How to Survive the First Few Years With an FCS Team

Building a 1-AA (FCS) program into an FBS dynasty is extremely hard.

Some might call this type of dynasty the hardest way to build up a program.

There are very simple reasons for this: lack of talent and little to no Program and Coach Prestige to recruit with.

You will have the worst team at the FBS level starting out, regardless of where and who you switch them out with.

Gamers tend to quit this type of dynasty after one or two seasons simply because it is too hard and that is understandable.

However, I think I can help you survive the first few critical seasons as once you get over that seemingly impossible hump, then you will reap your rewards.

Below are some tips on how to handle such a tough situation along with some other ideas to make your dynasty more enjoyable.

Pre-Dynasty

#1 – Choose a Team Based on Offensive Talent, Their Looks, or Preferably Both

There are a few things to think about when choosing an FCS team to move into the FBS and build up.

The first option is to pick a team that fits what you want to do schematically, especially on offense.

If you want to run the ball a lot, picking a team with at least one good HB makes sense.

Do you want to throw it 50 times a game? It will be easier if you pick a team that has some good WRs, a good TE, and/or a decent QB.

If you plan on going this route, go to the 1-AA Rosters and look at every team and make a list of teams that match what you want to accomplish on offense.

I have a tip later on why focusing on the offensive side of the ball is more important at the beginning of your dynasty.

While picking a team that fits what you want to do on offense makes sense, I think choosing a team based on how they look is equally important.

Picking and moving up an FCS team into the FBS means one thing: you’re in this dynasty for the long haul as it will take you several seasons before you get anywhere close to accomplishing your goals.

Since you will be investing so many seasons with one team, it only helps to pick a team that have great looking uniforms and a stadium you would be satisfied with.

You may find a team that fits your offense perfectly, but if their uniforms look butt-ugly, you will probably quit along the way.

At least be satisfied with how your team looks, and if the team you chose has the talent you need, then that is icing on the cake.

#2 – Put Your Team in a Conference That Makes Sense

There are technically three routes to take when deciding where to start your team.

The first option makes no sense and I suggest you avoid this and that is to put them in an Power 5 conference.

Unless you want a ridiculously hard challenge and want to make things hard for the sake of making things hard (or just bored), don’t put your team in a conference loaded with top-flight teams.

Instead, put your team in a Group of 5 conference or as an Independent. I choose to stay on the side of realism on all of my decisions with this game so starting in a lower-tier conference makes the most sense.

Lastly, pay attention to geography. If you decide to run a dynasty with Montana, don’t put them in the Sun Belt.

At least try to put your team in a conference that is close to where your team is located. Also, don’t forget the option of putting your team as an Independent.

This means you will not be a in a conference, but at least you have free reign over your entire schedule.

#3 – Pay Attention to Which Team You Swap Out

Believe it or not, the team you swap out with your newly chosen team is very important for two reasons.

First, you will take over the schedule of the team you swapped out with.

Maybe you have an idea of starting a dynasty with Alabama A&M and want to start a rivalry with UAB in Conference USA.

It only makes sense to replace a team that is in the same division as UAB so you are guaranteed on playing them every season.

Putting them in the other division means you might not play UAB for several seasons.
Also, schedule 12 games instead of 11 so you can potentially win one more which leads to more points to work with in the offseason (added after posting).

Second and more importantly, pay special attention to the Discipline bar of the team you swap out.

I learned this the hard way in my Yale dynasty. I swapped with Temple but their Discipline Bar was very high out of the gate.

I could never lower the bar and before I knew it, I was on probation.

So be careful with which team you swap with as you will inherit their discipline bar so use common sense and don’t put yourself behind the 8-ball starting out.

During the Season

#4 – Don’t Bother Redshirting Players

If you have ever seen my dynasty videos, you know I love to redshirt players.

Gaining an extra season on a player is great, especially when it looks like that player won’t play much that season.

However, we need to rethink about redshirting with an FCS team, at least for the first few years.

First of all, your initial roster will be so bad that holding a bad player back makes no sense.

All you are doing is bringing back a player that still won’t ever play and using up a scholarship when you could be using it on someone better.

The number one goal as a head coach in this type of dynasty it get better players.

You can over-recruit/cut players (more on this later) or flush out your current roster via graduation.

By not redshirting, you are one step closer to having your bad player graduate and move on so new talent can come in and take their place.

This will help with recruiting even more as having little to no players a a certain position will attract more prospects.

So let those players graduate as fast as possible to you can move on with better players.

However, there are a few exceptions to redshirting the first few seasons. A prime example is having to two decent QBs on the roster.

One is senior and the other is younger. In this case, if you can, feel free to redshirt the backup QB and hope your starter survives the season.

There may be other situations similar to this so use your best judgement.

But let’s be honest, your first two seasons will be so void of talent that having multiple good players at one position will be very slim to none.

#5 – Set a Realistic Schedule Relative to Your Current Program Prestige

You can make your schedule as easy or as hard as you want, but I like to keep my schedule realistic for the current roster I am working with.

If you put your team in a conference then you only have a few games to worry about scheduling on your own.

Again, if you want a very hard challenge, load up your schedule.

I think you’ll will not enjoy this and quit but who am I to judge?

This is just an idea but I have a simple rule in determining how hard your schedule should be:
Schedule the number of ranked teams equal to your current program prestige.

Since you will be starting out as a 1-star school, only schedule one Top 25 team.

If you are a 4-star program, have four ranked teams on your schedule.

Again, this is just an idea but at least this takes the questioning out of who to schedule every year.

#6 – Pick Mostly Offensive Players During In-Season Recruiting

You’re going to have a terrible team to start with and you need better bodies at every position, but you need better players on offense more than you need them on defense.

There are simple reasons for this. First, in order to win games (which effects everything) you need to be able to outscore the other team to win (duh!).

Second, you need to be able to sustain drives by moving the ball. This means that with a decent offense, you can control the clock.

I can’t tell you how important it is to be able to control the clock. It will be years before you can field a decent defense that can make a difference.

However, you can control clock and play keep-away as you will quickly understand how your offense can play defense with this strategy.

I will cover more of this later on but by all means, don’t completely neglect defensive players, especially if they are highly interested in you.

Now that you understand how important offense can be when starting out, it only helps to recruit better players on that side of the ball out of the gate.

You have 12 slots to fill during in-season recruiting so going after 8+ offensive players makes the most sense.

You need these bodies to score, sustain drives, and run clock until your defense can catch up a few seasons down the road.

Also, the odds you getting 3-star or better prospects in the offseason are low.

Thankfully, since there are no 1 and 2-star prospects in in-season recruiting, this means you should be able snag a few 3-star kids then which will probably be better than anything you will get in the offseason.

#7 – Put All of Your Recruiting Points in 2-4 Prospects

There are two methods to spreading recruiting points during the regular season.

The first is to evenly spread points to all 12 prospects at the beginning and adjust accordingly throughout the season.

This method works great if you are winning or have a good enough team to win consistently.

However, I believe this can backfire with a team that you know will not win many games that season.

In our situation, I doubt you will win many games the first two seasons with your bad FCS-turned FBS team.

No offense, but the road will be tough and anyone who has played a dynasty in this game knows how important winning is.

Thankfully we have another method of recruiting which is going all in on a handful of recruits.

Since prospects heavily react to teams that win and you know you probably won’t win many games the first season or so, at least you can load up points on a few prospects and show them love that way.

Dumping 25% or more of your points on one prospect will keep them intrigued longer.

Add in a win here and there and that combo should help you snag a few recruits that you probably would not get otherwise by spreading your points too thin.
But by all means, if you have had success recruiting in-season with the Spread method in your first few years with an FCS team, please let us know!

#8 – Focus Only On 3-Star or Below Prospects

I can’t believe I have to talk about this but it must be mentioned: only recruit 3-star prospects during the season.

I know we all want 4 and 5-star kids to come to our school out of the gate, but we have to be honest with ourselves. You are a 1-star program.

You can’t expect high-end talent to be interested in your school. Make it easy on yourself and recruit to your program’s level.

Heck, even 3-star kids are higher than we need to go after but we have no choice during the season as like I said earlier, the lowest-tiered prospects to recruit during the season are 3-star players so we have no choice.

But hey, if you can’t find that 11th or 12th spot to fill, take a chance on a 4-star kid in your own state and see what happens.

You might get lucky and he commits, just don’t expect it to happen.

After a couple of years, hopefully your prestige will increase and you’ll have a better chance of getting those high-tiered guys by then.

#9 – Lower the Discipline Bar

In your first season as coach in any Dynasty you are given plenty of points to handle discipline situations.

I would take advantage of this and over-discipline players if your Discipline Bar is moderately or very high.

Trust me, the last thing you need as a coach with a bad team is being put on probation.

My Yale dynasty is proof of this. The first season is a great chance to lower that bar to practically negate discipline altogether in the long run.

I believe the game rewards coaches is over-discipline with less rowdy players later on but I could be wrong.

On the Field

#10 – Adjust Your Schemes to Your Roster, Not the Other Way Around

Whenever I start a dynasty, I always start with what type of offense I want to run.

Once I decide on an offense, I then will go to the rosters and find a team that has some talent that can fit that scheme in some way.

I also love many types of offenses and defenses, especially system-type schemes.

However, all of this is tough to execute when your team is so bad to start with.

With an FCS team, you will barely have two players that can be of use with the rest of the roster being pure garbage.

So the idea of picking a particular offense and running it exactly like it should with a team that only has two or three players that fit that system can result in failure.

Fear not, this does not mean you can’t use a particular offense due to poor talent, I believe you should adjust around your talent until you can bring better players in.
All of this means you need to add some Bell Cow strategy to whatever scheme you plan on using long term.

For example, say I want to run the I-Option offense and the FCS team I picked only has two decent HBs but no talent at WR, FB, and TE. Oh by the way, your QBs are slow.

So what you do is trim the offense to where only your good players, in this case your two HBs, touch the ball the vast majority of the snaps.

This means you take out all of the option plays since your QBs are slow and you make sure both of your HBs are on the field at all times via sub packages.

Make sense? Once you have a couple recruiting classes, you will keep adjusting the offense to your roster until you have enough talent to run the entire offense.

The same can be said with defense. By all means, pick the defense that you know you can run.

However, you also need to adjust to your defense by making sure your best 11 players are on the field the majority of the time.

A great example of this is my Indiana dynasty. In my first season, my best 11 on defense was actually the Dime formation.

My 2nd and 3rd CBs were better than both of my OLBs so it only made sense to play Dime most of the time.

Again, just use common sense and make sure your best players are on the field most of the time.

This is how many coaches get fired due to being so stubborn with what they want to run and refuse to adjust to their talent.

#11 – Take Advantage of Sub Packages and Formation Subs

To go along with the idea of working with your talent and not against it, please use Sub Packages and Formation Subs to put your best players in positions to be more useful with certain plays.

If you have a good TE, use sub packages that put him in the slot if there’s a play you really like where the slot is the main read.

If your HB can catch the ball, try him out at WR via Sub Packages.

One thing to remember: Sub Packages do not effect player ratings, Formation Subs do. Placing a TE in the Slot via a sub package will not hurt his ratings, but moving him there via Formation Subs will.

Sub Packages are great for putting a player in a spot where they are not normally supposed to be such as a HB in a WR spot.

Formation Subs works best if you want a WR at another WR position so pay attention to the differences.

#12 – Run Clock on Offense

I mentioned this in an earlier tip and for good reason.

The ability to sustain drives and run clock will not only help your defense but will also keep the other team’s offense off the field.

The other team can’t score if they don’t have the ball.

I have given this example a few times in the past, but I was able to win a National Title with Duke the first season using this strategy.

Using this strategy also means you need to look at each game by possessions.

Instead of looking at the scoreboard and seeing you are down seven points, look at it as being down one possession.

This is even more important the close you get to the fourth quarter.

Does this mean you have to implement a run-oriented offense?

No. Did I run an simple run-heavy offense that season with Duke?

Yes. However, if you have a decent QB and a WR and/or TE that can catch, you can run clock via the passing game as well.

As long as you’re completing passes, the clock will run the same in this situation.

Another good example of running clock is the first two years in the Butch Jones era at Tennessee. Jones is a big Spread guy and believes in going fast all the time.

The problem with that strategy is if you’re not moving the ball resulting in quick 3-and-outs.

Our defense wasn’t that good then yet they were on the field all the time because our offense produced constant 3-and-outs that took up little time on the clock thus forcing our defense to be on the field way longer than they needed to be.
Just remember that the clock is your friend so take advantage of it until better players arrive.

Offseason

#13 – Put Most of Your Points in Recruiting

Once the season is over, you are given the chance to dispense your points into Recruiting, Training, and Discipline.

If you are lucky enough to have a low Discipline Bar by the end of the season, you know you don’t have to put many points there.

Since your current roster is very bad, there is little point in dumping many points in Training.

Why bother making terrible players less terrible when you can use those points to simply get better talent?

That is why most of your points should go to Recruiting.

Since you are dealing with percentages, I suggest a 70-80% Recruiting, 0-10% Training, and 20-30% split.

Adjust accordingly to you current situation.

#14 – Over-Recruit Your Current Roster

I am normally not a fan of over-recruiting current players.

If I only have 15 spots to fill, I would prefer to only bring in 15 new players.

However, if you look are your current FCS roster, you will notice the back half contains players in the 40s and 50s.

No offense to these guys but they will never contribute to your team.

That is why I suggest you load up on as many players as you can.

Many 1 and 2-star prospects are better than any player you have with that low of rating.

Every year you have 25 scholarships to give, use them all every season if you can until your roster is good enough to be more forgiving on your current players.

#15 – Put Most, If Not All, Points On Giving Scholarships, Not Scouting

I am going to take a wild guess and say you will barely win a few games your first season.

This means you will not have many points to use in the Offseason.

Because you have very few points to play with, you need all the points you can get to offer scholarships.

Now I am a big believer in scouting players but scouting costs points and the only way players can commit to your school is offering them scholarships, you must focus on those offers.

Besides, any 1, 2 and 3-star player you recruit will be better than 90% of the players on your team anyways.

Once you win some more, you will have enough points to scout but until then, focus on getting commitments.

#16 – Try to Recruit Locally and Only Pipeline States

This tip is very simple, the closer a prospect is to your school, the cheaper it is to recruit him.

The same goes for pipeline states, the game throws you an extra bone or two if you keep recruiting from pipeline states.

You can expand your geographical horizons once you start winning more and have more points to play with but until then, keep it local.

#17 – Focus On Key Positions That You Know Can Impact Your Team

This may sound obvious but do whatever it takes to get the best QB, HB, MLB, or any other position that is super important to your offense and defense.

If this means you need to scout to make sure that a particular player is a must-have then spend the extra points.

This also means that you may have recruit someone farther away if that position is a big need.

I know this sounds like I am contradicting my previous point, but if there is a QB that is interested in you and you know he can change your program in one season but he is 3,000 miles away, it is worth taking a chance on him by spending more points.

Use your best judgement.

#18 – Load Up On Athletes

Speaking of key positions, you can’t go wrong on going after plenty of Athletes.

The best QB I ever had in my Yale dynasty was a 2-star Athlete.

Athletes can truly change a program as soon as they step on campus.

Don’t let the stars fool you, Athletes at all levels have a chance to make your life much easier so you might as well get as many athletes as you can.

#19 – Don’t Be Too Picky With Prospects

At the beginning of your dynasty you had the idea of running a pass-happy offense.

But what do you do if a great scrambling QB wants to come to your school? You recruit him of course?

You are at the early stages of your dynasty.

You can’t afford to be picky about talent just because a player may not fit your scheme. I wanted to run a Power Coast Offense when I first started with Yale.

That all changed when I got that 2-star Athlete that could run the ball.

I quickly adjusted to my talent by switching offenses which paid off big time later on.

Besides, you never know who is going to get hurt and you’ll be thankful you recruited that player.

Feel free to be more picky once you have enough talent to do so.

#20 – Be Efficient With Your Pitch Points

This tip works for any dynasty situation but it is even more important in our case.

Only offer the minimum amount of points to a prospect until you find which pitch he likes.

Then you can raise the points to try and seal the deal.

You’ll have so few points to start with that you’ll almost have no choice to do this but I thought it was worth mentioning.

#21 – Take Your Time and Play Around With Position Changes

Position Changes are very useful. You never know, you make have a big, slow WR that may turn out to be a great TE.

The best player I ever had in my Yale dynasty was a CB. That CB could also catch the ball as well.

For two seasons I was low on WR talent so I let that CB play both ways.

Needless to say, he made an impact on offense and defense.

This works even better in other scenarios such as moving LBs to DE.

All of my dynasties have plenty of examples of this. Moving a big, strong LB to DE can work wonders.

So please, take your time and try out all of your players and see if any of them fit at a better position.

Also, don’t move true freshmen.

Wait until the next year to do this as the game penalizes you for moving them that first year with the exception being Athletes of course.

Conclusion

I can probably think of a few more tips to give but I think these 21 tips cover most of it.

Taking over an FCS team, moving them up in the FBS, and trying to turn them into a powerhouse is a hard and long road.

Hopefully everything above can make your journey a little less bumpy than before.

Feel free to put in the comments section your FCS stories and tips as we’re all trying to learn together.