Bettor Ed College Football Playoff Simulator

• What is the College Football Playoff Simulator?

 

The college football playoff simulator uses team power ratings, home-field advantage, and the 12-team bracket format to run thousands of fake playoffs. It shows how often each team wins the title and what that would look like in American odds. You pick the seeds, choose a rating system, and can edit ratings yourself.

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• How do you calculate game win probabilities?

 

For each matchup, the simulator:

1. Looks at the difference in power ratings between the two teams

2. Treats that difference like a point spread

3. Uses a spread-to-win-probability distribution built from historical college football data

For first-round games, the home team also gets a small boost to its win probability. All later rounds are treated as neutral fields.

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• How does the simulator run the playoff bracket?

 

The bracket follows the 12-team format:

- Seeds 1–4 get a bye

- 5 vs 12, 6 vs 11, 7 vs 10, 8 vs 9 in the first round (higher seed at home)

- Winners face the top four seeds in the quarterfinals

- Then semifinals and a title game on neutral fields

- One simulation run plays out the entire bracket once. We repeat this thousands of times and track how often each team wins the championship.

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• Are these playoff projections “right”?

They’re “right” for what the model assumes: that power ratings capture team strength, that rating differences map to win probabilities using past spread data, and that home-field only matters in round one. Real life can differ because of injuries, game plans, weather, and randomness. Use this as a clear, math-based baseline—not a guarantee of the actual playoff results.