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Saquon Barkley

Reinventing Devy As We Know It

Devy / By

Apologies in advance for the length of the article.  If rather than reading it you’d prefer to wait for the made-for-TV movie starring John Goodman as myself and Clint Eastwood’s great grandfather as Gary then please, do so.

The Origin Story

It all started way back in 2017, one of my closest dynasty confidants and an old friend of mine, Gary Edgerley, came to me with the idea for a new dynasty football league he wanted to start up with a fresh new concept. As an aside, when I say that Gary is an OLD friend of mine I MEAN it, the stone tablets indicating his birth year (B.C.) have long been lost to the ages. This man had to call off work because he was too tired and hung over from participating in the Trojan Horse attack. He competed in his first-ever fantasy football league back in Ought 6 and they somehow did it using an abacus. This fossil has located the Fountain of Youth and is still one of the best Dynasty/Devy managers I’ve ever met at somewhere around 2,687 years young.

Sorry about that, I thought it provided necessary context to the man behind the greatest fantasy football league I’ve ever participated in during my two and a half decades playing it. Gary comes to me in 2017, saying something to the effect of, “Tony, I got this wild idea for a new league and I wanted to know if you’d be interested and what you thought of it. It’s like a regular dynasty league, except we also draft a college and own the rights to those college’s players for as long as we own the school.” I paused for a moment, taking in what I had just heard. After a couple of seconds I said something to the effect of “well hell, this sounds like a Modified-Devy league” to which he responded, “I LOVE THAT!”

In Practicum

We spent the next few months hammering out the details and logistics of how to make it work.  We came up with these as kind of general settings, it should be noted Modified-Devy format will work with any scoring settings you wish to utilize:

  • Initial a slow draft for veteran players, standard snake.
  • Initial slow draft for incoming rookies/colleges.
  • In reverse order, whoever got the 1.1 by random draw in the veteran draft was stuck with the 1.16 in the rookie/college draft.
  • Every team has to own one college at a time and could ONLY own one college at a time. Essentially, you draft your college of choice in the initial college/rookie draft and then own the rights to that college’s players. You can trade your college at any time for veteran players if you want, but the deal has to also include the other team’s college back to you, as everyone must own one and only one college at all times.
  • Every year there would be a five-round rookie draft for the incoming rookies that aren’t part of a dedicated school. During this draft, you would utilize your crappiest picks for your college’s players. As an example, I own the Texas Longhorns. This year I used my fifth-round pick on Bijan Robinson and my fourth-round pick on Roschon Johnson. If I had traded my fourth or fifth-round picks I would have had to select those guys with my superior picks (my third and second – for example).
  • During this draft every year you can draft a new school and throw yours back into the pool if you want. But, if you do this that school can not be re-selected in that year’s rookie draft. For example – for some reason, I want to drop Texas and instead draft the Michigan Wolverines in this year’s 2023 Modified-Devy Draft. I can, but Texas isn’t eligible to be drafted by anyone else until the 2024 Modified-Devy Draft.
  • The above has a SLIGHT rub. You can trade your college during the ongoing years Modified-Devy Draft, and then draft a new school to replace the one you received in the trade. For example, I lay claim to Bijan Robinson/Roschon Johnson this season, then, I decide to flip Texas for a HAUL of players, receive that manager’s crappy school back in the deal, then draft a new college that I want in the current Modifed-Devy Draft.

The Initial Modified-Devy Draft

Our initial Modified-Devy Draft took place in January 2018 and I wanted to share the first-round results. Friendly reminder – this draft included incoming rookies as well as all the colleges in the NCAA.

The Evolution of a Modified-Devy Squad Over the Years

I want to walk you through how my team has changed drastically given the Modified-Devy format over the years…

Initially, I chose to churn and burn colleges. Which is, drafting a crappy school with one elite prospect coming out simply to secure that one guy. Then, next Modified-Devy Draft you select that player and select your new college of choice from what is available. This worked out nicely when I selected Wisconsin solely for Jonathon Taylor. It also backfired a TAD when I selected ASU for the rights for draft N’Keal Harry.  

In one of the greatest swindles I’ve ever pulled off one year, I convinced the owner of “THE” Ohio State University that their pipeline had dried up and he should swap them for me with Oklahoma State, who had the greatest RB (Chuba Hubbard) AND the greatest WR (Tylan Wallace) in college football entering the draft the following year. Now, in fairness to that manager Chuba Hubbard was special in college before suffering a major injury and Tylan Wallace had just won The Biletnikoff, an award given to the best WR in all of the NCAAs for a particular season.

Unfortunately though, as a University of Michigan Alum (December 09 – GO BLUE!!) and diehard Wolverines fan, I felt dirty owning OSU and had to trade them during that season. I got a guy to give me his entire current starting veteran roster for them. Then, I selected Wisconsin to wait for another stellar Wisconsin back just like I had done in years prior with JT.  This time – it was for Braelon Allen.

However, watching Bijan do his best Barry Sanders impression during the 2022 NCAA season made me fall in love with him and as such, I felt a NEED to flip Wisconsin for the Texas Longhorns.  As a nice cherry on top, I  believed Arch Manning would commit to Texas. I traded most of the current starting veteran roster during the  2022 fantasy season to acquire the Longhorns.

Roller coaster ride, am I right?  I should state I am a trade-aholic, I could have easily just drafted a top school like Georgia and sat on them all these years collecting incoming rookie after incoming rookie, as the guy who initially selected Alabama has done. Alas, that just isn’t my style.

The Limitless Possibilities

All of the above is simply how Gary, with my guidance, constructed the league. It’s been going strong over the years with a very small turnover, I believe. Because, as I stated, it’s the most fun format and league I’ve ever been a part of in my two-and-a-half decades at this fun little hobby we play at. However, you can modify what we did above any way you want to, the possibilities are simply endless.

Want to have every team own two colleges?  Go for it!

Want to allow teams to trade their college’s Devy players before them being selected in the Modified-Devy Draft rather than being able to trade only entire schools? Whatever floats your boat!

Conclusion

This brand new take on a league, the Modified-Devy format is the most fun I’ve ever had playing fantasy football and I hope that you too will give it a try!

I know this was a TON to unpack! I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it! Any questions/positive feedback/negative feedback/whatever I can be found on Twitter @DynastyPatrolHQ. Thanks again for reading!

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