About

This website is supposed to be for the College Football Nerds!

I think there is more of us than we would think. When I started thinking about what I wanted this site to be, I really just wanted a data aggregation layer. When I would gamble on games, I spent so much time obtaining disparate information across the web. I thought, someone has to have an overlay for when Alabama travels to Baton Rouge right? No. So I started building, and I wanted it to resemble the best data aggregator (besides Anduril ofc!), Palantir.

CFB Palantir is a data aggregation layer for college football betting. Built and run by a single operator. Please reach out if you want to contribute!

More from the author: joebarresi.dev.

Methodology and credits

All data comes from CollegeFootballData.com. The advanced stats on game pages are computed here from its play-by-play, drives and box scores, once a day after games finish. The definitions are other people's work, credited below. We use CFBD's expected-points model rather than building our own, so our numbers are close to, but won't exactly match, sites that use a different model.

How the numbers work

  • As of kickoff. A game page shows each team's numbers through the week before the game, so a finished game never counts its own result. A team with no games yet this season shows last season's final numbers, labeled as such.
  • FBS games only. Every team stat and rank counts FBS vs. FBS games. Ranks are among all FBS teams that have played, with ties shown as “T-#12”. Green is good for the unit it describes: a defense ranked #1 is the best defense.
  • EPA. Expected points added per play, from CFBD's PPA. Counts scrimmage plays only: runs, passes, sacks and scrambles, not kneels, spikes or special teams.
  • Success rate. A play is a success if it gains 50% of the yards needed on 1st down, 70% on 2nd, or 100% on 3rd and 4th. Bill Connelly's definition.
  • Explosive plays. A pass worth at least 2.4 EPA or a run worth at least 1.8, the thresholds GameOnPaper uses.
  • Havoc. The share of plays with a tackle for loss, sack, interception, forced fumble or pass breakup, as defined in sportsdataverse-py.
  • Available yards %. The share of the yards in front of each drive that the offense actually gained. From bcftoys.com, by way of GameOnPaper.
  • Adjusted EPA. EPA per play corrected for the opponents faced, from one ridge regression over the season's plays, refit each week on games played so far. Garbage time is left out using Connelly's score margins. A port of the method in sportsdataverse-py (MIT License, © 2021 Saiem Gilani).
  • Strength of schedule. The average adjusted strength of FBS opponents already played, and of those still to play. Built on the adjusted EPA above.
  • Negative plays. Sacks, interceptions, fumbles lost, turnovers and penalties per game, from CFBD box scores. “Committed” is what a team gave up; “forced” is what it took from opponents.

Credits

  • GameOnPaper, by Akshay Easwaran and Saiem Gilani: the spider chart and matchup table forms, and many of the definitions above.
  • Bill Connelly: success rate, garbage-time thresholds, and the radar chart form.
  • sportsdataverse-py (MIT License): adjusted EPA and the havoc definition.
  • bcftoys.com: available yards %.
  • CollegeFootballData.com: every piece of data on this site.

What's new

Oct 8, 2026

  • Negative plays on game pages

    Each team's sacks, interceptions, fumbles lost, turnovers and penalties per game, with an FBS rank on every number. You see both sides: what each offense gives away, and what each defense takes from opponents.

Oct 7, 2026

  • How the numbers work, and who we learned it from

    A new Methodology and credits section on this page explains every advanced stat on the game page: what it measures, how it's counted, and whose definition it is. The stats tables and charts now credit their sources right underneath.

  • Game-page news that's actually about the game

    News tagging now reads each post instead of matching names, and a post only shows up on a game if it's mainly about one of the two teams and about football. Fewer volleyball scores, fewer posts that just mention a school in passing.

Sep 30, 2026

  • Matchup spider charts

    A new Matchup Radar tab on every game page. Each team's offense is drawn over the other team's defense across nine stats, every one a percentile against all FBS teams, so you can see at a glance where each side has the edge.

  • Who covered, and over or under, on the slate

    Once a game is final, its slate card marks which side covered the spread and whether the total went over or under. A team that lost but covered no longer looks like it lost the bet.

Sep 24, 2026

  • Advanced stats on every game page

    The Overview is now one table with an FBS rank on every number, colored green to red. It shows each offense and defense by opponent-adjusted EPA, EPA per play, yards per play and success rate, plus how tough each team's schedule has been and still is, and offense-vs-defense matchup rows: passing, rushing, field position, early downs and third downs. Numbers are as of kickoff, so an old game shows what we knew going in.

  • Quarterbacks and Game Breakers

    The Star Players section was rebuilt. Each starting QB gets efficiency stats with FBS ranks and a strip of his last eight starts, and each team's top playmakers and most disruptive defenders are ranked nationally at their position.

Sep 23, 2026

  • Schedules line up week by week

    On a game's Schedule tab, the two teams' seasons now sit row for row, so the same week is always side by side, byes and Week 0 included.

  • A new layout, and a Players page

    Navigation moved to a sidebar on the left, grouped into This week, Browse and More. Shrink it to icons on a laptop, or open it from the menu button on a phone. Every page now has a footer with links to every section, and there's a new Players page listing everyone on a 2026 roster, ranked by production and searchable by name.

Sep 16, 2026

  • Initial redesign of the players page

  • Easier section switching on phones

    The section picker on game and team pages now stands out on a phone, so you can tell it's there and jump to News, Schedule, Odds, or Transfers.

Sep 9, 2026

  • Travel and rest added to game detail page

Sep 7, 2026

  • The Grid: see the slate in beauty

    We have all seen those fire twitter graphics showing all the games across the channel. I added a new page that does that for us. Now lets prosper

Sep 5, 2026

  • News on game and team pages

    Beat-writer posts now surface where you are already looking. Every game page has a News tab carrying posts about either team, up to two days after kickoff, and every team page has a News section with that team's most recent coverage. Posts render as real embedded X posts, in whichever theme you are using. Coverage is uneven for now — it follows the writers the news lane tracks, so some teams have plenty and many have none yet.

  • Travel distances and stadium pages

    Every stadium now has its own page with capacity, surface, roof, elevation, and the season's games there. The tracking page gained a longest-trips panel: who is flying the farthest this week, counting both teams when a game is at a neutral site.

  • New Tracking Page

    The weekly tracking view: line movement, poll movers, top players is now live. I hope to continue to build it out to provide value..

  • Breadcrumbs on every page

    A single row at the top of each page showing the path you actually walked, not a generic hierarchy. It replaces the lone "back to week" button that used to exist on game pages only. I hope this makes navigating the site easier