Our call on each game is a predicted margin (shown as a spread), a total and a win chance, all from the GordStats ratings.
How it works
Margin: the home team's rating minus the visitor's, plus home field (none at a neutral site). Total: a second model rates how high- or low-scoring each team's games run; both teams' numbers are added to a typical game's total.
Win chance: on games it hadn't seen, the model typically missed by about 16 points. Allowing for misses that size (a normal distribution with a 16.07-point standard deviation), a 7-point favorite wins about 67% of the time.
The record: each prediction is saved before kickoff and graded on that number. Against the spread (DraftKings, via ESPN), a pick counts only when we differ from the book by 3+ points.
Keep in mind
Predicting all 4,238 FBS-vs-FBS games of 2020-25 from earlier games only, it picked 71.9% of winners. The closing line (the last line before kickoff) is sharper: its typical miss is 15.4 points to our 16.1, and our 3+ point disagreements won 49.3% against the spread, short of the 52.4% needed to profit.
It knows nothing about injuries, weather or depth charts.
When it updates
Four times a day, around 5:30 and 11:30 AM and PM Eastern, with every newly finished game and the latest lines.
For the curious
During a game, the schedule and each game page also show ESPN's live win probability, labeled as ESPN's; ours stays the number we set before kickoff.