How the College Football Lab Files a Pick

College football files one market on the adjusted differential, like the other non-NFL leagues — but it is the league where the retired consensus leaned hardest on published ratings, and its data plumbing is the section's deepest. Nothing NFL-only applies here: no wind rule, no revenge spot (the retired consensus had a situation factor with a revenge item — a different construction, also retired), no primetime filing, no week window.

The rating

The rating behind every spread pick in this section starts as a season scoring differential per game: points scored minus points allowed, divided by games played, computed from completed games only — ESPN final scores, season to date, read at filing time. Only regular-season and postseason games count toward it; preseason and exhibition games never enter the window. Since Rule v1.3 for the other sports (November 8, 2026) the pick no longer decides on that raw average: each game's margin is adjusted by the opponent's own average margin over two passes, and the pick decides on the adjusted figure. It is still not blended with any published rating. The team with the better adjusted differential is the pick, taken at the filed spread; when the two adjusted differentials sit within 1.0 point of each other, the pick is the home team. The power-ratings table on the league page ranks teams on the same adjusted figure and says so.

Lines come from The Odds API's US board as captured at filing. The anchor book is DraftKings where it carries the game, otherwise the first US book carrying all three markets. A game files only when the anchor book carries all three markets and both teams have completed games this season; otherwise it is excluded and the reason is recorded. Every pick settles from ESPN finals, in exactly the markets its record carries, under the rule version that filed it — earlier filings stand as filed and are never restated. Every pick is UNPROVEN; the section is a paper record and claims no edge.

What files under Rule v1.3

The spread, and only the spread — the better-differential team at the filed spread, home team inside 1.0, under the other-sports rule (selection_rule "RULE v1.3" in each record). The league's position on the other markets, stated explicitly:

• Moneyline: not filed. The de-vigged favorite restated the market and was NOT SUPPORTED in every corrected cell.
• Totals: not filed. The totals machines are off in every league; every totals cell in the corrected record graded negative.
• Consensus overlay: off — including the ratings blend below, which no longer selects anything.

The slate

Picks apply to the next America/New_York calendar day's slate only — in practice the Saturday slate, filed the day before in the morning cycle. Both teams need completed games this season and the anchor book must carry all three markets, or the game is excluded with the reason recorded.

The consensus that used to run here

The November 6, 2026 consensus for this league voted five factors. F2 was a rating blend: the SP+, FPI and Elo projected margins from CollegeFootballData averaged — each system's rating difference converted to a projected margin (Elo on a 25-points-per-point scale, recorded in the rule because CFBD publishes no conversion), plus 2.5 home points, 0 at a neutral site. F3 was efficiency: CFBD team PPA (predicted points added per play), each side's expected points = (its offensive PPA minus the opponent's defensive PPA) times 65 plays. F4 was situation: a point each for a rest edge (idle 11+ days against an opponent who played within 10), a letdown spot (the opponent just won as a 7+ point underdog or beat a Top 25 team), a lookahead spot (the opponent's next game is against a Top 25 team), and prior-season revenge. F5 was venue-split scoring margins from ESPN finals, opponent-adjusted. A recorded margin gate (at least 6, and never a favorite of more than 21; at least 9 in weeks 1–3) rode in every record without ever blocking a filing. Rule v1.1 added public opinion. The corrected baseline — away spreads had been graded backwards — flipped the program's verdicts, and Rule v1.2 switched the machine off: spreads reverted to the plain differential, the least-negative machine on the corrected record, and the factor pulls stopped at filing time.

Data and surfaces

Form and settlement read ESPN finals. Lines read The Odds API. The backtest corpus is the lab's canonical CollegeFootballData corpus — games and closing lines — and the AP Top 25 the situation factor read also came from CFBD. Since the prune, a weekly ratings-snapshot job (first run Monday, November 9, 2026) archives CFBD's SP, FPI and Elo ratings as they stand each week, so a future ratings method can be tested on data that was actually current at the time; the snapshot selects nothing today. The league page carries the filed picks, the combos layer's suggested parlays, a line-movement block (first captured line against the latest; the ledger's history begins November 5–6, 2026; display only) and the captured board, showing the next 20 games. College football has no per-league report; its settled record publishes on the sports results page.