“Now let me welcome everybody to the wild, wild, West” is how Tupac opens the classic track “California Love” and I want to do the same for those of you who are new to College Football Fantasy (CFF).

Welcome to the wild, wild West of fantasy sports!

NFL fantasy is not the wild, wild West because everyone knows everything about every player and every team because it is the most public, the most reported on and the most talked about business (not just sport) in America.

I will detail the differences between NFL and CFB fantasy in this piece, and we start with the massive imbalance in media coverage.

In the NFL, if Lamar Jackson sneezes or farts, someone is reporting on it. In CFB, you have to go find the information about your Kansas running back or your UCLA wide receiver or your Duke quarterback because they are questionable for the next game.

Here’s how you do it. Go to X (formerly Twitter), enter the player name in a search, look under top and latest for any updates on the player, and there you will find local reporters on the team who might be in the stadium and can send out a video of the player warming up before the game.

I know, you think it’s crazy that you have to do the digging. It is crazy, but these are the rules of engagement and they create a tremendous winning opportunity for us. If you are willing to put in that work and dig for that crucial information, then you have a huge leg up on the competition because most other managers just won’t dig that deep. They would rather just guess and leave it to chance than dig. I am not that guy. I would say there is an average of 2-3 managers who dig that deep in my cash leagues and I am almost always in the top 3 at the end of the season as a result.

We have to do the digging on questionable players because coaches typically can’t or don’t give out specific injury information, which creates a huge guessing game for fantasy managers. Coaches will say something like, “He’s banged up and we will see how he feels on Saturday.”

Like I said, the wild, wild West.

Also, injured college players are not pushed to play like injured NFL players. Maybe it’s the amateur status, maybe it’s a liability thing, but when college players get hurt, they are immediately covered in bubble wrap. In the NFL, you have teams clearing dudes seven months after an Achilles tear. Night and day.

Here is how you handle the uncertainty with injured players. You move on without that player for the upcoming week and you bench him. I have been burned so many times by starting a questionable running back and then he is held out, gives you a zero, and that is why you lose your head-to-head battle that week. So if a player is questionable or a game-time decision, go ahead and make other plans. If Saturday comes, and the top reporters are giving the player a green light, then you can play him. Otherwise, you cannot.

Want to get access to Rick’s article? You’ll need to have a SportsEthos NFL FantasyPass membership. Click here to learn more and sign up!
Premium Access Required