Running a College Football Pick'em Pool: Top 25, Rivalry Week and Bowls

College football is the best and worst sport for a pick'em pool. The best because every Saturday has something worth watching; the worst because there can be 60 games on the slate and nobody wants to pick all of them.

Shrink the slate

The most popular fix is a Top 25 pool: only games with a ranked team count. That keeps each week to a manageable number of picks while still including the games people actually talk about. On Sports Picker, a Top 25 pool includes every game with a team ranked that week, plus every bowl and College Football Playoff game.

Spreads make blowouts interesting

A ranked team hosting a much weaker opponent is an easy pick. If your group finds that boring, run the pool against the spread, where the favorite has to win by enough to cover. Suddenly a 35-point favorite is a real decision.

Rivalry week and conference championships

The last weeks of the regular season are when college football pools are won and lost. A confidence pool rewards people who know which rivalry games are true toss-ups and which are not.

Bowl season

Bowl games are spread out over a few weeks, with opt-outs and coaching changes making them hard to predict. Many groups treat bowl season as its own mini-pool, or keep the season standings going and let the bowls shake things up. The national championship makes a natural tiebreaker: predict the winning margin.

Keep it simple for casual fans

Not everyone follows a dozen conferences. Showing each team's ranking and record next to the pick helps casual players make reasonable choices, and picks locking at each game's kickoff means nobody has to be done by noon Eastern.

See how a college football pick'em pool works on Sports Picker, or start one before next Saturday.

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