About Us

Brian McDonald - brian@cffinsider.com

Brian is one of the co-founders and the lead editor at CFFInsider.com. He holds an English degree from Michigan State University and a master’s degree in Education from the University of Detroit-Mercy. His first foray into fantasy sports began with a five-team NFL draft held in his parents’ backyard in 1989, when he shocked everyone and selected Jim Everett first overall, leading to a fifth-place finish. Convinced NFL fantasy mediocrity was too easily attained, Brian ditched the pros and began his illustrious college fantasy football career in 2005, and he hasn’t looked back. His work has been published in USAToday.com, CBSSportsline.com, Rotoworld.com, various NBC affiliates and in Lindy’s magazine. He loves to golf, run, go to minor league baseball games and attend as many college football games as possible. His favorite road venue is Notre Dame, though Blacksburg and Lincoln hold a special place in his heart. Brian and his family reside in Ann Arbor…a mere 64 miles from East Lansing.

Alex Esselink - alex@cffinsider.com

Alex is one of the co-founders of CFFInsider and has played college fantasy football since 2000. A math geek with an engineering degree from Michigan State University, he has never found a stat or tailgate he didn’t like. Despite his grammar optional writing style, his work has appeared in USAToday.com, CBSSportsline.com, Rotoworld.com and various NBC affiliates. He's the host of CFFinsider Live!, a weekly radio show on The Fantasy Sports Channel which has hosted guests from ESPN, national beat writers and Phil Steele. Alex is also an avid tournament angler and when not spending time with his family or thinking about college football, he is on the water. He lists Michigan State's win over then #1 Ohio State in 1998 as his favorite game witnessed in-person, and looks forward to a Spartan trip to Pasadena sometime in is his lifetime. He enjoys the smell of morning dew and the sound of cracking Labatt Blue Lights on tailgate mornings.

Jim Belanger - jim@cffinsider.com

Jim is one of the co-founders of CFFInsider.com. As our chief accountant, Jim is often seen collecting empty returnables at the CFFinsider tailgates to pay for server fees. Another stat geek, Jim prefers to use the term normalize, which no one has ever heard of, instead of just saying the word average. A master at the haiku and chief contributor to the Ask the Insider forum, Jim once answered 52 ATI questions in one hour. While there are no official stats on such things, we are pretty sure this is a Guinness Book World Record.

Randy Burgess - randy@cffinsider.com

Randy has long been a go-to for fantasy tech advice from his previous days hosting college fantasy football leagues, and he recently joined the CFFInsider team in early 2009 during his off-hours from the real job. His first task was to implement the MyInsider player trackers, custom scoring systems, and a new content management system for the writers. Randy hails from Chicago, but is a graduate of the University of Georgia and still a Dawg fan--despite being surrounded by Big 10 stooges. He’s been known to yell “HARD REFRESH” throughout the office at his less tech-savvy cohorts.

Kevin Albanese

Kevin has been involved in several sports journalism ventures since 1995, originally starting with a Cincinnati Bengals e-newsletter. Since then, he’s written articles for a well known Boston Red Sox website, Rotowire, and most recently here at CFFinsider. After beginning to play College Fantasy Football in 2001, the game as a whole struck an immediate interest level that can't be described, and he’s been consumed ever since. He looks forward to contributing information that will (hopefully) be very useful to every college fantasy owner out there!

Michael Turner

Michael had a couple brief stints with other fantasy sites before finding his home at College Fantasy Football Insider. When he's not playing "desk jockey" at work or writing for CFFinsider, Michael enjoys long College Football Saturdays on the couch with the remote in the fall, training for triathlons, or dominating his FCFL College Fantasy League. Michael is a Clemson alumni who annually suffers through the emotional roller coaster of cheering for the Tigers, and he's married to a LSU girl so he cheers for those Tigers as well.

Jessica Lantz

A freelance sportswriter with a speciality in the Big XII.