Just a question for everyone...shouldn't defenses, offensive lines and special teams include school affiliated players who were starters for those teams in that given season?

Representatives for the CAL Bears
Off Line: G- Patrick Mekari 2019 Baltimore Ravens OL.
Defense: LB Ron Rivera. 1987 Chicago Bears Def.
Special Teams: RB Russell White. 1993 Los Angeles Rams ST.
Kicker: Mick Luckhurst
Punter: Dan Melville

Good question. I do like teams with icon identity players that are like true captains for that unit. Problem is making the money work while trying to field the most competitive roster. I badly wanted Simeon Rice or Dick Butkus on my Illinois team. But couldn't make it work. So, Scott Studwell was the fallback. Had to trim my Kicker and Punter salaries big time to pay for the Vikings Def.

My fear is that it would make it too restrictive and tedious for the team build with a stater rule; And what metric makes them a starter or not? A minimum amount of starts or snaps? A valuable nickel back would be ineligible- Like Rod Woodson or Deion at the end of their pro career. Or, a jumbo package Left Tackle that plays part time. Same for a 4th LB that gets pulled vs passing teams. We all have to make it work with the same cap. As it is now, we make it more inclusive for the smaller or lesser known football first schools.

On that note, I did a deeper dive on some of those schools. There are some nice gems out there that could fill out a roster and contend with a nice supporting OL and/or DEF. I will add these 11 to the available list on page 5--

Maryland, Louisville, TCU, Utah, Indiana, West Virginia, San Jose St, Southern Miss, Tulane, Marshall, Rice.

A few other schools I have entered teams from in the past:

Arizona
Arizona State
Baylor
Kentucky
Virginia
Tulsa
Kansas
Utah State
Louisiana Tech
Pacific
Nevada-Reno
Iowa

Some of them were very good. I remember another owner being very successful with a Northwestern team.

oops, forgot to declare these representatives for the Bullfdogs: K Blair Walsh and P Spike Jones (just had to have him!).

Clemson team:

DEF 87 Giants - Terry Kinard
OL 71 Dolphins - Wayne Mass
ST 22 Giants - Sexy Dexy
K (Fred Cone) and P (Chris Gardocki) are both from Clemson

A very good Labor Day weekend getting more teams in! Be sure to cross-check if all of your rostered alums finished with your school. I had TE Bob Trumpy on my Illinois team, but he finished with Utah (take a look at the Utes talent pool btw) the last 2 years. Screwed up my 2 TE's design! Replaced with Jeff Cumberland to pair with Ken Dilger, so the 1-2-2 or 0-3-2 alignments may still see some action on a limited basis.

I haven't seen a direct way to see the full college career stats for each player. I have just done internet searches with the player name then college (Bob Trumpy college) and normally it pulls their wiki page and then the pro reference college stats. Both normally will show if there was a transfer and who they suited up for in the final college season.

Same issue here, thanks for catching it, seay00. I was just using the Clemson page and hadn't realized Jimmy Orr had transferred. I got lucky and was able to just swap in another WR with minimal change to the team.

Also, need to second the Utah props. I was really torn between them and Clemson for my second team.

I'm really surprised that Alabama, Texas, UCLA, LSU, Florida, Washington, FSU and Michigan State, to name just a few, have yet to be taken.

My second team is Purdue

O-Line: OT Donnie Green – ‘73 Buffalo Bills
Defense: CB Chris Dishman – ’93 Houston Oilers
Special Teams: WR Darryl Stingley – ’75 New England Patriots
Kicker: ’57 Bobby Layne (No Purdue option available)

Sneak peak at the divisions (all with 1 vacancy left):

AFC East

Miami- cellkev
Notre Dame- gyrene
Syracuse- soxyport
Washington- PsychoWarper

AFC Central

Illinois- seay00
Wisconsin- danpsull71
Michigan-specsman

AFC West

Arkansas- kilgore
Cincinnati- Scottedward
Tennessee- DCarden34

NFC East

Clemson- danpsull71
Auburn- Kilgore
Georgia- gyrene

NFC Central

Oklahoma- Scottedward
Purdue- cellkev
Penn St- Poddy

NFC West

Stanford- seay00
USC- PsychoWarper
Cal- coolmay_one
Kansas St- DCarden 2nd team

College Football Encyclopedias and NFL Records- Notable Teams Available

***All schools listed here have a respectable QB (the common thread of this list) and enough offensive firepower to be competitive. And plenty of cap room to get a good or great Defense****

Rk	College/Univ	State	Players	# Active	# of HOF	PB	G	TDs	Highest Career AV	AV	Most Touchdowns	TDs	Most Games Played	Games
3	Ohio St.	OH	542	65	9	188	27619	1938	Paul Warfield	108	Cris Carter	131	Jim Marshall	282
6	Alabama	AL	445	81	8	147	21878	1547	John Hannah	112	Shaun Alexander	112	Chris Mohr	239
8	LSU	LA	435	66	6	140	22565	1777	Kevin Mawae	108	Jim Taylor	93	Kevin Mawae	241
15	UCLA	CA	379	36	6	105	20247	1026	Jimmy Johnson	103	Maurice Jones-Drew	81	Norm Johnson	273
16	Texas	TX	377	39	5	123	19343	1082	Steve McMichael	100	Priest Holmes	94	Phil Dawson	305
17	Pittsburgh	PA	370	29	11	124	16533	1085	Dan Marino	145	Larry Fitzgerald	121	Andy Lee	297
18	Texas A&M	TX	364	38	1	112	18026	1004	Von Miller	104	Mike Evans	95	Shane Lechler	286
20	Michigan St.	MI	357	23	3	114	16371	1121	Herb Adderley	106	Andre Rison	84	Morten Andersen	382
22	Washington	WA	351	38	3	77	17038	762	Warren Moon	116	Corey Dillon	89	Blair Bush	246
29	Oregon	OR	303	38	6	89	13570	701	Dan Fouts	123	LeGarrette Blount	58	George Martin	201
34	Mississippi	MS	289	33	3	76	12508	785	Eli Manning	121	Mike Wallace	57	Eli Manning	236
50	Utah	UT	218	23	2	48	8635	643	Steve Smith	102	Steve Smith	89	Steve Smith	219
58	Louisville	KY	202	15	1	66	8575	518	Johnny Unitas	113	Mark Clayton	85	David Akers	237
62	BYU	UT	190	19	1	32	7901	376	Steve Young	132	Steve Young	43	Lee Johnson	259

Excellent research, seay.

Oh...Have John Carney K and Hunter Snith P for the Irish.

You can right-click on the teams you want in a list in the Colleges Index on pro-football-reference. Then select the pop-up to create the list and cut/paste to this forum.

Maybe we get some people to join. And those that claimed teams enter their team into the league. Oh well. I’ve posted and sitemailed across the WIS universe. Last time hosting! Haha

seay00,
You have great NFL Theme League ideas, we are battling to fill our leagues from a base of maybe 65 users. If these NFL themes were free, it would still be very hard to fill them. Hang tough on this one Commish, I have the UT Vols ready and working on a Kansas State team in the next couple of days.