Travis May discusses devy fantasy football leagues in his weekly Devy Weekly series for FantasyPros.
This piece is part of our article program that features quality content from experts exclusively at FantasyPros. For more insight from Travis head to Dynasty League Football.
Welcome to the very first installment of Devy Weekly!
“Devy Weekly? What in the world is a devy?” *Curiosity click* — half of you reading this.
For those of you already familiar with devy dynasty fantasy football, feel free to skip along to the part where you realize I have A.J. Brown ranked higher than you do. Everyone else, allow me to explain.
It’s okay if you’re unfamiliar with the term “devy” when it comes to fantasy football. Most people have no idea what it is, let alone have played in a devy league before. So what is a devy league?
Devy is short for developmental. Essentially, you get to roster college football players long before they ever enter the NFL. You can draft them as soon as they enter college or even leading into their final year of college eligibility. It’s up to you. The fun part is that they’re automatically transferred to your NFL roster the moment they declare for the NFL Draft. And in most cases, you get to keep those players indefinitely since the format usually includes a dynasty element (keeping your entire roster from year to year).
Simple enough, right? A huge part of what makes fantasy football fun is being able to root for your favorite players. With devy leagues, there’s just an added layer to that.
Did you like JuJu Smith-Schuster dancing to “JuJu On That Beat” on the field when he was at USC? Great! You could have drafted him back in 2016 before he was a household name. Are you perhaps really into college recruiting and have been into Leonard Fournette for a long time? You could have drafted him as early as 2014 when he was the number one recruit in the nation!
I think you get gist. But where do you start? If you’re already into devy, which players should I get excited about drafting? That’s where this weekly series comes in. We’ll be taking a look at some of the best players in college football that project well for the NFL. We’ll talk some devy strategy, the fluctuating stock of players, and introduce some new faces as we go along.
If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @FF_TravisM. I always love to talk football with anyone and everyone. Without further ado, let’s jump in and take a look at my current top devy players at each position!
Dominate with our award-winning fantasy football draft software 
Quarterbacks
- Justin Herbert, Oregon
- Tua Tagovailoa, Alabama
- Will Grier, West Virginia
- Drew Lock, Missouri
- Jarrett Stidham, Auburn
Running Backs
- D’Andre Swift, Georgia
- Cam Akers, Florida State
- David Montgomery, Iowa State
- Jonathan Taylor, Wisconsin
- Stephen Carr, USC
- J.K. Dobbins, Ohio State
- Rodney Anderson, Oklahoma
- Damien Harris, Alabama
- Bryce Love, Stanford
- Najee Harris, Alabama
Wide Receivers
- A.J. Brown, Ole Miss
- Bryan Edwards, South Carolina
- Kelvin Harmon, North Carolina State
- N’Keal Harry, Arizona State
- Ahmmon Richards, Miami
- Dekaylin Metcalf, Ole Miss
- Jhamon Ausbon, Texas A&M
- CeeDee Lamb, Oklahoma
- Tyler Vaughns, USC
- Collin Johnson, Texas
Tight Ends
- Noah Fant, Iowa
- Albert Okwuegbunam, Missouri
- Hunter Bryant, Washington
- Kaden Smith, Stanford
- Caleb Wilson, UCLA
There are hundreds of college players to get excited about, but these top names are some of the best out there. Without overloading you guys in the first segment, let’s just talk about the top guy at each position for now.
Justin Herbert enters the 2018 season coming off two consecutive seasons of fantastic quarterback play for Oregon that were cut short by injury. Herbert has posted a career touchdown to interception ratio of nearly 4:1. All of his accuracy and adjusted completion percentage numbers put him in the top-12 quarterbacks in college football over the last two years. At 6’6, 233 pounds, Herbert has also run well with the ball, finding the end zone seven times on 344 rushing yards.
By the way, this is all in just his freshman and sophomore collegiate seasons with a bad supporting cast of receivers. Herbert’s best football is yet to come. If he stays healthy for all of the 2018 season, expect to hear Herbert’s name called early in the first round next spring.
If you haven’t heard, Georgia likes to run the football, and that’s a great thing for D’Andre Swift. Last season Nick Chubb and Sony Michel (both top-40 picks in the 2018 NFL Draft) combined for over 2,500 yards on the ground for the Bulldogs. Just a few seasons ago, Todd Gurley left Georgia for the NFL and was drafted 10th overall.
Enter Swift. He was already a more productive receiver than either Michel or Chubb just a year ago. Now he gets to feature in an offense that may rush for over 3,000 yards again. Swift has already shown exceptional contact balance, vision, flexibility, and burst. Expect Swift to crush a slightly easier Georgia football schedule this season and even possibly improve upon his 7.6 yards per carry average.
A.J. Brown entered college as top-50 recruit in the nation for football at wide receiver and immediately hit the ground running as a true freshman at Ole Miss. He grabbed 29 receptions for 412 yards and two scores in his first season. But then he rocked college football’s face off in 2017 to the tune of 75 receptions, 1,252 yards, and 11 touchdowns. Brown plays almost exclusively big slot (he’s 6’1, but a thick 225 pounds) right now for the Ole Miss Rebels.
However, don’t let that fool you. He’s an incredible route runner that also wins deep and at the point of the catch. Brown does it all already. Some worry he may see a dip in production with quarterback Jordan Ta’amu at the helm (instead of Shea Patterson). However, his stats were nearly identical with both quarterbacks last year. A.J. Brown will be a first-round pick.
Last but not least, we have Noah Fant, the beast of a man playing tight end for the Iowa Hawkeyes. If you’re looking for the next Rob Gronkowski, Fant may be the closest thing that college football has to offer right now. Fant is 6’5, 241 pounds. He has a 42-inch vertical jump (higher than ANYONE at the NBA Combine this year). He set school records in key agility and acceleration drills this past summer for tight ends. And all of that shows up on tape. Fant dominated the competition last year, grabbing 11 touchdowns (tied for the most in the FBS) and accumulating the 13th-most receiving yards in the nation among Division I tight ends. Fant should be a top-25 pick in the 2019 NFL Draft.
I hope you enjoyed the first installment of Devy Weekly! Again, feel free to reach out to me @FF_TravisM on Twitter to chat more about college or the NFL! Good luck in the upcoming season and expect to hear from me again here soon!
Mock draft in minutes with our free fantasy football tools
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | TuneIn | RSS
