Seeing his points start to decline, Jonathan Neal, senior, could only watch as his football team let him down. Neal could feel the win slipping from his fingers.
“When I lose it sucks, I think about who I could’ve played to get more points, and if I need to drop someone and pick up another player to increase my score,” Neal said.
Starting his freshman year, Neal co-managed a football team with his dad. His team was full of NFL players and it wasn’t in person. It was through the ESPN app.
Through fantasy football, Neal and his dad were able to draft football players from different teams who played different positions.
“If you find a buddy that maybe doesn’t want to join a league, but wants to participate, you can add them on as a second manager,” Neal said. “Basically you both control who plays and who doesn’t play.”
Now Neal has joined a league of his own and is no longer just a co-manager.
From Thursday, Sept. 5,to Sunday, Jan. 5, teams in fantasy football leagues go against one another in the hopes that the players they’ve chosen score the most points each week. Some leagues compete for a cash prize or choose a punishment for the loser.
Neal is participating in two leagues. In one league, each player had to buy in with $10, so at the end of the 15 weeks, the winner will earn $100. In Neal’s other league, the loser has to do a punishment.
“The loser has to watch everyone in our league go to a hibachi restaurant, and they can’t get anything to eat,” Neal said. “They just have to sit there and watch, so hopefully I don’t lose.”
Samai Moola, junior, has been watching football since he was a kid and participating in fantasy football since seventh grade.
“When I pick players, I look at who did best the season before, and people get traded, so you see who’s good and you take them,” Moola said. “I got CeeDee Lamb, who’s a wide receiver for the Cowboys.”
Moola won the first year he played and ended second-to-last last year.
Taylor Hemmann, junior, found an interest in fantasy football this year after being a football fan since she was little.
“I really loved football, I wanted to learn more about the sport, and my brother said that the way he learned was through fantasy,” Hemmann said.
Although Hemmann said she was excited to start a league, many of her friends didn’t watch football, or know anything about it. Most of her friends ended up joining her league so they could support her and participate in something new.
“Draft night was really fun since I got to watch my friends argue over players that they really didn’t know anything about or pick based on who was hottest,” Hemmann said.
