Method

What KickTip does

KickTip plays out the rest of the college football season thousands of times, applies each conference's tiebreaker rules and the 12-team playoff rules to every simulated season, and counts how often each team reaches its title game, wins its conference and makes the 12. Everything is for information and entertainment only. See the full disclaimer.

The simulation

• A game counts as remaining until ESPN shows it final. Games that have started are shown with their score when we have it, get no pre-game numbers, and are still simulated as unplayed until the next daily refresh.
• We simulate the remaining 366 games (366 not yet started) 10,000 times. The same seed and the same data give the same answer.
• Each game's win probability comes from the gap in team strength plus a home-field adjustment fitted to this season's results. Neutral-site games get no home-field adjustment.
• After each simulated season we build the conference standings, break ties with the conference's own rules, pick the title-game teams, and then build the 12-team field.
• Chances are the share of simulated seasons in which something happened. A 30% chance means it happened in about 3 of every 10 simulated seasons.

The strength rating

Team strength comes from the KickTip team rating. It mostly measures what a team has earned: how hard its record would be to match against the same opponents in the same stadiums (Resume), how firmly it controlled games, and efficiency on offense and defense, with recent games counting a little more. It is built only from completed FBS game results this season (522 games so far), with no preseason starting point, no polls and no betting lines.

The model line and the market consensus

• Model line, KickTip analysis (not a market line). Our own number: the strength difference between the teams, plus home field, converted to points and rounded to 0.5. It is the same strength rating that drives the simulation. Negative means the home team is favored.
• Market consensus (The Odds API). We do not name or link to any sportsbook and we do not show prices. A second column shows only the median point spread across the books covered by The Odds API, a third-party data service, rounded to 0.5, with the number of books behind it. We show a line only when at least two books list one; a single-book line is hidden. We pull it about twice a day, show the time it was pulled in MT, and show it only where a line has been posted. Right now that is 48 of the 366 games that have not started.
• Neither number is a recommendation. KickTip does not recommend using any of this to place bets.

Each line names the favored team and the points it is favored by (in our data files a negative number means the home team is favored). The model line is fitted to games already played, so gaps of a point or two from the market are normal. Some games differ a lot (right now the biggest gap is 19.5 points), which means our rating and the market disagree about a team; treat those model lines with extra caution.

Tiebreakers

Each conference has its own tiebreaker policy, which we encode step by step. Where a policy uses a proprietary or committee ranking, KickTip's rating stands in for it. Back-test: run on the 2024 and 2025 regular seasons, the engine picked the same two title-game teams the conference actually sent in 16 of 18 cases; both misses were decided at a stand-in step. Conference pages list each step and the official sources.

• ACC
• American
• Big Ten
• Big 12
• Conference USA
• Independents
• MAC
• Mountain West
• Pac-12
• SEC
• Sun Belt

Where the data comes from

• Schedules, scores and conference membership: ESPN public data, cached and refreshed daily. If a source fails, the last good copy is used and the page shows when it was last updated.
• Rules: official conference tiebreaker policies (linked on each conference page).
• Market consensus: The Odds API (the-odds-api.com).
• Team, conference and league logos courtesy of ESPN. They are shown unaltered next to the team, conference or league name, a logo is removed on request, and no logo is used in ads, share images or the KickTip mark.
• The acceptance gate controls the pages and tools; the underlying data files are public.

Model last updated: Sat, Oct 24, 2026, 6:47 AM MT. Market consensus pulled: Oct 23, 2026, 10:15 PM MT. All times are Mountain Time.

Known limitations

• Steps that rely on SportSource, CFP rank or computer composites are approximated by KickTip's rating. Check each conference page for its flags.
• The MAC has published no 2026 tiebreaker revision, so we use its Nov. 2025 official text; the Mountain West's steps follow a published report of its rules.
• The simulation does not model injuries, suspensions, weather or postseason ineligibility.
• Scores are not simulated, only wins and losses, so scoring-margin tiebreakers use the rating instead.
• Playoff rule for 2026-27: the champions of the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC, the highest-ranked team from the other six conferences (champion or not), Notre Dame if ranked in the top 12, and the next highest-ranked teams fill the 12. The model uses this one rule for every number on the site, and uses the rating rank as a stand-in for the selection committee.
• A 'conference leader' stands in for the champion in the 'if the season ended today' bracket.
• Games against FCS opponents are counted in the simulation but shown without a win probability or line.