Study · College football 2026 · 12 Sep to 27 Oct
Big favourites
keep winning.
College football teams priced at 80% or more were expected to win about 102 of their 117 games. They won 110.
363 games with closing prices from 3 or more books, 12 September to 27 October 2026 · Published 29 October 2026 ·
Free to quote under CC BY 4.0
College football2026
87.5%
Big favourites priced
Favourites
by price.
The ends of the table beat their price: favourites in close games and big favourites both won more than their odds said. The middle bands came in a little under.
| Favourite's price | Games | Priced to win | Won | Lost |
|---|
| 50-60% | 86 | 55.3% | 60.5% | 34 |
| 60-70% | 78 | 65.2% | 62.8% | 29 |
| 70-80% | 82 | 75.4% | 72.0% | 23 |
| 80-90% | 75 | 84.7% | 92.0% | 6 |
| 90% and up | 42 | 92.6% | 97.6% | 1 |
| All favourites | 363 | 72.4% | 74.4% | 93 |
Between 60% and 80% the favourites won a little less than priced. From 80% up they won clearly more: 7 losses in 117 games, when
the prices allowed for about 15.
Seven big
upsets.
Only seven teams priced at 80% or more have lost. Six of them were at home.
| Favourite | Priced to win | Lost to | Final |
|---|
| Oregon Ducks (away) | 92.5% | Oklahoma State Cowboys | 31-39 |
| Georgia Bulldogs (home) | 89.6% | Auburn Tigers | 24-27 |
| Temple Owls (home) | 89.2% | Charlotte 49ers | 31-38 |
| Toledo Rockets (home) | 88.6% | Buffalo Bulls | 8-23 |
| Texas A&M Aggies (home) | 86.0% | Kentucky Wildcats | 21-31 |
| Troy Trojans (home) | 82.5% | UL Monroe Warhawks | 14-21 |
| Texas Longhorns (home) | 80.9% | Florida Gators | 24-27 |
Final shows the favourite's score first.
Home field
week by week.
Home teams were priced to win 58.3% of these games and won 61.7%, or 224 of 363. Home favourites were priced at 74.3% and won 78.6%
of 229 games.
| Week of | Games | Home priced | Home won | Home wins |
|---|
| Sat 12 September | 52 | 66.0% | 69.2% | 36 |
| Sat 19 September | 43 | 65.1% | 72.1% | 31 |
| Sat 26 September | 58 | 54.2% | 53.4% | 31 |
| Sat 3 October | 51 | 53.7% | 56.9% | 29 |
| Sat 10 October | 49 | 57.5% | 57.1% | 28 |
| Sat 17 October | 55 | 55.4% | 58.2% | 32 |
| Sat 24 October | 53 | 57.8% | 67.9% | 36 |
| Midweek 27 October | 2 | 60.0% | 50.0% | 1 |
| All | 363 | 58.3% | 61.7% | 224 |
Each week runs Tuesday to Monday, so Thursday, Friday and late Saturday games count with their weekend.
Is it
real?
The big-favourite pattern is the classic one in college football: the market tends to price lopsided games a little too close.
Home teams are 3.4 points over their price. If we resample the games 4,000 times, that gap lands between 0.9 points under and
7.7 points over, 95 times in 100, so home field may be a touch underpriced but it is not settled yet. We will update this page as
the season runs.
This week's
college games.
Every game with the chance in plain words and the best price we found. Free.
See college football picks
More on college football at Bet Better: free college football picks, college football prop bets, college football parlays, college football odds, how to bet on college football.
Player bets are on the college football player props page.
How we
measured.
The method
We took the closing moneyline for every college football game from 12 September to 27 October 2026 that had prices from at least
three sportsbooks (about ten on average). Each book's two prices were turned into chances, then scaled so the two teams add up
to 100%, which removes the book's cut. We averaged the books for each game and matched it to the final score. "Home" is the
home team named by the books, so a few neutral-site games are included as listed.
On the Brier score (the average squared error of a chance; a coin flip scores 0.250), the closing prices scored 0.1747, better
than the 0.1832 they expected of themselves, because the big favourites won more often than the prices said.
Cite this study
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