Back
How To Bet On College Football (NCAAF) | LeoVegas

College Football (NCAAF) Betting Guide

The National Collegiate Athletic Association Football league (NCAAF), or college football as it is commonly known, is part of the overall NCAA championships that cover a wide range of popular sports in North America. In this College Football betting guide, we will describe what the NCAAF is, how it works, explain how to bet on College Football, how to read the betting odds and markets, and offer some College Football betting tips.

Table of Content:

BET NOW ON NCAAF

How To Bet On NCAAF

Betting on the NCAAF is straightforward. First you must navigate your way to the sports betting page and select ‘Browse sports’. From there, you might have to select ‘More’ and then choose ‘American Football’. You can then scroll down to the NCAAF option to see what markets are available for you to choose from. College Football betting markets cover ‘Live’ (if there are games in play), ‘Outright’ and ‘Events’.

NCAAF Betting Lines

If you want to get involved with some NCAAF betting and want to learn how to bet on College Football, knowing what all the betting lines are will certainly help. One of the most popular NCAA Football betting lines is the outright College Football National Championship winner. This means you can bet on who you think will be crowned as the overall FBS winner.

You can also gamble on individual games and wager on who you think will win those games. These include ‘money line’ bets, where you are simply betting on the winner of a game.

You can also bet on the total points that might be scored in a game, or why not explore parlays, which is a bet that combines multiple wagers into one bet by rolling over the winnings from each individual bet into the next leg of a gamble. Or why not look into a ‘Teaser’ bet, which is a type of parlay.

NCAAF Betting Tips

One important thing to bear in mind, which is a common misconception, is to assume NCAA football betting is similar to NFL betting. The NCAA football season is one of the most packed schedules of any sport in the US, so you will have many betting markets to wager on almost every day. This is why early research is so important, so you can be ready to react to whatever game you want to wager on.

However, although the actual NCAA football season is short, covering less than six months of the calendar, NCAA Football betting can be done all year round. You can start to read previews of the pre-season futures, player performance specials, right up to expert picks on who might win the College Football National Championship.

One other NCAAF Betting tip is to consider the ‘total points’ market because NCAA Football games are generally more-wide open compared to NFL games, so higher scores are regularly seen. Betting on the over and under total points is a lot of fun. The most important thing overall is to enjoy your NCAA Football betting.

What Is NCAA Football league?

College football has been played in North America for more than a century and is now one of the most watched sports in the United States. The first college football game was played in 1869 but the sport has developed and evolved significantly over the years. The 1906 season was the first to be played under the IAAUS, which would later change its name to the NCAA.

Today, the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) is the highest level of college football in the US and consists of 11 conferences and 130 teams (schools). Unlike other NCAA divisions and subdivisions, the NCAA does not officially award an FBS national championship. Instead, organizations such as the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) rank the teams and crown a national champion, by taking a vote of sports writers and coaches.

As there were no playoffs to determine a champion, various cities hold their own post-season tournaments, which are called ‘bowl games’. Nowadays, agreements have been reached between the premier FBS conferences and bowl games to organize playoffs so that the FBS national championship is decided on the field.

NCAA Football Games

The basic rules of NCAA Football Games are similar to those played in the professional football league (NFL), but there are a few differences. For example, NCAAF games cannot end in a tie as they can in NFL games (unless it is a playoff game). NCAAF games will go into overtime if the scores are level at the end of the four quarters. Also, the clock stops after the first down in NCAAF games, but it continues to run in the NFL.

All plays are subject to review in the NCAAF, but in the NFL, only scoring plays, turnovers, and plays during the final two minutes are reviewable.

In the NCAAF, players only need to have one foot down for a pass to be considered as completed, whilst in the NFL, both feet need to be down. Plus, a defensive holding penalty is 10 yards in NCAAF, but only 5 yards in the NFL.

How Many Teams Play In The NCAAF?

There are 130 teams in the NCAA Football Subdivision (FBS), which is divided into 11 conferences, each covering a different area of the United States. These conferences are American Athletic, Atlantic Coast (ACC), Big Ten, Big 12, Conference USA (C-USA), Independent, Mid-American (MAC), Mountain West (MW), Pac-12, Southeastern (SEC), and Sun Belt (SBC).

NCAA Football Teams

The NCAAF is big business with some games attracting crowds of over 100,000 spectators. From the Big Ten in the north, down to the Southeastern Conference, the college football teams are always well supported. Some of the most popular teams include the Michigan Wolverines who averaged over 112,000 fans in one season for their home games at ‘The Big House’. The LSU Tigers have some of the rowdiest fans in the NCAAF, and average crowds of around 92,000 for home games at the Tiger Stadium, whilst the Nebraska Cornhuskers can boast a record of selling out 300 home games in a row.

The Ohio State Buckeyes, who play in Columbus, regularly get crowds of nearly 90,000, and the Alabama Crimson Tide can pull in fan numbers that exceed 100k. Other popular teams include the Texas A&M Aggies, the Florida Gators, Texas Longhorns, Oklahoma Sooners, and the Wisconsin Badgers.

NCAA College Football Season

Beginning in late August or early September, the NCAA Football league season, or FBS, will see most teams play 12 regular season games, with the majority of those fixtures coming against sides from the same conference.

All ten FBS conferences then hold a conference championship game to determine who is crowned winner of that conference. Only four teams will then be selected by the College Football Play-off Committee to appear in the College Football National Championships.

When Do NCAAF Playoffs And Finals Start?

The NCAA football league, or Division I FBS football regular season usually begins in late August and ends in mid-December, with the post season tournament beginning a few days later before culminating at the beginning of January with the relatively new College Football National Championships.

The College Football National Championships are used to determine a national champion of the NCAA Football league, or FBS, but has only been used since 2014-2015. It features the top four teams in the country, which have been determined by a selection committee. These four teams play in two semi-finals, sometimes called the ‘Plus-One system’ in a bid to reach the title game.

The winner of the title is awarded the College Football National Championship Trophy and was first won by Ohio State in January 2015. In fact, a ‘top-ranked’ school did not win the title until LSU won the sixth running of the play-offs.

Learn more about sports betting in our guides