Senior quarterback Zac Taylor, sophomore I-back Marlon Lucky and senior tight end Matt Herian are players loyal Cornhusker fans might try to get on their fantasy teams, right?
Wrong.
Because of NCAA regulations, no college player's name can be used where money could possibly be made.
Thanks to those restrictions, drafting a college fantasy league team is different from a professional fantasy league team.
Instead of drafting individual players as in the pro fantasy league, the college fantasy league consists of selecting units from a team - for example, a team's quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, kickers or special teams units.
So, instead of picking just Taylor, a diehard Husker fan would choose the NU quarterbacks as a unit, including sophomore backups Joe Ganz and Beau Davis.
Under this setup, injuries take less of a toll in the college fantasy league.
However, this method also has its drawbacks. Errors are occasionally made because reserve players are not always tracked accurately. This forces each manager to go through the game statistics to make sure they were awarded their proper point total.
Managers also receive updates on the players from their teams. Leagues give individual participants insight into the workings of teams with player updates without the stress of having to scour for the information.
"College fantasy football is interesting. It allows you to get more involved in the teams you follow," said Toni Schutte, a senior marketing major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "I can spend anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour when I get on to check my team, making adjustments to my roster."
The biggest disadvantage of college fantasy games is not in their functionality, but their accessibility. This season, there is only one mainstream provider of college leagues compared to hundreds of Web sites that offer NFL fantasy competition.
An Internet search of "college fantasy football" returns very few results.
CBSSportsline.com provides a free college game that allows anyone to play by just registering at the Web site. There are other sites that provide a college service; however, they are not free. Prices to sign up for the leagues range from $9.95 to $49.95 per team.
Pay-to-play leagues are nothing new, and the fees usually cover costs of prizes that are given out to winning teams. However, free leagues are a welcome sight for those who cannot afford to pay for a team and still want to join in the excitement of fantasy sports.
And as word about the college game starts to slowly leak out, more fans will probably join the leagues as another way to get closer to the action.
"This was the first year that I had even heard of college fantasy leagues," said Jack Vaughn, a UNL sophomore secondary education major. "The season had already started when I found out about Sportsline's college leagues. Next year, I plan on getting into it."
