College Football / Picks

Why the spread confidence sits near 50%

We spent weeks building a college football spread model, published its leans, graded them in public, and printed the record at the top of this page. So we ran the test that settles the question. Over 1,017 games, we checked whether our number predicted the final margin once you already knew the closing line:

margin = 0.76 + (−0.084 × our model) + (1.059 × the market)

The market's weight is 1.06, which is what an efficient closing line looks like. Ours is negative. Our rating did not just fail to add anything on top of the closing line, it was very slightly worse than useless. We then swept every setting that could have caused it, six shrinkage values, three blowout caps, three recency weightings. Every single one landed between 46% and 50% against the spread. Not one cleared the 52.4% you need to break even.

So we print the real number. Every game still gets a spread pick, and its confidence is what our testing supports: a fraction of a point from 50%. The winner pick is the betting favorite, which picked more winners in our tests than any rating we built. Our totals number failed the same test, so we publish no totals leans.

Want the thing that actually wins? See the MLB first-inning board →