The League

The league will consist of 24 teams and be split into three 8-team conferences. Each owner will choose a mythical or existing school name and mascot for his team.

The Draft

The draft will be held on the message board. For each subsequent season, the draft order will be determined by reverse of the final BCS standings the year before. Expansion teams will be randomly chosen to pick before existing teams. A team replacing an existing franchise inherits that team's BCS draft order.

There will be a 8-hour time limit for each pick (clock runs 7:00 am - 11:00 pm CT, 7 days a week). If an owner misses his time window, the draft will proceed with that owner being skipped. This owner will be able to make up his pick as soon as he returns, regardless of which pick is then on the clock. Common courtesy dictates that if you will be gone for any portion of the draft, a list of desired players should be given to the Commissioner, so that the draft is not held up by your absence.

The draft will be 16 rounds and the order be the same each round (1-24, 1-24, etc.). Picks and players may be traded during the draft, but once the draft is complete, there is no trading - trading of future draft picks is not allowed.

You must have 16 players on your roster at all times throughout the season. No uneven trades are allowed, specifically trades that would give one team an extra draft pick that they would just throw away.

Draft Eligibility

Players from teams in the following conferences are eligible: ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big XII, Pac 10, SEC and Army, Navy, and Notre Dame. We will add more conferences/teams if the need arises.

The Season

The regular season will be ten weeks. Each week, every team will play one opponent in a head-to-head format. Weeks begin on Wednesday and end on Tuesday.

Weeks 1-3: Non-conference games. NC games are scheduled by the owners.
Week 1 will be open for your "one season only" opponent.
Weeks 2-3 will be open for your "home and home" opponents.

Before the season, each owner will schedule their games for weeks 1-3.

Scheduling Rules:

1. You may not play the same opponent more than once in a regular season.
2. You may not play a "one season only" opponent in consecutive seasons. You and the opponent must agree who will be the home team.
3. You may not schedule the same team consecutively for "home and home" series. You and your opponent must agree who will be the home team for each game.
4. There is no limit on the number of home games you may play in a season, but all attempts should be made to schedule five home and five away games.
5. If your schedule is not complete by the deadline, the Commissioner will then finish your schedule for you.
6. The commissioner reserves the right to rearrange schedules if necessary.

Weeks 4-10: Conference schedule determined by the Commissioner's office.

Week 11: Conference Championships will be played in Week 11 between the teams in each conference with the best conference records. Conference Championship game results are not counted in the conference standings, but are counted in the overall standings.

Week 12: Bowl Week, with the Rose Bowl hosting the MCAA National Championship between the top two teams in the BCS. BCS #3 will host BCS #4 in the Orange Bowl, BCS #5 will host BCS #6 in the Sugar Bowl and BCS #7 will host BCS #8 in the Fiesta Bowl.

Additionally, the highest-rated non-BCS Bowl Bound teams, if their records are at least .500, will have the opportunity to meet in bowl games. The Cotton Bowl, Gator Bowl and Holiday Bowl will be available to host non-BCS Bowl teams with a .500 record or better, if available. Invitations will be sent by the MCAA commissioner, with every attempt to avoid repeat matchups.

A team failing to turn in a lineup on two separate weeks runs the risk of losing it's bowl eligibility. The MCAA is for fun, but we also want it to be competitive. If an owner fails to turn in a lineup twice during the season, the commissioner can, at his discretion, declare the team "bowl ineligible".

Conference Standings Tiebreakers

1. Conference Record (same conference only)
2. Head-to-Head Record
3. Overall Win/Loss Record
4. Total points scored
5. Head-to-Head points scored
6. Coin Flip

BCS

The BCS is the MCAA’s method of ranking the teams in the league in order to determine which teams deserve the opportunity to play for the MCAA National Championship. The BCS poll is released at the start of week 6 of the MCAA season and is updated weekly throughout the regular season. After Week 11, the teams ranked #1 and #2 (assuming they are "bowl eligible") in the final BCS Poll will meet in the Rose Bowl to determine the MCAA National Champion. The teams ranked third through eighth in the final BCS poll will be given the opportunity to compete in other BCS Bowl games.

The BCS is calculated by ranking the teams by wins (teams tied are both/all given the lowest number. Ex: Two 10-0 teams are both given a ranking of 1). The teams will then be ranked first by wins and then power ranking (hypothetical record against every team every week), by power ranking alone, by strength of schedule, by wins and then points per game and by points per game alone. (Again, tied teams will both/all be given the lowest number.) These rankings are then plugged into the following formula:

BCS Formula = (((Wins + Wins^PR + PR + Wins^PPG + PPG)/5) + Losses + SOS) + Quality Win Points

Strength of Schedule points are added in the following way: The team with the hardest strength of schedule will receive a 1. Second-hardest a 2, etc. That number is then divided by 25 to determine the number of points added to a team's score. So, the team with the toughest schedule will have .04 (1/25) added. A team with the 10th-hardest schedule would receive .4 point. Ties will both receive the lowest possible points and the next level will be awarded the amount of points had there not been a tie. SOS records will not include your own games (when you beat a team, your SOS does not have a loss added, and when you lose, your SOS does not have a win added).

Teams are then ranked 1-24 based on the final total. Quality win points are then subtracted from a team's BCS score. Bonuses are awarded as follows:

• Beating a team ranked #1 in the current poll earns a bonus of -1.0 point.
• Beating a team ranked #2 in the current poll earns a bonus of -0.8 point.
• Beating a team ranked #3 in the current poll earns a bonus of -0.6 point.
• Beating a team ranked #4 in the current poll earns a bonus of -0.4 point.
• Beating a team ranked #5 in the current poll earns a bonus of -0.2 point.

If a team defeats a top-5 BCS team twice in one season, the victorious team shall receive quality win points only once.

Example - Team A defeats Team B in Week 1. Team B is ranked #2 in the Week 7 BCS. Team A would earn -0.8 points in the Week 7 BCS. If Team B is ranked #1 in the Week 8 BCS, Team A's bonus would be -1.0 in the Week 8 BCS. Should Team B fall out of the rankings at any time, Team A would lose their bonus. The team's rank at the time that you beat them is not what matters. It is their rank in the current BCS poll (before deductions are factored in). Because deductions are the last calculation in the BCS, they may change the rankings.

If two teams have equal BCS scores in the Final BCS poll, the tiebreaker for Bowl seeding is as follows:

BCS Tiebreakers

1. Head-to-Head Record
2. Overall Win/Loss Record
3. Conference Record (same conference only)
4. Total points scored
5. Head-to-Head points scored
6. Coin Flip

Starting Lineups

Owners will submit a lineup consisting of: 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 PK. A player's position is determined on draft day. If there is a question as to which position a player plays, his listed position on the roster page at his school's official website will be used. If this still doesn't clear up the situation, research will be conducted to determine which position best suits the player (ie, what other leagues might be doing, which position he played the most plays at the previous year, etc).

Lineup Deadline

Lineups are due on your team site at mcaafootball.com by game time of the player you wish to play. Once a player's game has started, you will not be allowed to make changes to that player. Please note that times on the website are EASTERN TIME. If you fail to turn in a lineup, your previous week's lineup will be used, without regard to injuries or bye weeks.

Red-Shirt Players

Each team will be allowed 1 Red-Shirt player. The player will not count towards the 16-player roster limit. A player can NOT be designated as a Red-Shirt until AFTER the draft. Once a player is red-shirted, they CANNOT, FOR ANY REASON, be removed from the red-shirt list. Please use this designation carefully. The only way to remove a player's red-shirt tag is to drop them from your roster.

Scoring System

 Game Tie-breakers

1. Team with highest scoring starter wins
2. Team with second highest scoring starter wins
3. Home Team wins (or higher seed)

Scoring Games

We will use CNNSI.com for the official scoring statistics. Scores will be posted by Monday morning, and owners have until Tuesdays at 11:59 pm CT to protest a score.

Free Agency

We will have three free agent periods each week. Teams may pick up three players per week, but only one in the first or second period.

The first free agent period will be waiver-wire, with reverse order of the BCS standings determining who gets first pick. Only one pick-up per team is allowed.

The second free agent period will be first-come, first-served on the message board. Only one pick-up per team is allowed.

The third free agent period will be first-come, first-served on the message board, and teams may select up to 3 free agents if they have had zero successful requests in the first two periods. 2 free agents if they have had only 1 prior successful request, and 1 free agent if they have already had 2 successful requests that week.

A player dropped in any period of a given week is not eligible to be picked up by any team until the following week's FA period.

Player Retention

In order to establish some "program continuity", owners will keep players from year-to-year, with the exception of:

1. players who graduate
2. players who leave early for the NFL
3. players who leave an MCAA-member school for a non-MCAA member school

Prior to the draft, teams with more than 10 players on their roster have the option to drop players for any reason and bring their roster size down to 10. Teams that already have 10 or fewer players will not be allowed to make additional drops.

2007 Off-Season Schedule

Heisman Trophy

At the conclusion of the season, the Commissioner's Office will email the Heisman Trophy Ballots to each owner. The season's top five scorers (more if there is a tie) will be on the ballot. Owners will rank them from 1 to 5 (or more). Players receive 5 points for a first place vote, 4 points for a second place vote, etc. Votes beyond 5th place receive zero points. The player accumulating the most points will be declared the winner. In the event of a tie, the player who scored the most fantasy points will be declared the winner. If it is still a tie, the player whose team finished higher in the post-bowl BCS standings will be declared the winner.

All-American Teams

Following the Heisman Trophy announcement, the Commissioner's Office will release the All-American teams.