So, a little back story before you ready the blog further, I am a second generation participant, this game was started by my father and his college buddies as a way to put some friendly bets on the college football season. It’s a blast, mainly because once the season starts, your rosters are set. It’s not something you have to check on weekly, it’s there and you start following and rooting for teams all over the country. When I explain it to non-hardocre college fans, they usually laugh at the fact that the University of Ohio or Boise St. (before they played on the national stage) or any other mid-major was selected before Florida or USC, they don’t get it. Those of us who live and die preseason reading, Phil Steele or Athlon Sports or The Sporting News or Lindy’s, we get it. This football season, if you or your friends start a pool please let me know! As our draft approaches I’ll be posting who I think will go in what round and will also post the draft results for the public to comment on.
The story goes, a long, long, time ago, in a gentleman’s club somewhere in what once was called East Phoenix, AZ, now it’s just Central Phoenix or Arcadia, a group of college aged friends created a college football pool for them to bet against each other. The pool has continued for well over 30+ years across multiple states and including a number of participates in this underground fantasy game.
Well, now for the first time ever, the Official Rules of The Ranger Pool will be released and written for public viewing.
Over the years and with the expansion of Division I Football the rules have evolved but the format has stayed the same.
Ranger Pool: The Official College Football Fantasy Game.
- There will be a number of 10 participates within the pool, no more no less.
- Each participate will draft 8 teams.
- The draft will take place before the first kick-off of the College Football Season
- Each participate will pick 1 team per draft round, therefore the are 8 rounds in the draft.
- A team can only be drafted once.
- There will be an official rules committee in place to enforce these rules, the official committee can be either voted on or establish by a majority of players.
- The Rules Committee will decide what the pool of draftable teams are. For example, most leagues will only pick teams from Dvision I or FBS Division of Teams or whatever the major division of college football will be called in the future. However, some leagues based on geographical area might want to include conferences from sub-divisions to increase the available pool of teams.
- The draft is a snake formula, however it is mathematically perfect, for example if you draft 1 overall in round 1, then round 2 you would draft 10th, round 3 you would draft 2. and so on and so forth. The official drafting order for each participate can be emailed or sent by the official rules committee. Note, this is different from Snake Drafts that you always pick the same picks in alternating rounds.
- Once the draft is completed and all participates have 8 college football teams on their roster, the league is set and ready for the season to begin.
- WInners and Losers: The beautiful part of this Fantasy game is it’s simplicity.
- Victory is achieved by having the overall highest combined winning percentage of a participants teams! For example:
- Participant 1 Teams-
Alabama 11-0
Texas 9-2
Arizona St. 8-4
Louisville 5-7
Georgia Tech 6-5
UNLV 7-4
Northwestern 3-8
Toledo 9-2
Win Total- 58 Loss Total- 32
Percentage- 64.44%
- Order of Finish will be determined using the above formula for each participant.
- The regular season of college football games count only, no conference championship games, no bowl games. An alternative version can be played by using championship or bowl games as a tie-breaker.
- Payout: If used for better purposes, buy-in is collected prior to draft and payout is to the top three finishers after the season has been completed. It is recommend that payout occurs at an end of year banquet with all participants in Las Vegas during bowl season.
RIVALS RUNDOWN 