After an off-season sipping champagne from the FCFI Cup, we're back.  Locked and loaded, and ready to defend our title.

The Fantasy College Football Invitational (FCFI) live draft took place last night.  This year's version of the self-proclaimed "premier College Fantasy Football Experts League" is comprised of 20 participants.  With a 20 round marathon draft, we were looking at 400 draft picks. 

Below is a breakdown on last night's proceedings. 

Scoring System:
Standard (for the most part)
0.1 PPR
0.1 per completion
No crazy bonuses for kickers or defenses

Starting Lineup:
2 QB
2 RB
2 WR
1 TE
1 FLEX (essentially a 3rd RB)
1 PK
1 DEF

League Primer

After plugging the scoring system, lineup requirements, and number of teams into our value calculations, one thing was apparent.  This is a quarterback league.  With a small starting lineup in this 20-team format, we still start TWO signal callers each week.  Additionally, in a league with very few bonus points to help other positions, QBs get credit for their completions.

Wide receivers are devalued as you only start two of them (the SAME number of QBs), and there is virtually no PPR (only 0.1).

Running backs hold value - they always do.  But receiving running backs are devalued due to the lack of PPR.

With the scoring system in place, there is no reason to reach for a defense or kicker.

Pre-Draft Strategy

We drew the No. 2 draft position, so we knew we would be kicking things off with Colin Kaepernick.  But who would be there at the 2/3 turn?  

Predraft, we targeted Boston College RB Montel Harris and hoped that either Kyle Padron or G.J. Kinne somehow slipped to us.  The goal after that was to scoop up a bunch of running backs to "match play", and take a few of our favorite sleeper wide receivers (you only start 2).  

At tight end, we wanted to wait until the first 8-10 were off the board before striking, and we targeted East Carolina's Justin Jones as our backup. Defenses aren't worth too much in these leagues.  The hope was to land one of the Top 10 units on the back end of the inevitable "run".  The plan with kickers was to only draft one, with our final selection.


Our Selections  (see the entire list of picks for all teams here)

Round 1 (#2 overall)
QB Colin Kaepernick (Nevada)
The Cyborg Gazelle was a no-brainer here.  End of story.

Round 2 (#39 overall)
RB Montel Harris (Boston College)
Our predraft prognostication was spot on. Harris and Padron were there for the taking (Kinne was off the board).  Harris is a proven workhorse back who's perfect for this league, where PPR is not important.

Round 3 (#42 overall)
QB Kyle Padron (SMU)
We've now locked down two Top 10 quarterbacks in a "quarterback league".  Mission accomplished.

Round 4 (#79 overall)
RB Morgan WIlliams (Toledo)
With Derrick Washington going one pick ahead of us, Williams was next on our list.  Feature back in the MAC is always a good thing.

Round 5 (#82 overall)
WR T.Y. Hilton (FIU)
As we expected, it was slim pickings at wideout at this point in the draft.  Luckily for us, our #20WR had slipped through the cracks.  His value increases a little bit since we do get points for individual kickoff and punt return TDs.

Round 6 (#119 overall)
RB Aaron Winchester (Western Michigan)
On the 6/7 turn, we were going RB-RB all the way.  Winchester is a nice sleeper who will be operating behind a veteran o-line while breaking in a new QB.  Again, a MAC RB is usually a good thing.

Round 7 (#122 overall)
RB Sam McGuffie (Rice)
I'm not on the Sam Train like some in the industry, but he was too tempting to pass up at this point in the draft.  His C-USA schedule sure is juicy.

Round 8 (#159 overall)
WR Tracy Moore (Oklahoma State)
Moore is our favorite sleeper WR this season.  We targeted him predraft and felt now was the time to strike.

Round 9 (#162 overall)
TE Vance McDonald (Rice)
Just call it "Sleeper Corner".  Like Moore above, McDonald is one of our favorite sleepers this season.  Since 9 TE's were off the board, we stuck to our pregame strategy and grabbed our guy.

Round 10 (#199 overall)
WR Armand Robinson (Miami-OH)
The "other" A-Rob is undervalued this year.  We like his chance to put up a productive season in Year Two of the Dysert Project.

Round 11 (#202 overall)
DEF Oklahoma Sooners
Again, we stuck to our strategy here.  13 defenses were off the board, and our #7 ranked unit was still hanging out there.  Considering the first defense was taken 120 picks earlier, and this is not a defense-heavy scoring system, we're very happy with the value here.

Round 12 (#239 overall)
QB Austin Dantin (Toledo)
It was read-and-react time in the draft, and since a ton of QBs were going off the board we wanted to snag a guy with upside.  Dantin fit the bill.  WIth weapons all over the place, he has a chance to shine this fall.

Round 13 (#242 overall)
RB Larry Caper (Michigan State)
Could this be the year Sparty produces another star fantasy RB?  We're not sure, but at this point in the draft we thought he was worth a shot.

Round 14 (#279 overall)
WR Philip Payne (UNLV)
This Runnin' Reb has scored 7 TDs in each of the past two seasons.  And that was as the second option to Ryan Wolfe.  With Wolfe graduating, Payne is now the main man in the passing game.

Round 15 (#282 overall)
WR T.J. Moe (Missouri)
Admittedly, this is a pick based upon recent news out of Mizzou camp, which is always a dangerous way to draft.  But in this format, almost 300 picks in, he is worth a gamble.  (Moe has been impressive since Jerrel Jackson went down to injury),

Round 16 (#319 overall)
TE Justin Jones (East Carolina)
Slim pickings here.  With most of our favorite sleeper players taken already, it was time to cash in on on plan to snag this intriguing TE from ECU.  Now we have two tight ends with high upside.

Round 17 (#322 overall)
RB Kendrick Hardy (Southern Miss)
Hardy is mired in a 3-way battle for the job to replace stud Damion Fletcher.  We think he'll win the job.  As our RB6 (with our Top 5 guys all No. 1's on their team), this is a calculated risk worth taking.

Round 18 (#359 overall)
QB Alex Carder (Western Michigan)
Carder has a lot going for him.  The best set of receivers in the MAC, a veteran o-line, and a pillow soft schedule that matches up nicely with our top dogs at the QB position.

Round 19 (#362 overall)
WR Johnathan Wilson (Kansas)
Wilson is the top returning WR for the Jayhawks.  Whether new coach Turner Gill likes it or not, KU figures to be throwing a bunch in come-from-behind mode in the high-flying Big 12.  

Round 20 (#399 overall)
PK Daniel Murray (Iowa)
We concluded our plan by taking our No. 20 ranked kicker in a league where kickers really don't matter.    He's a solid option considering Kirk Ferentz tries to win games Paterno-style, with defense, a running game, and special teams.


Final Analysis

In this mega-format, you have to gameplan differently.  We plotted out almost round-by-round how we would attack this draft, and tried our best to adhere to it.  Since our forecasts for who would go when were pretty accurate, this made sticking to our plan much easier to do.

In a QB league, we have the best tandem at the position.  We were able to secure a proven workhorse RB to go along with four other intriguing options, with one flier (Hardy) thrown in for good measure.

Our wide receivers are our weakness, but in this format, that was an acceptable sacrifice to make.  If our upside guys don't pan out, we'll hit the waiver wire (much easier to do at the WR position than RB or QB).

We're really digging our tight end duo of Vance McDonald and Justin Jones.  We landed a Top 10 defense and a Top 20 kicker, both at bargain prices.

All in all, we feel pretty confident we'll be right in the mix to defend our title.