Lucy Thomas: Jacob Colton is at risk of losing his backpack for a month. Senior Colton and twelve friends have embarked on a fantastical journey to be the owner, General Manager, and coach of a roster stacked with real NFL players. With the 18-week football season getting off the ground and the leagues getting competitive, Colton discusses his trending league, strategies, and players with me today. I’m Lucy Thomas and welcome to the first episode of the trending podcast.

Thomas: All right. Well, thank you for joining me today. Welcome to the trending podcast. Could you introduce yourself?

Jacob Colton: Yeah, I’m Jacob. I’m a senior

Thomas: Today we’re going to talk a little bit about fantasy football, which is up and coming. Could you give an overview of what you think fantasy football is? If you were to explain it to someone who had never heard about it before, what would you say?

Colton: Yeah, I guess it’s like, it’s a way, it’s kind of hard to explain, but essentially, it’s like a game you play based on, kind of predict on what’s going to happen in the real football games, and then, based on that, you get, like, certain points and you play with friends, and it should you just kind of lose based on how well you predict what’s going to happen is, I guess, the way you could explain it, I started playing finish football in eighth grade during covid, just with my friends. And, yeah, I don’t know, I don’t really follow football at all, but it’s really easy to just, like, learn it’s mostly luck at the end of the day. That’s kind of fun.

Thomas: And who’s in your league?

Colton: Andrew. Andrew Evans is the one that started it, and then we usually have around like 12 other people from SPA in the league. We just kind of, it changes from year to year, but usually the same: around 12 people in the league.

Thomas: And have you had any successes? Who tends to win these leagues?

Colton: We’ve played four years. I won. I won once, but other times, I always got second to last. So I’m kind of, I’m kind of, I take all the risky players. So, I always ended up doing really well. I think PJ’s a reigning champion. He’s only twice in the four years

Thomas: And what keeps you coming back every year?

Colton: It’s really easy. It doesn’t take that much time, and it’s fun. I would never do it with people, I don’t know, but it’s fun with friends to kind of talk about it, and it’s just, I don’t know, it’s, I don’t really follow football, but it’s fun to watch the games and root for your players on your team.
Thomas: So you’re talking a little bit about risky players. Do you have any strategies that you keep on using that are successful, or maybe not successful?

Colton: I think my friends like to make fun of me because I have certain players that I always like, even though not necessarily good. There’s this kicker, Younghoe Koo, that I always try and get. And this year, I really wanted this player named Rashee Rice, but unfortunately, he just got injured. He might be out for the season,

Thomas: and who’s your favorite player and why?

Colton: Younghoe Koo he’s because, or actually it was Rex Burkhead, but he’s out of the league now. And both of them were because my first year, I didn’t really know what I was doing, so I just kind of put random players in, and both of them, Younghoe Koo, in particular, I put him in he scored 20 points, which is a lot for kicker and ever since then, he’s been my favorite player. Even though kickers don’t matter that much, but he’s been my favorite player. And this year, it’s Rashee Rice. But, unfortunately, he might, he’s injured, and he also might get suspended.

Thomas: And I know that there’s, normally in the fancy football leagues there are winners and losers. Does your fancy Football League have any punishments?

Colton: Or, yeah, we do. We have punishments, but our punishments are never very good, and in the past years, I don’t think people really ever did them. This year, the loser can’t use the backpack for a month, so it’s not too bad. So hopefully, people will do it. Because the problem is, a lot of people in our league we have to convince them to play. So we can get more people in the league so they don’t want to do it if there’s too bad of a punishment. But then the winner. I don’t know what the winner gets, but it’s more about winning. But I guess we do have a punishment. Hopefully, people will do this.

Thomas: And is there anything everyone should be looking up for in fantasy football this season?

Colton: I don’t know. I like to pretend that I know what’s gonna happen, but I feel like, I feel like nobody ever actually knows what’s gonna happen. It always seems like there’s certain fantasy football experts that, you can watch, and I feel like they always get it wrong. It just kind of ends up being luck at the end of the day.

Thomas: That’s it. Thank you so much for talking to me today. Thank you for tuning in to the [TRENDING] podcast today. If you have any questions or comments please reach out to me at [email protected]. Make sure to stay tuned to new episodes of the trending podcast at the start of every month.