Fire up your tailgate. Strike up the band. College athletics is headed to the Alt Sports Universe and you are all invited!



I start this exciting post with the hope that Steelman and our other musically inclined folks create an AltCAA version of ‘We Are Coming to Your City’.

Since the start of the college football season it has been pretty obvious that our community loves college sports. That was apparent during the initial states of the AHS College Team Project. Whether you went to college a while ago or just started this year we all love our Saturdays in the fall. It was a no-brainer to think up a project to capitalize on that passion. So read through this post and get excited. 

As you know we are currently in the middle of the design process for the AltLB. It is going to take a lot of effort from a lot of people to build our largest league yet. I say that because I still want our community's main focus to be on the AltLB. That's why we have designed this project a little differently than those previous.  It is designed to be a slow burn (so be patient) and to be a light lift on the community. Our goal is to design the AltCAA this year, have fun projects around March Madness, College World Series and the Frozen Four this spring but will run a fantasy college football league next fall. Here are the phases that we will take to build the AltCAA.

PHASE 1 | Build YOUR School

For the first time ever, interested owners are going to be in control of their team from the very beginning. That means no city vote, no name votes, no logo or uniform votes. This will be a unique feature of the AltCAA. Any future projects that we may fun wlll return to our normal community style. But since Fantrax and fantasy college football have close to infinite number of players, we have the ability to invite as many schools as we'd like. This means that we are going to try and include as many people are interested to dedicate themselves to the project. 
All interested owners will submit this survey with important information about their school and its athletics program. But beware! There will come a time when we lock in the schools. This means that they will not be renamed or relocated. So...design wisely.  The goal of these projects is to provide a sense of realism to the fantasy sports world. That is why we value realistic names, identities and consistency among them. The goofiness and hysteria can be reserved for the AHSylum. So have fun developing your schools! 

A. City, State
Where do you want your school to be located? WIll it be where you were born? Where you live? Where you go to school? Somewhere completely random? The choice is yours. Remember that once we establish our schools we will not have relocations. 

Since this is an open design process and people can choose wherever they choose there is a possibility that multiple schools will be in the same state or even city. In that case those schools will have a great rivalry. Think BU vs. BC.  

B. School Name

For this section we are going to try hard not to have too many restrictions on the names of schools. With too many restrictions we would end up having schools that all sound quite small. If you notice the teams that dominate bowl season or march madness it is usually bigger state schools. Since we want to have some realism I wanted to keep things broad enough so that a bigger sounding school could exist as well. So here are a few examples to use as a guide:

• BAYLOR = NOPE
• TEXAS A&M = NOPE
• UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS = NOPE
• TEXAS UNIVERSITY = OKAY
• UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA = NOPE
• NORTH CAROLINA UNIVERSITY = OKAY

C. Team Name

Once again you have a lot of freedom in terms of what you want to name your athletic teams. The only thing that we ask is that you avoid using a mascot that is already used by a major school in your state.  

If there are multiple schools in one state or city that choose to use the same mascot I will contact the owner who submitted last to change their name. We are allowed to have teams with the same name if that happens. For example, we may have multiple Tigers.

D. Team Name Explanations

As I will explain in a bit we are going to reveal each school at its own time. So for that reveal we want to have an explanation or reason for why you chose that mascot. 

E. Kind of School / School Size

What kind of school is yours? Big / Small? Public / Private? 

F. Game Day Traditions

Another thing that I want to include during the reveal is a fun game day tradition that your school has. Get creative!

For example: 
Ohio State dots the ‘I’, 
Penn State’s white out, 
Enter Sandman at VA Tech. 
Jump Around at Wisconsin

G. Team Slogans / Signals

Similarly let us know if you have cool fan slogans or hand signals. 
For example, 
Gator Chomp at Florida
Hook Em Horns at Texas
“Sic Em” at Baylor
"Gig Em Aggies” at Texas A&M
“Bear Down” at Arizona

H. Colors
This is important. Let us know what your school colors are. This will help us, especially as we develop the team identities.

***In accordance with the rules of AHS all team names and related items must be deemed appropriate. I’ll send submissions back to owners who don’t follow this rule. We will then think about not including you in the project. These projects take time and effort from a lot of people and we all want to respect that.

BUILD YOUR SCHOOL:
THE SURVEY

Phase 2 | Conferences

After we have our submissions we will decide how many conferences we are going to have. Since we are letting people place their schools wherever they’d like we will wait and see what our conferences are.  Eventually we will run two votes: 
[list=1]

Conference Names

Conference Logos

Once the conferences are set the owners of the schools can begin to negotiate with others to formulate rivalry games for the end of the college football season. It is important to note that since this is a slow burn of a project it is possible that people will add their schools later in the process. 

Phase 3 | Team Identities

While we organize the conferences, owners can begin developing their team identities. We are starting by focusing on college football. Not everyone is an experienced designer. It is the responsibility of the owner to either make their own logo or team up with someone to develop their team identities.  I'll work on the backend to make sure that all of our teams look consistent and high quality.

Once your school has a logo and football uniform designed, send them to me and I will convert the home football uniform to our 3D template. At that point we will work to help you level up your team so they all have a consistent quality. This will prepare us for the big conference reveal of all of the uniforms. So until then keep your team identity under wraps!  Your school can choose to be like Penn State and be very conservative. Or you could choose to be like Oregon and have many different combinations. Either way we will just be needing the main / classic look that you’d like to showcase. After the reveal feel free to post your team and all of its combinations.

Phase 4 | Bowl Games 

Eventually we will begin to develop Bowl Games and their logos. 8 teams will make the College Football Playoff. This means that we will have 4 MAJOR BOWL GAMES that will serve consistently as the first round of the playoffs. But we will also have bowl games for the other schools who don’t make the playoff. So there will be something for everyone at the end of the season (or at least for the schools who qualify for the bowl season). We will take submissions for the bowl games and vote on which ones we want to be the Major Bowl games. We will then develop logos for those games. 

Phase 5 | The Legacy Project 

There will be a legacy project but that’ll probably happen next summer in preparation for the new CFB season.

Phase 6 | The Fantasy Season

More information to follow...

***So as you get ready for a great slate of games today start thinking of your college or university. After you submit your school I will review and reach out if they're good to go or something needs to be adjusted. Like I said before we are planning a fun reveal of each of the schools so keep your idea relatively under wraps until then. 

If you have any questions let me know!