Do you want to use the same numbers oddsmakers do to make college football point spreads? Now is your chance, with The Action Network’s college football power ratings for all 130 teams.
Subtract the higher-rated team’s number from the lower-rated team’s to make the approximate point spread on a neutral field. You can read more about how many points each team is given for home-field advantage here.
Each team is assigned one composite number based on a variety of factors, each weighted differently. They include efficiency and explosiveness on offense and defense, returning production, defensive havoc, coaching, Pythagorean projections based on last season’s results and more.
Clemson has a 99.6 rating, while Ohio State comes in at 98.9. That means the Tigers would be favored by about a point on a neutral field if these two teams met in Week 1 of 2020.
You should take other factors into account, like public betting tendencies and positional mismatches, but our ratings are a great place to start.
Here are our power ratings after 2020 offseason adjustments.
2020 College Football Power Ratings
Why Are Some Ratings Different From Point Spreads?
There are many reasons why a point spread could vary. Oddsmakers shade lines for different reasons since they’re trying to come out ahead of bettors.
We’re just trying to show the relative difference in talent between two teams and capitalize on those oddsmaker tendencies that the betting public doesn’t normally consider.
Different power raters weigh different metrics more heavily, too.
We favor teams with explosive offenses and disruptive defenses, so you’ll see teams with those qualities appear higher in The Action Network’s power ratings than in many other places.
