Baseball has its own intricate set of minor leagues. Some of the best players spent as many as three or four years on 'the farm' before sticking in the big leagues. We all know that baseball is America's game in name only. Lucky for us, football has a minor league of its own.

Most people know it as college football. I live in the South, where it's pretty much a religion. People live and die by their teams, and I mean this to the point of people being able to buy team-themed coffins.

You can play college fantasy football if you like. No one's going to stop you. Imagine this, though. The best fantasy football players are able to record and analyze statistics from 32 teams. The 1-A level of college football has 117 current members. Unlike the NFL, which has so many fantasy football sites that you can have your statistics delivered to your computer on a minute-to-minute basis, there is no such service for college football. It's like being a fantasy football owner in the 1980s, and I'm sure that some old-school devotees to the sport have plenty of horror stories.

How do you make your love for the college game work for your fantasy football squad?

I'm glad you asked. Every player drafted has been scouted to death, from Hair Club president Mel Kiper, Jr., to the scary-looking guy at the end of the bar with the yellow teeth. You aren't going to gain any edge in that department. So it's up to you to find your Farm Team.

What's this Farm Team?

Have a draft, separate from your regular draft. This is the Farm draft. It's a three-round draft. Determine the order in the same way that your regular draft functions. To make it interesting, limit each team to one player per position. Tight ends are eligible in this system.

Here's how one such draft might look:

A lot of these names will be familiar to fantasy football gurus as soon as next year. You probably saw Kellen Winslow, Jr. shredding the Ohio State defense in this year's Fiesta Bowl. He could be a more productive pro than Jeremy Shockey. Brad Smith is a sophomore QB at Missouri who last season passed for 2,000 yards and rushed for 1,000. Marcus Vick, of course, is Mike's brother.

What about future years?

Each player is yours until he graduates or leaves early (anyone who is three years out of high school can do so). Every year you should have at least one player who ends up in the NFL draft. You then have exclusive rights to that player, but at a cost. The cost is a draft pick equal to the number of years that you've kept the player. Any player you picked up the previous year will cost you a first-round pick. A freshman you kept for four years will cost you a fourth-round pick, and so on. If you decline to keep the player, he goes into the draft pool.

This system works best in a keeper league. It rewards owners who make prudent choices and speculate well, while at the same time not costing the owner who picks unproductive players from his/her own alma mater.