Developer Portal

College Football Workflow Guide

Competition Feeds

Standings, Rankings, and Brackets

College Football standings records include total wins/losses, conference wins/losses, AP Poll and Coaches' Poll rankings. When the initial College Football Playoff rankings are released, these are also included in endpoints.

Current Season Standings:

Regular Season Standings - Includes wins and losses exclusively related to the regular season and stop updating once the postseason begins. In conjunction with the schedule, this can be used to build a playoff bracket, as described below.
Postseason Standings - Includes wins and losses exclusively related to the postseason and do not carry over any regular season wins and losses. Note that this does not include information to build a playoff bracket; that information can be found within the Schedules & Gameday Info feed alongside the regular season standings.

College Football Bowl Season & Playoff Bracket:

When the college football playoff bracket is announced, our Schedules & Game Day Info feed can be used to create your own playoff view. Polls are updated shortly after their official release, usually on Sunday afternoons during the season. The PlayoffRank field should be used to determine the playoff bracket.

As of the 2024-25 season there is a new 12-team playoff:

The top five ranked Conference Champions qualify.
The top seven highest-ranked teams (at-large teams) according to the College Football Playoff Poll also qualify.

Bracket Construction:

First Round (PlayoffRank-based):

Teams ranked 1 through 4 receive first-round byes.
PlayoffRank 8 hosts 9.
PlayoffRank 7 hosts 10.
PlayoffRank 6 hosts 11.
PlayoffRank 5 hosts 12.

Quarterfinals:

Winner of 8 vs. 9 faces PlayoffRank 1.
Winner of 7 vs. 10 faces PlayoffRank 2.
Winner of 6 vs. 11 faces PlayoffRank 3.
Winner of 5 vs. 12 faces PlayoffRank 4.

Semifinals:

Winner of 1 vs. 8/9 faces winner of 4 vs. 5/12.
Winner of 2 vs. 7/10 faces winner of 3 vs. 6/11.

College Football National Championship:

Semifinal winners compete for the championship.

Teams, Players & Rosters

College Football rosters are actively managed throughout the offseason based on transfer portal activity and player movement reports. Rosters are typically finalized in mid-to-late July, with some teams being finalized in August closer to the start of the season. Note that rosters are managed for each FBS team, as well as any FCS team playing an FBS opponent in the upcoming season.

Player Profiles include data fields such as name, position, class (senior, redshirt freshman, etc) jersey, height/weight, and hometown.
The Key field for each team is unique and may not align with the widely-accepted team abbreviation used in the media. For the commonly-used team abbreviations, use the ShortDisplayName field.
- For example, the Florida State Seminoles' team key is 'FLST', while their ShortDisplayName is 'FSU'.
All CFB PlayerID's start with 500.

Available Data Points

A full list of available data fields can be found here:

Venues & Officials

Venues:

While CFB venues remain relatively static, when a neutral site is scheduled to host a game, SportsdataIO creates a new profile for each new venue and adds it to the CFB venues feed.
Throughout the season, there are a number of College Football games hosted at neutral venues. Use the NeutralVenue field to determine if a game is being played at a neutral venue.
If a team is playing in a stadium used in other sports, the StadiumID for CFB is not guaranteed to align with the StadiumID used in the other sport.

Officials:

SportsDataIO does not track college football officials.

Event Feeds

Schedules & Gameday Info

Regular Season Schedule

College Football schedules initially released individually by schools and sometimes by conferences. Once all schedule information is published, including game times, our records are updated to reflect.

Occasionally, neutral-site regular season games may have home and away teams listed inconsistently across various sources. SportsDataIO attempts to align with industry standards, but to maintain data stability and avoid deleting previously created games, we do not guarantee complete alignment with all external sources. In situations where a GameID must be removed and re-created, SportsDataIO will proactively notify clients of the change.

Bowl Season

GameID's for College Football bowl games are created shortly after the matchups are announced. This goes for all bowl games as well as the National Championship Game.
When the bowl season schedule is announced by the NCAA, SportsDataIO monitors for the announcement so we can create all bowl games within our Schedules feed for clients to access.
All College Football Playoff games will fall under the Week parameter of 1 for a given postseason. A season type parameter example for the College Football postseason is 2025POST.
GameID's will be created for upcoming College Football Playoff games once both teams are known.
College Football feeds do not support a GlobalGameID
The current week during the CFB season will go to the next one on Tuesday's at 1 am ET.

Scores & Game State

Scores and Game State are updated live during all games, along with the final score being provided after the game is completed and verified.

Score includes the score for every quarter plus the final score for both teams.
Game State includes things like score current period, time remaining, possession, down & distance, if the ball is in the red zone, and if the game is in overtime.

Final Only (No Game State)

Final score results are delivered after the event is final and are delivered in quarterly and total score values. Final scores are available around 5-10 minutes after each game concludes.
A full list of available score details can be found here:
- Game
- ScoreBasic

Live & Final (With Game State)

Live Game coverage is delivered when an event "Status" field switches from "Scheduled" to "InProgress".
Game State data is updated alongside all other live in-game data, with a delay approximately 30-60 seconds behind TV broadcast.
Live scores are delivered in half and total score values.
Final Scores are available at the conclusion of each event.
If a game has multiple overtimes, you can see how many overtimes there were by using the Name field in the Quarter object.
A full list of available game state details can be found here:
- Game
- ScoreBasic

Teams & Player Stats

Team and Player Stats are managed on a game by game basis as well as season long totals. Stats are updated in season for every game, along with detailed Box Score level information for each particular game.

Final Only

CFB team and player stats are delivered after the event is final - typically 5-10 minutes after each game concludes.
Each game's final player stats are added to a player's and team's Season Stats once the game's final player stats are verified by our team (approximately 1 hour after each game is completed).
A full list of available stats can be found here:

Live & Final

CFB team and player Game Stats delivered as "Live" include live stat updates throughout the game, typically 15-20 seconds behind the TV broadcast.
Each game's final player stats are added to a player's and team's Season Stats once the game's final player stats are verified by our team (approx 1 hour after each game is completed).
A full list of available stats can be found here:
- PlayerGame
- TeamGame

Player Feeds

Injuries

SportsDataIO monitors official injury wires for each FBS team, as well as trusted media sources, to determine the latest injury status of each player. While official sources are always preferred, credible media reports are also used to ensure we are up to date.

A handful of conferences release official injury reports that include injury statuses for teams that are included within the conference. These injury reports are monitored throughout the week leading up to games and records are updated to reflect.
- The BIG10 and Mid-American conferences release official injury reports for all teams within their conference.
- The SEC conference releases an injury report for all games between two SEC opponents.
Injuries are actively managed during the regular season and postseason. During the offseason, only players with serious injuries who are expected to miss games during the upcoming season will be managed.

Key fields that should be consulted:
- InjuryStatus: A player's game status (Probable, Questionable, Doubtful, or Out).
- InjuryBodyPart: The body part affected.
- InjuryStartDate: The date at which the player's injury was first verified.
- InjuryNotes: A written description of the player's injury (e.g. "Burns is dealing with a neck injury and will not take the field for the Red Raiders.")

Note that while this written description may contain a predicted return date, this is neither a statistical value returned as a date field, nor one that is guaranteed to be correct. By its nature, projecting returns from injuries is an inexact science, and thus these notes should be used only for guidance.

Betting Feeds

Game Lines

Game lines (spread, moneyline, totals) available as both pre-match and in-play, including timestamps for opening price, all line movement changes, and closing price, with optional resulting available as an add-on.

Odds are made available when sportsbooks publish opening lines, typically starting Sunday of each game week.
Includes full-game odds markets plus partial game lines such as halves and quarters.

Pre-Game Lines

Includes full-game odds markets plus partial game lines such as halves and quarters. Does not include resulting of game line markets.

College Football Odds are generally published around five days out from the game in question.
For the regular Saturday games, odds will start filtering in late on the previous Sunday and throughout the day on Monday.
For certain CFB games, sportsbooks will decide not to put out a moneyline due to the game unlikely to be competitive.

Pre-Game Lines Plus

Includes full-game odds markets plus partial game lines such as halves and all line movement for pre game odds markets.

Odds markets are available from 20+ sports books including a consensus line for each type of odds market.
Pre-game full game odds and partial game game odds results are available 5-10 minutes following the conclusion of each game once all stats are verified.
See our Aggregated Odds resulting guide for more.

Resulting: See our Betting Guide for available markets with resulting and how it works.

Line Movement: The Betting Guide also explains how to access the Betting Market endpoints to view an individual market's movement.

In-Play Lines

In-play betting markets, including spread, moneyline, and totals are available immediately following the start of each game as the sportsbooks make them available. Odds markets are available from 20+ sports books including a consensus line for each type of odds market. Does not include resulting of game line markets.

In-game odds will begin to populate for moneyline, point spread, and over/under once the game begins.
Halftime lines are available through the In-Game Odds endpoint.
- To retrieve these odds, you'll need to call the endpoint during halftime. The lines will continuously update throughout halftime and into the second half. Once the game resumes, you can either stop calling the endpoint or continue to received updated odds as the second half plays out. If you would like to know when the game has reached halftime, please refer to the Quarter field in the Game object.

In-Play Lines Plus

Resulting: See our Betting Guide for available markets with resulting and how it works.

Line Movement: The Betting Guide also explains how to access the Betting Market endpoints to view an individual market's movement.

Props

Includes Player, Game, and Team Props available as both pre-match including timestamps for opening price, all line movement changes, and closing price, with optional resulting available as an add-on.

Team, Game, and Player Props are all covered for each game, where available by law.
CFB prop markets are generally made available 48 to 24 hours before game time, depending on the preceding game calendar.

Props Plus

See our CFB integration guide for all available Props odds markets with resulting.
Pre-game props results are available 10-15 minutes following the conclusion of each game once all stats are verified.
Line movement is available for all Prop betting markets.

Resulting: See our Betting Guide for available markets with resulting and how it works.
Line Movement: The Betting Guide also explains how to access the Betting Market endpoints to view an individual market's movement.

Futures

Team, Player, and Season futures such as win totals, Heisman, College Playoff Winner and many others are available are available at the start of each season and include timestamps for opening price, all line movement changes, and closing price, with new markets added as the season progresses.

Odds are made available when sportsbooks publish opening lines, typically starting in the off season after schedules are released all the way through the conclusion of the College Football Playoff.

Matchups, Trends & Splits

Matchups and Trends leverage our vast historical database to calculate all the traditional information found on a betting match up page.

Matchups, Trends & Splits are generated and updated on a daily basis.

Matchup Stats

Match up details begin to populate about a week before a game is scheduled to begin.

We provide betting trends by matchup between two teams, showing historical and recent results for the teams in question, including standings, split standings, and other trends.
Include team trends from the last 3/5/10 games - wins/loss/ties, history against the spread, average score, and opponent score.

Betting Splits

Betting Splits provide the percentage of bets placed on either side of the line and the percentage of the money wagered on either side of the line.

Pre-Match betting splits are available for Money Line, Spread, and Total for all available games where data is published.
Betting Splits are a representation of bets and dollars made on published lines, this data typically becomes available after the lines have been published and wagers have been made and the wager information has been collected.
College Football Betting Splits begin to populate shortly after Game lines are posted and action is taken by the sportsbooks. Betting Splits are available at the discretion of sportsbooks making the data available.

News & Images

Previews, Recaps & Breaking News

Previews, Recaps, and Breaking News are available all year round. Your SportsDataIO Client Manager can facilitate an introduction with appropriate news partners. These feeds are accessed directly through partner sites and not SportsDataIO endpoints.

Editorial Wire Service: This includes more than 30,000 long-form content pieces in total across all leagues (previews, recaps, breaking news) with an associated image attached to each article. Please contact us to learn more about how we can connect you with newswire articles.
Custom News: For bespoke articles created to fit your project, please contact us.
AI-generated news: For procedurally-generated news based on data inputs, please contact us.

Player Headshots

Headshots are officially licensed in partnership with multiple licensed image providers and are updated leading up to the start of each season to capture new players and rookies being added as those images become available.

All of our headshots are cropped 1200x1200 pixels with 300 resolution.
Headshots are the property of the photographers that take them and the publishers that make them available, and as such we work with major providers to ensure that we have the best in licensed headshots.

College Football headshots are available through an integration with our partners. SportsDataIO's Client Management team can facilitate this introduction.

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