NCAA Football Picks & Predictions

In this guide, we’ll discuss some critical information and strategies so that you can make the most informed decisions and give yourself the most value on the 2025/26 college football season.

NCAA Football Season Picks and Betting Tips

This has already been a college football season like no other, and it’s going to continue to be that way. This is now the second season of the new format with the playoff being expanded to 12 teams, which means that every power conference as well as the best Group of 5 champion, will have a spot in the main tournament.

The injustice that happened to Florida State in the 2023-2024 season, when the Seminoles finished the year undefeated but didn’t get a shot at the championship, won’t be possible this season. 

And that means there are a lot of new bets to make and a lot of strategies to consider when it comes to how to approach your NCAA football betting strategy. No longer can you simply take a team that’s riding high and figure that it’s going to have to win two games in the playoff and call it a day. This season begins with some changes as the first-round byes are awarded to the top four seeds overall, no matter of their conference champion status. Previously, the first four highest-ranked conference champion teams were awarded the byes. 

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National Championship Prediction: Who will win the 2025-26 College Football Playoff?

Is it better to get toughened up by the meat grinder that is the SEC, as will happen with the likes of Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee? Or is it better to face a couple of tough tests here and there, while getting a few lesser games thrown in to give players time to recover, like Kansas State? 

What we learned from last season's changes is that the College Football Playoff’s new format allows for some interesting mixing up. Previously, nobody had to win more than two playoff games to win the title, so teams are still learning to adapt to multiple weeks of preparation. 

So the best way to approach this is to look at the teams and what they bring to the table. A good place to start is to look at the teams that are currently in the top 10 nationally. College football is a sport where it’s very difficult to change public perception. Perception won’t matter as much with the expanded playoff now granting four automatic bids, but it takes a lot of wins to change the thinking about a team that wasn’t expected to be good.

That’s one reason why only six of the past 36 national champions didn’t start the year in the top 10 nationally that season. When it comes to expectations, the voters have a pretty good track record.

Four teams come into the season as undisputed favorites: Texas, Ohio State, Georgia, and Penn State. All of them possess first-level recruiting classes, return experience, and established coaching stability. Texas goes into the season as the number one team, but Ohio State and Penn State possess the weaponry to compete for Big Ten dominance.

Georgia, in the meantime, continues to be an annual fixture of the SEC, hoping to return to the summit once again. Aside from this main contingent, established giants like Alabama and newcomers like Texas A&M are touted as deadly long shots who can upset the predicted outcome.

The title game seems bound and determined to travel through Texas and Ohio State. Each of these rosters boasts the kind of NFL-level talent and advantageous schedules to gain high playoff seedings. The bye benefit may prove the deciding factor in the postseason slog.

• Our pick for the College Football National Championship is: Ohio State

NCAAF Title Odds: Who are the favorites?

• Texas +550
• Georgia +650
• Ohio State +650
• Penn State +700
• Alabama +950
• Clemson +1200
• LSU +1300
• Oregon +1400
• Notre Dame +1500
• Michigan +3300
• Texas A&M +3300
• Florida +3500
• Miami (FL) +4000
• Ole Miss +4000
• Oklahoma +4500
• Auburn +5000
• South Carolina +6500
• USC +7000
• Tennessee +7500
• Louisville +8000
• SMU +10000
• Arizona State +12500
• Indiana +12500
• Nebraska +15000
• Kansas State +15000

Odds courtesy of FanDuel

National Championship Contenders: Who are the top NCAAF teams this year?

A number of programs are the front-runners this season. Texas enters the season on an absolute tear, due in large part to high-scoring offense, leadership, and a blue-chip-laden roster.

The Longhorns are looking to follow through on the idea that their resurgence to national prominence wasn't luck, and they have the schedule-strength to support it. Side by side, they appear to be set up to make another title run, featuring one of the deepest rosters in the nation and the parity on offense and defense that makes them an annual contender.

Penn State has also become a serious title contender, featuring one of the best defenses in college football and an offense that continues to evolve behind young, dynamic playmakers. The Nittany Lions have been playing catch-up behind their Big Ten rivals, but this season might finally provide the spark they've been waiting for.

Georgia, also, is right in the picture. Having secured multiple national championships in the recent past, the Bulldogs possess experience, guidance, and depth to get through the tough SEC schedule and come back into the playoffs with titles in mind.

Even though those four programs are the leader of the discussion, the Alabama and ascendant programs like Oregon, Texas A&M, and Notre Dame can't be ignored. The expanded postseason format allows more programs to become relevant in January, and a hot streak timed just right can get a sleeper into the championship equation.

Even so, the favorites are obvious: Texas, Ohio State, Penn State, and Georgia have the talent, depth, and momentum to form the championship charge, and likely create a thrilling finish to the season.

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Making the College Football Playoff

For the College Football Playoff, you only need to consider how likely a team is to make the playoff. The best way to do this is to group teams into two groups. In the first group, you should have the strongest teams that would likely make the playoff without winning their conference. The top seven teams who did not win a conference title are eligible for at-large bids. 

This is where you can put a second or third team from the SEC or Big Ten on your bet slip. However, be warned: since a team doesn’t have to win its conference to qualify, you’ll get much lower odds.

The second group is teams that aren’t getting in without winning their conference. This group will mostly be teams from the ACC or Big 12, plus the occasional Group of 5 team. For this group, you should consider odds carefully and ask if they have any real shot at qualifying without winning the league. If they don’t, you can get a better price by taking them to win their conference. It’s the same outcome in the end, but it pays higher.

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How to Bet on College Football

Before you start betting on college football, you need to know what the rules look like in your state. In some states, there are limitations on college sports that do not exist in professional sports. 

Some states, for example, don’t allow prop betting on college sports at all. If you want to bet on any props beyond quarter and half betting or team total points, you can’t. Other states will let you bet on props, but won’t offer any action on any game played by a team from that state. For example, if you’re in Virginia, you can never bet on games involving Virginia, Virginia Tech, James Madison, Liberty or Old Dominion unless you visit a neighboring state and place your bet there. 

Otherwise, you should find all the bets you’d expect from a standard American football game, with spreads, totals and moneylines the most common. Bowl bids and College Football Playoff spots will be handed out after the first Saturday in December, so you can cash some of your futures bets then.

Place your NCAAF bets at DraftKings

Popular College Football Bets

There are several different ways to make predictions for the college football season. These will mostly break down into two areas:

• Single-game betting 
• Season-long betting, also known as futures betting

Single-game bets are exactly what they sound like, making a bet on any one game. When the game ends, you’ve either won or lost based on your prediction, and you’ll collect any winnings accordingly. 

Futures betting can be tough on the average bettor because it requires you to tie up your bankroll for several months at a time. If you want to get a bet in on who’s going to win the national championship, for example, you’re going to have to wait until mid-January before you even get a chance to collect winnings from your bet. And to collect, your team will have to survive the season, get picked to be in the playoff and win the requisite games to claim the crown.

That’s why futures bets are so lucrative when you hit one: they require you to put up cash right away and then wait out any potential land mines. Singles bets simply end once the game is over, so if you’re not feeling so great about a certain team after seeing them in action, you can bet against them the next week with no worries.

But the lure of the big win is always going to draw in casual bettors. After all, you can usually turn $10 into $50-100 or more simply by rooting for your favorite team if this is their season. Most college football fans would gladly sign up for that, which leads to a key strategy when deciding who to bet and who to fade.

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College Football Betting Tips for Beginner Bettors

If you’re just getting started with college football betting this season, it’s understandable if this feels overwhelming. There’s a lot of information here, and the games come on the schedule quickly. When Saturday rolls around, there’s a window of about 10 hours where every major network is showing football of some kind. So it’s a good idea to simplify things and figure out the best ways to approach each game. Here are our top 5 tips for college football betting:

• Stick to Teams You Know
• Know the Critical Numbers
• Don’t Chase Losses
• Consider Rivalry Games Carefully
• Consider the Coaches

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Tip #1: Stick to Teams You Know

College football doesn’t have quite as many teams as college basketball, as only 134 teams play college football at the FBS level. So it’s a little easier to get to know teams, especially as there’s only ever one game per week per team. But there’s still a lot of information out there, and you’ll have a much easier time if you bet on teams you watch on a regular basis.

Tip #2: Know the Critical Numbers

In the era of analytics and next-gen stats, the critical numbers are becoming less critical than they once were, because coaches now might go for a 2-point conversion at earlier points in the game. But with the way points are scored in football, 3, 6 and 7 are crucial numbers in terms of the spread. For the total, multiples of seven are crucial to navigate properly.

This is why you’ll often see spreads of 3.5 in close games: the book is trying to cover itself by adding the half-point hook to the favorite’s expected margin of victory. If they win on a last-second field goal, they win by three and the book makes money on the cover. Make sure to pay attention and get on the right side of the hook if possible.

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Tip #3: Don’t Chase Losses

There’s a running gag in the sports betting community that when Hawai’i plays at home, it’s your last chance to make up for any losses you had that week. (Hawai’i home games usually kick off around 11 p.m. to midnight eastern, as the islands are either five or six hours behind Eastern time). But this is a really bad strategy, because when you’ve had a tough day, you’re more likely to bet with emotion. You should always bet strategically, not emotionally. Wait to make a bet until you’ve had a chance to approach it with a clear head.

Tip #4: Consider Rivalry Games Carefully

Rivalries are a huge part of college sports, and the emotions are naturally much higher when a rivalry game is involved. If the teams play for a traveling trophy or if it’s a traditional rivalry like Michigan vs. Ohio State, there’s going to be a lot of emotion involved on both sides. This can lead to surprising outcomes, so be careful.

Tip #5: Consider the Coaches

A good coach can win a game or two for their team each season by making smart play calls and using timeouts effectively. A bad coach tends to lose a game or two with undisciplined play from their team. When a team commits a lot of penalties, that’s a sign that it’s poorly coached.

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What not to do for College Football Predictions

College football betting is difficult, and it’s inevitable that you’re going to lose a few bets here and there. The best thing you can do is reduce your risk by studying your bets and making intelligent plays. And the best way to do that is to avoid making easily avoidable errors. 

Remember, sportsbooks study each game carefully before setting a line. They usually don’t make mistakes, and their line is set where it is for a reason. So you want to make sure you don’t rush your bets. Here are a few mistakes to avoid:

• Ignore the injury report: No sport has more injuries than football, and no sport can be impacted faster by injury than football. Be sure that you know who’s going to be playing, especially at the skill positions. Remember, no position in football means more than quarterback.
• Forget about location: Knowing where the game is being played is part of the equation. 100,000 people can be intimidating for a visiting team, and a fired-up home crowd can spur an underdog to victory. Tread carefully with road favorites.
• Blindly bet favorites: Favorites are not a sure thing, even on the moneyline. When you make a play on the favorite, you’re doing so at a steeper price to cover the higher probability of their victory. But upsets happen in college sports, and backing a favorite for no reason other than probability isn’t a good strategy.
• Betting teams you don’t know: When you don’t know how teams play, it’s difficult to make an informed wager on or against them. Don’t rush into a game just because it’s on television.
• Playing too many parlays: Parlay bets are difficult to win. Don’t try to play them too often, and when you do, don’t put too many legs in a parlay.
• Not comparing odds: Make sure to compare different sportsbooks to each other to get the best price. A half-point on the spread or a line of -105 instead of -110 might seem small, but they add up over time.

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Stats and facts to consider for NCAAF picks

The 2024-25 NCAAF statistics strongly confirmed one common trait for bettors: the home-field advantage. Having won just a little less than two-thirds of the total games by the home team and an average 4.5-point spread differential on home turf, the handicapper should strongly factor this into their considerations when handicapping the spread. Here are the most common results from last season:

• Home wins: 64%
• Away wins: 36%
• Average points: 54.6 points per game
• Over 40.5 points: 79.7%
• Under 40.5 points: 20.3%
• Over 50.5 points: 60.2%
• Under 50.5 points: 39.8%
• Over 60.5 points: 39.1%
• Under 60.5 points: 60.9%
• Over 70.5 points: 22.9%
• Under 70.5 points: 77.1%
• Quarter with most points: 2nd quarter (approximately 28%)
• Percentage of points in the first half: 52%
• Percentage of points in the second half: 48%
• Average points by home team: 29.6
• Average points by away team: 25.2
• Games decided by 14+ points: 54.8%
• Games decided by 1 possession or less: 34.4%
• Most common final score range: 27–24, 31–20

Laying points on a home favorite feels safer than backing a comparable road ensemble. Even home underdogs were tougher opponents than their counterparts on the road on a regular basis, a testament to home-field being among the safest bettor edges to take advantage of.

Totals wagering also presented lucrative opportunities. The average game yielded just shy of 55 points, and about 80% of games went over the 40.5-point line, with about 60% exceeding 50.5. This would indicate that favoring the over, when books had posted modest totals in the low-50s especially, was the better bet. 

That said, the figures would show that overs greater than 60.5 occurred less than 40% of the time, which would mean that bettors had to pick their spots when wagering on high totals. This data would indicate an even-keel approach: wager on overs on modest lines but favor unders when books overprice games into the 60s or 70s.

Lastly, the margin-of-victory trends explain why wagering on large favorites was ultimately rewarded. Over half of the games were won by 14 points or more, and just slightly less than a third remained within one possession. This skewing toward one-sided outcomes indicates value in wagering on strong programs to cover even large margins, since blowout wins were the norm. 

On the flip side, those who routinely wagered on underdogs, particularly double-digit underdogs, probably suffered. 

As bettors, the figures indicate toward respecting favorites and leaning on greater-scoring conditions, yet being skeptical of bloated totals and long shots.

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Conclusion: How to Get Your College Football Predictions Right

Knowing your information and sticking to your process will lead you to success more often than not. Remember, the season is a marathon, not a sprint, and there will always be chances to make up for a bad bet. If you lose a tough bet on Saturday night, there will be another game on Thursday to make it up after you can clear your mind. In some parts of the season, you’ll even have that option on Tuesdays. 

If you’re trying to find information, we’ve got everything you’ll need here. Our sports experts provide free picks for most college football games every week, based on analytics, key statistics and their own analysis of what’s happening each week. You can trust you’re getting the same information they use themselves, and you can use it to find the play you want. 

Once you take a look at the information we have available to you, you’ll be ready to scan the sportsbooks for a wager that looks good to you and take advantage of what you know about the matchup.

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Our current NCAAF Picks

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NCAAF: Best Odds

Odds are not yet available for this competition.