what you bid on them during the FCS Draft or their waiver wire acquisition value. You will then have to decide the duration for their contract which can be either one, two or three years. This will lock in their rate for that time period. Your amount of kept players is completely up to you as long as it does not exceed eight.

 

When it comes time to officially submit your keepers, you must have enough funds to available to fill out the remainder of your roster or consequences will ensue. If you enter the keeper deadline portion of the offseason and 1) have more than eight keepers rostered or 2) your total sum of contracted players exceeds your budget to fill out the remainder of your roster, you will receive some infractions and be required to alter your roster to appropriately enter the FCS Draft.

 

First, you must begin the process of buying out players to give your franchise sufficient funds for the FCS Draft. Because your current budget is maxed out, these funds will be deducted from your budget for the following season. Once you have at minimum of one dollar available for each remaining roster spot you are cleared to proceed.

 

On top of losing a portion of your budget for the following season, you will also lose half of your $100 WAB funding for that upcoming season as a penalty. Please note that these infractions will only occur if your roster is not made legal after the keeper deadline date, so do your best to understand your roster specifics and make any buyouts or necessary roster alternations before that date.

 

 

2G. Buyouts

 

The only way to nullify a player’s contract is to buy them out. To do this, you will use your annual budget to pay the player 50% of their contract rate for each year remaining. You can choose to do that all at once or spread it out over a maximum of two years and two separate payments. Once this process is complete, the bought-out player is released from your roster and funneled back into either the waiver wire if it occurs during the season or the FCS Draft pool if it occurs during the offseason. In addition, keep in mind that restricted free agents who are bought out in the same offseason they are signed will be charged an additional 25% tax if bought-out. 

 

 

2H. In-Season Salary Cap

 

During the regular season we extend your roster leash from $200 to $282. Your complete roster (minus practice squad members) must remain at or under this figure, so stay familiar with your position as it could effect the processing of both trades and waiver wire acquisitions. If either of these puts your team over that cap, the transaction will not go through.

 

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The FCS aims to cultivate a fantasy league so immersive that the offseason is just as exciting as the regular season. We have created a plethora of offseason events to give you all the tools to transform your franchise in a single summer.

 

 

3A. STP (Summer Trading Period)

 

The STP is the officially opening of the new FCS season. This date will make any verbally agreed to trades official and carry us into the FCS Lottery as the new year really begins to take shape. Because the in-season salary cap is abolished during the offseason, the only parameter that can disrupt a trade is if it puts a team over / under the $30 trade threshold figure.

 

 

3B. FCS Lottery

 

This is where you get your ticket to draft members of the upcoming rookie class and find the next great generational talent. The FCS Lottery consists of those six franchises that did not receive a spot in the playoffs and will determine the order for the FCS Rookie Draft. Your finish during the regular season will determine your odds to garner the first overall pick.

 

Here are the odds assigned to each franchise based off their finish:

 

12th place - 25% odds (90 combinations); 11th place - 25% odds (90 combinations); 10th place - 25% odds (90 combinations); 9th place - 12% odds (43 combinations); 8th place - 8% odds (29 combinations); 7th place - 5% odds (18 combinations).

 

The bottom two finishing teams are automatically given two of the three 25% odd slots to receive the first overall pick. The consolation bracket of the playoffs will determine the franchise who receives the last slot of 25% odds. If one of the two teams who have already locked in a 25% odds slot wins the consolation bracket, the runner-up will be given the final slot. 

 

On the day of the lottery, we will randomly select 4 numbers balls to create a four-digit combination that has been assigned to one of the franchises. If that four-digit code matches one assigned to you, your team will receive the first overall pick. This sequence will ensue until the order of the top three are set. The remaining order will fall in line with how the teams finished that previous season and the FCS Rookie Draft order is set. Please note that the second round of the FCS Rookie Draft will go in order of regular season finishes rather than that results of the lottery.

 

 

3C. FCS Rookie Draft

 

Following the lottery will be our FCS Rookie Draft which will consist of a two rounds of rookie-only selections. These rookies will go straight to your roster but will not count against your eight keeper spots; they will fill a spot on your complete roster, whether that’s active roster, bench or practice squad. Each selection spot in the draft will be assigned a value so you know how much it will cost to contract each rookie down the road, as well as how they will affect your salary cap. Each second round selection will have a value of $1.

 

Here are the values assigned to each first round selection spot: 1st overall: $24; 2nd overall: $18; 3rd overall: $14; 4th overall: $12; 5th overall: $10; 6th overall: $8; 7th overall: $7; 8th overall: $6; 9th overall: $5; 10th overall: $4; 11th overall: $3; 12th overall: $2.

 

Rookie draft picks are eligible to be traded any time trading is open. In addition, you are able to trade for picks as far as two years ahead of the current year and *protected picks*

 

 

 

3D. RFA (Restricted Free Agency)

 

Being aggressive during our free agency period is the quickest way to turn around a fallen franchise. This event is set aside for players who have had their contract run out and gives every owner the chance to acquire them at the price they choose. To begin, we will order all available players based off their projected finish for the upcoming year. The top player from that order will then be available to be bid on through a silent auction setup. If interested, you have one opportunity to submit your best offer for that player. When the voting period ends, the bids will be revealed and the highest offer is displayed as the winner. Because this is a restricted free agency, the next and final step lies with the previous owner. They will then have to make the decision to either match that highest offer or decline and let that player walk, freeing that free agent to sign with the team who offered the highest bid. 

 

There is no limit to how many free agents you can sign as the salary cap is not in effect during the offseason. Although there aren’t any consequences at this point in time, remember that before the following season begins you will have to be within the eight keeper limit and have enough funds to fill your remaining roster through the FCS Draft (see figure 2F for more details).

 

 

3E. Keeper Deadline

 

Two weeks before the FCS Draft we will require you to officially submit your eight keepers. The first portion of this will be painless as it will just mean carrying over your existing contracted players. After that, you will have to decide which uncontracted players on your roster you would like to assign a brand new contract. The cost to keep them will be taken from either their assigned value based off where they were selected during the FCS Rookie Draft, what you bid on them during the FCS Draft or their waiver wire acquisition value. You will then have to decide the duration for their contract which can be either one, two or three years.

 

 

3F. FCS Draft

 

Our auction-style draft will be the last offseason obstacle before we reach the regular season. This draft is dedicated to filling out the remainder of your roster after you’ve solidified your keepers and locked in your rookies. In most cases that will leave eight players to draft after you have set aside your eight keepers and assigned your two rookies to the practice squad, but obviously this number will fluctuate depending on how many of each of those you end up carrying over.

 

The FCS Draft will be an online, virtual event. To find out how much money you have available to you, you will take your $200 budget and make the following adjustments:

 

Add / subtract your bonus earnings from the previous season (includes trade earnings or deductions, coach earnings and Warrior Bowl earnings)

Subtract the sum total of your keeper contracts

Subtract any bought-out contract totals

 

This will give you your available funds to fill our the remainder of your roster for the new season. You must have at least one dollar per remaining roster spot heading into the draft in order to fill a competed roster. 

 

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4A. FCS Awards

 

There is more at stake than just bringing home the Victor Bowl. Each year we give out six additional individual awards that are voted on by the members of the league (with the exception of the Smart Mammals Scoring Award). Those awards are as follows:

 

Joe Montana MVP Award:

Given to the player that proved himself as an every-week starter that consistently outplayed his projection and won games single-handedly. To take the crown of MVP, this player will likely stand among the elite in points at the end of the season and also have a large impact on his team's success. The first two FCS seasons saw the MVP play for our FCS champion.

 

Smart Mammals Scoring Award:

Goes to the franchise that put up the most points at the end of the regular season.

 

Kurt Warner Sleeper Award:

Goes to the owner that lands the undrafted talent that ends up being an every week starter. If you are observant enough to land the diamond in the rough, you'll get to boast this award as well as a pretty cheap keeper.

 

Randy Moss Rookie Award:

Given to that 1st-year player that shines and outplays potentially astronomical expectations. You can assume the winner of this award could be a fantasy star for years to come.

 

Tony Dungy Coach Award:

Takes into account both the weekly coaching statistic as well as the intangible ability to assemble a winning team as the season progresses.

 

Garrison Hearst Comeback Award:

Given to the player, injured or just disappointing, who bounces back in a major way and helps propel their team to success.

 

 

4B. The Shrine

 

The Shrine is our hall of fame where league members nominate players from our vast history to put enshrined into FCS immortality. Every offseason we will take submissions and narrow the list down to six based off how many nominations each player received. From there, the VB Committee, made up solely of owners who have won a Victor Bowl, will vote for three players of the six in order. Those votes are tallied up and the top three vote getters will be inducted for that year. There is no limit for how many times a player can be nominated.

 

 

4C. Warrior Bowl

 

The Warrior Bowl is our version of a Pro Bowl where we pin the best players from each conference against one another. For each conference, we will take the top two quarterbacks, top four running backs, top six receivers, top two tight ends and top two defenses to create your roster. From there, you will also be able to put your heads together as a conference and select an additional four players of any position to add to your WB roster, bringing the grand total to twenty players.

 

During week fourteen and the wildcard weekend of the FCS Playoffs we will score your team against the opposing conference’s team to fund a winner. Rather that selecting starters, the results will be scored using a best ball philosophy to truly select the top performing players and see which conference comes out on top. The winning conference will earn $2 for each member to add to their budget for the following offseason.

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