Office Fantasy Football College Pick 'Em

Talka

The office at my new job is opening their fantasy college football league for this year. It's a confidence pick system, with your lowest week getting dropped, and there's a $10 entry fee.

I'd like to participate because I want to get involved in the office extracurriculars and start interacting with company people in a non-business setting, even if it's just in a small way. However, I'm not a huge fan of college football and I don't really keep track of it. I followed a little bit of the PAC-10 in college since that's where my team played, so it's not like I don't enjoy it, but I'm not an active fan and I wouldn't be able to tell you who the best teams are this year or be able to offer any real insight as to who should win any given matchup.

My question is whether I can participate and not make a fool of myself. If I read up a little every week I should be able to avoid embarrassing myself, right? And even if I do terribly, it's not really even a true embarrassment opportunity, if I'm understanding this correctly. I'm just unfamiliar with fantasy football and don't know whether people might get... not offended, per se, but rather maybe a little put off by a know-nothing trying to participate? I know this is kind of silly (this is basically a free $10 to the winner), but it can't hurt to be sure.

My second question, if I go through with is, is if there are any tips or advice you might share on how to do well in the league? Googling has returned some pretty banal and unhelpful advice.

Thanks!

Walter

Participate! Just make sure you don't try to play the part of someone who knows football. You don't want to look like the 40 year old virgin talking about sandbag boobs. People will be cool about it and its surprisingly not hard. Is the game going to be run online? That's even better as ESPN will show you the top players during the draft. Pick one of those and you can't go wrong.

I say this as someone who knew nothing about football until I participated in a fantasy league last year. I actually really enjoyed it.

Talka

Isn't a College Pick 'Em just where you pick the winner of all the weeks' matchups and give your confidence for that pick? There's no draft, is there? That might be more than I could handle.

Walter

Sorry, I need to work on my attention span. Its pretty sad when a quarter of a page is too long to read. My advice stands though, its a lot of fun and you'll enjoy it as long as you don't try to act like you are a sports whiz.