Thank you for the sitemails! I’ll cross check and reply in the next 24 hours.

many schools available: Alabama, GA, FL, FSU, LSU, Auburn, Clemson, Michigan, Ohio St, Notre Dame, Texas, Oklahoma.

I have a short list of 4 schools not listed above. Claim yours!

Hi DCarden, thanks for the feedback. My fear is that takes away from any DEF or OLine flexibility. Hard to find even 1 pro bowler from your school on any single NFL team. And then the cap would completely hamper your offensive weapons under that rule. The Vols for sure. Excited to see what you do with the current options and flexibility.

Posted by DCarden34 on 8/1/2024 8:28:00 PM (view original):
Since,
I like to give the middle finger to the status quo around here. When it comes to OL and DL choices, can we think about requiring a minimum 2 or 3 Pro-Bowlers from your College team ?

So would that man your O-Line and your defense would need at least 2 pro-bowlers on each side?

No. It’s not possible to do that and field 24 teams.

Just 1 player (not a pro bowler) from your selected school makes it eligible for your Off Line and DEF. So many more options to design your team.

Give me Stanford! The school with a tree mascot.

Nice! I am definitely interested but could use a pointer on figuring out who played on ST. I am really not familiar with pro-football-reference and don’t see ST positions listed when I sort by the colleges. Any tips on the best way to ID what ST options I have for a given Alma mater? I just don’t have the mind to remember ST players, even returners.

Hi dan! So here is a quick link to get to the goldmine of each school to assess their all-time best:

https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/schools/texas-am/all-america.html

I used Texas A&M here. Scroll down on the link to see the players. Not a bad list to work with! Say they just need another QB that isn't an All-American or had a good NFL career- Go to the A&M history tool bar and click on Stats (for passing in this case), but you have it all there to include rushing, receiving, kicking and punting. Johnny Manziel didn't make it big in the NFL, but Ryan Tanneyhill is not a bad option. You can click on his name and see his NFL stats are just below. They do not need to be drafted. If they made a roster after being undrafted and appear in whatif- they are eligible. You want a different school- just type in what you want on the search tab at the top of the webpage.

Say you want a birds-eye view of Louisville Alumni NFL stats (a surprisingly nice list):

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/schools/louisville/stats.htm#all_rushing_and_receiving

Of course, after this research, you'll then need to open a separate tab/window to see if they have what you want in the whatif database wrt ratings and salary. But you can jump between screens to find your desired alums for the final roster! Another unofficial way is to just to do an internet search for say- Texas A&M Rbs. My search pulls up ranker.com with a decent list. Say you change it to Michigan State Rbs- you get a fun list from another source. The copied link above is the official source, but internet searches can be fruitful as well.

Some other schools not already mentioned before: Miss, Miss St, Pitt, Wisconsin, Cal, Nebraska, Texas Tech, UNC, Syracuse, Maryland, NC State, Washington, Oregon, BC, UVA, Colorado.

Let me know if anyone has questions. I'm stoked to see what everyone comes up with! Thank you to cellkev and PW for already submitting their teams!

Posted by cellkev on 8/1/2024 5:53:00 PM (view original):
This is by far the best tool for creating these rosters. Just select a college and you can see every player who played in the NFL from that school.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/schools/

And follow the link above from cellkev too. Gives you a very nice list to just click on and find what you want. Everything is there including NFL stats.

Then you could have whatif in a separate window to check their whatif ratings and salary.

This league would be interesting and fun with a 80M+ cap, there would be some crazy powerhouse teams for sure.

For anyone that runs into having no kicker or punter- we can make an exception if there is no one available. Its a little tricky to see if there are NFL punting stats vs kicker stats in the pro reference website. You have to click on the individual player, then check whatif to see if they are available. Stanford is a little challenging. They change positions from college sometimes.

If you have an option at K or P, you must take what is available. Punter is fine for me with Jake Bailey. Kicker has 6 people with NFL stats per pro reference, but only 1 is available in whatif. I'm rewarded with kicker Gary Kerkorian from 1954! College QB transformed into NFL kicker. He just had to be part of the game! Imagine Tim Tebow or Charlie Ward becoming a kicker for the love of the game. Hahaha.

My team- The Stanford Tree is completed.

My OL alumni is Tackle-Cameron Fleming of the 2019 Dallas Cowboys OL
My DEF alumni is CB- Richard Sherman of the 2011 Seattle Seahawks
My special teams alumni is- KR/PR Glyn Milburn of 1999 Chicago Bears

Draft Recap
*** Full Season Team ***
Salary Cap:	$70,000,000	Available Cash:	$6,378
Current Payroll:	$69,993,622	Draft Picks Remaining:	0

Selection Status
Roster Status: Valid
Defense:		Offensive Line:		Special Teams:
QB minimum:		RB minimum:		WR minimum:
TE minimum:		Kicker:		Punter:
Additional Players:

Defense
Team	Run	Pass	Sacks	Int	Drive	Red Zone	Salary
2011 Seattle Seahawks	59	52	41	68	48	57	$25,305,000

Offensive Line
Team	Run	Pass	Sack	Salary
2019 Dallas Cowboys	76	90	76	$5,387,000

Special Teams Unit
Team	Kick Return	Punt Return	Kick Defense	Punt Defense	Salary
1999 Chicago Bears	57	66	88	62	$4,264,000

Quarterbacks (minimum 3)
	Name	Dur	Pass Stam	Pass Acc	Int	Run Stam	Run	Salary
1.	'80 Steve Dils	100	7	62	100	1	100	$325,000
2.	'16 Andrew Luck	94	87	70	59	18	70	$7,717,611
3.	'79 Jim Plunkett	25	9	41	13	4	82	$325,000
4.	'81 Turk Schonert	25	12	70	100	9	79	$325,971

Running Backs (minimum 3)
	Name	Dur	Run Stam	Run	Rec Stam	Rec	Salary
1.	'15 Toby Gerhart	44	12	19	8	36	$476,387
2.	'98 Tommy Vardell	88	5	19	19	45	$821,788
3.	'92 Brad Muster	100	31	54	41	48	$3,301,183
4.	'41 Hugh Gallarneau	100	27	76	24	65	$3,347,577
5.	'85 Darrin Nelson	100	57	56	52	32	$5,133,403

Wide Receivers (minimum 4)
	Name	Dur	Run Stam	Run	Rec Stam	Rec	Salary
1.	'84 James Lofton	100	3	100	65	76	$2,209,337
2.	'00 Ed McCaffrey	100	1	0	83	56	$2,450,060
3.	'80 Tony Hill	100	1	96	65	66	$2,064,029
4.	'67 Gene Washington	100	1	0	19	97	$735,002
5.	'73 Randy Vataha	100	1	1	31	64	$970,523

Tight Ends (minimum 3)
	Name	Dur	Run Stam	Run	Rec Stam	Rec	Salary
1.	'14 Zach Ertz	100	1	1	59	52	$1,688,851
2.	'72 Bob Moore	100	1	0	9	36	$325,000
3.	'16 Austin Hooper	88	1	1	26	60	$695,849
4.	'89 Chris Dressel	50	1	0	7	68	$325,000

Field Goal Kicker
Name	FG Acc	XP	Salary
'54 Gary Kerkorian	50	92	$445,176

Punter
Name	Punt	Salary
'22 Jake Bailey	58	$1,354,875

Posted by danpsull71 on 8/2/2024 12:46:00 AM (view original):
Nice! I am definitely interested but could use a pointer on figuring out who played on ST. I am really not familiar with pro-football-reference and don’t see ST positions listed when I sort by the colleges. Any tips on the best way to ID what ST options I have for a given Alma mater? I just don’t have the mind to remember ST players, even returners.

Aside from the kick and punt return stats on the pro reference link for your school- there are also some notable ones that got their start on special teams like LB Zach Thomas or RB Terrell Davis in their rookie year. But the alumni KR/PR stats is the easiest way to identify a number of eligible ST units. Then just find the best ratings, or lowest price, or whatever area of ST you want to be a high rating.

When navigating pro reference- Please note that you must have very top toolbar with Football(college) highlighted in order for it to pull any of the subject data. Sometimes you also have to click on college to reset it each time. Type in and click on your school, Then find the NFL/AFL player link in the middle of the page, then you can go Players Pro Stats as well. The alumni players on your roster do NOT need to be drafted to be eligible. If they made the NFL team after being undrafted and appear in whatif- they are eligible for your roster. You can also click on "Colleges Index" for a listing of all schools with notable NFL records for each school.

We can certainly help on the K, P or ST if that is your last hurdle for the roster. Just post here or sitemail me.

Welcome to specsman with Michigan. Lets Go Blue!

For all the NFL QBs to come out of USC they have not produced many even good QBs lol. Thankfully they did produce Carson Palmer.

Posted by seay00 on 8/2/2024 12:26:00 PM (view original):

Posted by danpsull71 on 8/2/2024 12:46:00 AM (view original):
Nice! I am definitely interested but could use a pointer on figuring out who played on ST. I am really not familiar with pro-football-reference and don’t see ST positions listed when I sort by the colleges. Any tips on the best way to ID what ST options I have for a given Alma mater? I just don’t have the mind to remember ST players, even returners.

Aside from the kick and punt return stats on the pro reference link for your school- there are also some notable ones that got their start on special teams like LB Zach Thomas or RB Terrell Davis in their rookie year. But the alumni KR/PR stats is the easiest way to identify a number of eligible ST units. Then just find the best ratings, or lowest price, or whatever area of ST you want to be a high rating.

When navigating pro reference- Please note that you must have very top toolbar with Football(college) highlighted in order for it to pull any of the subject data. Sometimes you also have to click on college to reset it each time. Type in and click on your school, Then find the NFL/AFL player link in the middle of the page, then you can go Players Pro Stats as well. The alumni players on your roster do NOT need to be drafted to be eligible. If they made the NFL team after being undrafted and appear in whatif- they are eligible for your roster. You can also click on "Colleges Index" for a listing of all schools with notable NFL records for each school.

We can certainly help on the K, P or ST if that is your last hurdle for the roster. Just post here or sitemail me.

Welcome to specsman with Michigan. Lets Go Blue!

This is super helpful, seay00, thanks. I'm in. My own alma mater didn't even have a football team we were so small but I thought about going to Wisconsin so I'll give them a shot.