EDGE LABS Market intelligence Win totals, conference winners, and championship futures, priced against five seasons of CFB data. We walk every team's actual 2026 schedule, put a number on it, and post a lean wherever our number and the market number disagree by a wide margin. Every lean carries its market source and the data behind it. Season starts Aug 29.
Market numbers: BetMGM, DraftKings, Caesars via VegasInsider, captured Aug 13, 2026. Our numbers: the EL Preseason Rating v1, same date.
| Team | Market | Our lean | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | Win total 9.5over +108 to +120 | UNDER 9.5 | Our composite walks the full 2026 SEC slate and comes back at 7.78 wins, after crediting the roster everything the model can see. The schedule math still leaves 9.5 nearly two wins out of reach. |
| LSU | Win total 8.5over -115 to -118 | UNDER 8.5 | The market prices the brand at 8.5. Our number comes back 7.19, and returning production sits below the FBS average, which argues under on its own. |
| Southern Miss | Win total 3.5over -120 to -139 | OVER 3.5 | The quietest number on the board. Returning production is the driver here, one of the strongest continuity profiles in the group, and our number says 5.28 wins on a 3.5 line. |
| Oklahoma State | Win total 6.5over +115 to +120 | UNDER 6.5 | The widest gap on the board. Returning production grades 2.46 rating points below the FBS average, the prior season costs another 8.90, and the schedule walk comes back at 3.01 wins against 6.5. |
| UCLA | Win total 6.5over +110, Caesars hangs 5.5 | UNDER 6.5 | The model charges 2.1 rating points for the first year staff and last season sits 5.29 below the field. The market is paying 6.5 for a bounce the components do not show. Our number says 3.61. |
| Boise State | Win total 8.5over +100 to +150, BetMGM hangs 7.5 | UNDER 8.5 | An 8.5 hung on a talent base that grades below the FBS average. The name is doing the pricing. Our walk returns 6.18 wins, and BetMGM has already slid its number to 7.5. |
| Virginia Tech | Win total 6.5over -170 to -180 | UNDER 6.5 | The books lean the other way here, over juiced to -170 or worse, which makes our under the plus money side. The number says 4.47 wins on a 6.5 line and most of the gap is a prior season the market has already forgiven. |
| North Texas | Win total 5.5over -127 to -130 | OVER 5.5 | The schedule walk lands at 7.51 wins on a 5.5 line, two full wins of cushion. Prior season performance is worth 7.38 rating points against the field and the 2026 slate lets it carry. |
| Indiana | Win total 10.5over +100 to +110 | UNDER 10.5 | A double digit total on a four year talent base that grades barely above the FBS average. We credit last season in full, the largest prior season credit in our rating set, and the walk still returns 8.60 wins. |
| Louisiana Tech | Win total 5.5over -150 to -160 | OVER 5.5 | Continuity is the case. 64 percent of last season's production returns and the walk turns it into 7.11 wins on a 5.5 line. The over costs -150 to -160; wins bought at a price are still wins. |
| Middle Tennessee | Win total 3.5over -150 to -175 | OVER 3.5 | The books lean over at -150 to -175 and our number leans harder. Every component grades below the FBS average and this schedule still walks to 5.09 wins. A 3.5 that low loses to an ordinary season. |
We rebuilt the number behind this board with the EL Preseason Rating v1 and repriced every lean against it. Three of the original leans cleared, then the full slate sweep earned eight more spots on the board above. These came off:
Six more gaps clear a win and a half but stop short of two, between 1.5 and 1.9 wins against a model whose held out error is 1.88. That is real signal sitting inside its own error bar. We publish the direction because it is earned and we downgrade the conviction because the cushion is thin. No cards on these, smaller sizing if you play them at all, and they move up only if the number does.
Market lines: VegasInsider win totals board (BetMGM, DraftKings, Caesars), captured Aug 13, 2026. Our numbers: the EL Preseason Rating v1, same date.
Every posted total we could source, all 136 lined FBS teams, against our expected wins number. Sorted by the size of the disagreement. Gaps of a full win or more get the flag (27 teams clear it); anything smaller is noise against the model's 1.88 win average error. The eleven leans on the board are the ones we put our name on, the lower confidence shelf holds the next six, and the rest of the flags are where we look next.
| Team | Market line | Our number | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oklahoma State UNDER | 6.5 | 3.01 | -3.49 |
| UCLA UNDER | 6.5 | 3.61 | -2.89 |
| Boise State UNDER | 8.5 | 6.18 | -2.32 |
| Iowa State OVER | 4.5 | 6.61 | +2.11 |
| Virginia Tech UNDER | 6.5 | 4.47 | -2.03 |
| North Texas OVER | 5.5 | 7.51 | +2.01 |
| Liberty UNDER | 8.5 | 6.57 | -1.93 |
| Indiana UNDER | 10.5 | 8.60 | -1.90 |
| Southern Miss OVER | 3.5 | 5.28 | +1.78 |
| Wisconsin UNDER | 6.5 | 4.74 | -1.76 |
| Texas UNDER | 9.5 | 7.78 | -1.72 |
| Northern Illinois OVER | 3.5 | 5.17 | +1.67 |
| Louisiana Tech OVER | 5.5 | 7.11 | +1.61 |
| UConn OVER | 5.5 | 7.11 | +1.61 |
| Middle Tennessee OVER | 3.5 | 5.09 | +1.59 |
| Akron OVER | 4.5 | 6.04 | +1.54 |
| Toledo OVER | 7.5 | 8.98 | +1.48 |
| Florida State OVER | 6.5 | 7.88 | +1.38 |
| LSU UNDER | 8.5 | 7.19 | -1.31 |
| Texas A&M OVER | 8.5 | 9.78 | +1.28 |
| Vanderbilt OVER | 5.5 | 6.73 | +1.23 |
| Western Kentucky OVER | 6.5 | 7.72 | +1.22 |
| Nevada OVER | 4.5 | 5.68 | +1.18 |
| Clemson OVER | 7.5 | 8.64 | +1.14 |
| Arizona State UNDER | 6.5 | 5.46 | -1.04 |
| Kent State OVER | 3.5 | 4.53 | +1.03 |
| Rutgers OVER | 4.5 | 5.53 | +1.03 |
| Louisville | 8.5 | 7.51 | -0.99 |
| California | 6.5 | 5.55 | -0.95 |
| Penn State | 9.5 | 8.57 | -0.93 |
| Utah | 8.5 | 9.43 | +0.93 |
| Florida | 7.5 | 6.61 | -0.89 |
| Miami (OH) | 7.5 | 6.61 | -0.89 |
| Alabama | 8.5 | 7.62 | -0.88 |
| Kentucky | 4.5 | 3.62 | -0.88 |
| Washington State | 5.5 | 6.38 | +0.88 |
| Ohio State | 9.5 | 10.36 | +0.86 |
| UL Monroe | 3.5 | 4.36 | +0.86 |
| Hawai'i | 7.5 | 8.35 | +0.85 |
| UAB | 3.5 | 4.35 | +0.85 |
| Tulane | 7.5 | 6.71 | -0.79 |
| App State | 5.5 | 6.28 | +0.78 |
| UTEP | 3.5 | 4.28 | +0.78 |
| Utah State | 5.5 | 4.75 | -0.75 |
| Kansas State | 8.5 | 7.76 | -0.74 |
| West Virginia | 5.5 | 4.77 | -0.73 |
| Fresno State | 6.5 | 5.78 | -0.72 |
| Arkansas State | 6.5 | 5.79 | -0.71 |
| Michigan | 8.5 | 7.80 | -0.70 |
| Minnesota | 6.5 | 5.81 | -0.69 |
| Eastern Michigan | 5.5 | 6.18 | +0.68 |
| Oregon State | 4.5 | 3.82 | -0.68 |
| Navy | 7.5 | 6.83 | -0.67 |
| Notre Dame | 11.5 | 10.83 | -0.67 |
| Illinois | 7.5 | 6.84 | -0.66 |
| Bowling Green | 4.5 | 5.15 | +0.65 |
| Houston | 8.5 | 7.86 | -0.64 |
| Ole Miss | 7.5 | 8.11 | +0.61 |
| Syracuse | 4.5 | 3.90 | -0.60 |
| Baylor | 6.5 | 5.92 | -0.58 |
| Ohio | 6.5 | 7.07 | +0.57 |
| Buffalo | 5.5 | 6.04 | +0.54 |
| Old Dominion | 7.5 | 6.96 | -0.54 |
| UCF | 5.5 | 6.04 | +0.54 |
| South Florida | 8.5 | 7.97 | -0.53 |
| Kennesaw State | 6.5 | 6.00 | -0.50 |
| San José State | 4.5 | 5.00 | +0.50 |
| Virginia | 7.5 | 7.00 | -0.50 |
| Kansas | 5.5 | 5.99 | +0.49 |
| Purdue | 3.5 | 3.97 | +0.47 |
| Duke | 5.5 | 5.96 | +0.46 |
| Missouri State | 4.5 | 4.95 | +0.45 |
| South Alabama | 5.5 | 5.95 | +0.45 |
| Washington | 7.5 | 7.95 | +0.45 |
| Georgia | 9.5 | 9.93 | +0.43 |
| Maryland | 5.5 | 5.93 | +0.43 |
| James Madison | 8.5 | 8.08 | -0.42 |
| Oregon | 10.5 | 10.09 | -0.41 |
| Miami | 10.5 | 10.12 | -0.38 |
| Auburn | 6.5 | 6.87 | +0.37 |
| Texas State | 6.5 | 6.13 | -0.37 |
| Florida Atlantic | 5.5 | 5.14 | -0.36 |
| Georgia State | 4.5 | 4.14 | -0.36 |
| New Mexico | 7.5 | 7.14 | -0.36 |
| Ball State | 3.5 | 3.83 | +0.33 |
| Memphis | 7.5 | 7.18 | -0.32 |
| Cincinnati | 5.5 | 5.19 | -0.31 |
| Northwestern | 5.5 | 5.81 | +0.31 |
| Wake Forest | 5.5 | 5.81 | +0.31 |
| Michigan State | 4.5 | 4.20 | -0.30 |
| Charlotte | 2.5 | 2.78 | +0.28 |
| Jacksonville State | 7.5 | 7.22 | -0.28 |
| Mississippi State | 4.5 | 4.78 | +0.28 |
| Delaware | 6.5 | 6.25 | -0.25 |
| Nebraska | 6.5 | 6.25 | -0.25 |
| Pittsburgh | 7.5 | 7.26 | -0.24 |
| Rice | 3.5 | 3.74 | +0.24 |
| Colorado | 4.5 | 4.73 | +0.23 |
| Iowa | 7.5 | 7.73 | +0.23 |
| Arkansas | 3.5 | 3.72 | +0.22 |
| New Mexico State | 4.5 | 4.71 | +0.21 |
| Wyoming | 5.5 | 5.71 | +0.21 |
| BYU | 8.5 | 8.30 | -0.20 |
| USC | 8.5 | 8.70 | +0.20 |
| TCU | 6.5 | 6.69 | +0.19 |
| Colorado State | 3.5 | 3.66 | +0.16 |
| Texas Tech | 10.5 | 10.34 | -0.16 |
| Boston College | 3.5 | 3.65 | +0.15 |
| Coastal Carolina | 4.5 | 4.65 | +0.15 |
| NC State | 7.5 | 7.35 | -0.15 |
| South Carolina | 6.5 | 6.64 | +0.14 |
| Tulsa | 5.5 | 5.64 | +0.14 |
| Army | 7.5 | 7.37 | -0.13 |
| Tennessee | 7.5 | 7.62 | +0.12 |
| Central Michigan | 6.5 | 6.39 | -0.11 |
| Florida International | 6.5 | 6.39 | -0.11 |
| Georgia Southern | 4.5 | 4.60 | +0.10 |
| San Diego State | 7.5 | 7.60 | +0.10 |
| Stanford | 3.5 | 3.40 | -0.10 |
| Air Force | 7.5 | 7.59 | +0.09 |
| Arizona | 7.5 | 7.41 | -0.09 |
| Oklahoma | 7.5 | 7.59 | +0.09 |
| Sam Houston | 3.5 | 3.42 | -0.08 |
| East Carolina | 7.5 | 7.57 | +0.07 |
| UTSA | 7.5 | 7.57 | +0.07 |
| Marshall | 7.5 | 7.44 | -0.06 |
| Massachusetts | 2.5 | 2.56 | +0.06 |
| Missouri | 6.5 | 6.56 | +0.06 |
| Troy | 6.5 | 6.44 | -0.06 |
| Georgia Tech | 6.5 | 6.55 | +0.05 |
| Louisiana | 7.5 | 7.45 | -0.05 |
| SMU | 8.5 | 8.54 | +0.04 |
| Temple | 5.5 | 5.53 | +0.03 |
| North Carolina | 4.5 | 4.49 | -0.01 |
| Western Michigan | 7.5 | 7.51 | +0.01 |
| UNLV | 7.5 | 7.50 | 0.00 |
Top of the live five book board, captured Aug 13, 2026. The spread on each team is the gap between the cheapest and the most expensive book, and it gets wild further down. Clemson is +5000 at BetMGM and +20000 at FanDuel. Oklahoma State is +6000 at BetMGM against +40000 or longer everywhere else, almost certainly a number nobody has touched in weeks. That is content, not a bet. But when books disagree that hard, the fair price sits somewhere in between, and our free devig calculator finds it from any two prices you paste in.
Bet365, BetMGM, DraftKings, Caesars, FanDuel, BetRivers via the VegasInsider conference pages, captured Aug 13, 2026. Price shown is the range across the six books.
Caesars hangs LSU at +600 while DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetRivers all post +900, and our rating already walks LSU under its 8.5 win total. The +900 books read closer to our number.
BetMGM +1000 against DraftKings +1700 on Michigan is the widest split on any race we captured. Shop it before you pick a side.
Caesars +1300 on Virginia against +2000 at DraftKings and FanDuel is a real split. No rating lean behind it, just a price worth shopping.
DraftKings +550 on East Carolina against +1000 at FanDuel nearly doubles the payout on the same team.
These are market boards, not model output. Our rating prices win totals, not brackets, so a note appears only where the books split against each other or our number genuinely says something. The devig calculator strips any pair of prices to fair.
Six book board via VegasInsider, page updated Aug 12, captured Aug 13, 2026. Chambliss and Russell schools via sportsbettingdime.com, Aug 1.
| Player | Team | Price range |
|---|---|---|
| CJ Carr | Notre Dame | +650 to +750 |
| Arch Manning | Texas | +700 to +800 |
| Dante Moore | Oregon | +900 to +1200 |
| Darian Mensah | Miami | +1000 to +1150 |
| Trinidad Chambliss | Ole Miss | +900 to +1300 |
| Julian Sayin | Ohio State | +1100 to +1300 |
| Josh Hoover | Indiana | +1200 to +1600 |
| Jeremiah Smith | Ohio State | +1400 to +1500 |
| Gunner Stockton | Georgia | +1600 to +2200 |
| Sam Leavitt | Arizona State | +2000 to +2500 |
| John Mateer | Washington State | +2000 to +2500 |
| Jayden Maiava | USC | +2300 to +2500 |
| Marcel Reed | Texas A&M | +2500 to +3000 |
| Keelon Russell | Alabama | +2500 to +3000 |
| Bryce Underwood | Michigan | +3500 to +4000 |
Two quarterbacks front the market and the board thins fast behind them. At each name's shortest price the top five combine to about 55 percent raw implied probability, which leaves ten more priced players splitting what is left at long odds. One split worth knowing: BetMGM has Chambliss at +900 while DraftKings and FanDuel post +1300. We do not pick August Heismans. We price them: paste any two prices into the devig calculator and see what a name really costs once the vig comes out.
The number is the EL Preseason Rating v1, our own composite. Five components, each pulled from a producing table in our database: last season's performance, four years of blue chip recruiting, returning production, transfer class star quality, and portal flow, with a charge for a first year head coach. The rating then walks each team's actual 2026 schedule game by game, converts every matchup into a win probability, and sums them into expected wins. The gap between that number and the posted total is what puts a team on the board.
The rating is validated before it prices anything. Fit on the 2021 through 2023 seasons and tested on two held out seasons, it missed actual win totals by 1.88 wins on average against 1.97 for a rating built on last season's performance alone.
One caveat we will say out loud. Several of these leans share a thesis. Texas, LSU, and Boise State are brand programs the market prices above our number, and Oklahoma State, UCLA, and Virginia Tech are all bets that a bad season does not bounce back on schedule. Correlated leans are partly one bet, and we size them that way. These are leans, not graded picks with a track record behind them. Futures grade slowly, and every one of these will grade in public when the season answers.
Championship and conference futures get a different treatment. Nobody outmodels those markets in August and we will not pretend to. What we do instead is strip the vig, compare the books against each other, and point at the prices that do not belong. Line shopping wins real money on futures because the spreads between books are enormous.
Every lean above has the full case behind it: our expected wins number against the market total, the rating components driving it, how the leans correlate, and the exact price that keeps each one playable or kills it. Members read all of it today. $24/mo, founder rate.
The expected wins numbers, the signals, and the price that keeps each lean playable, plus the Vault and every calculator. Conviction picks arrive at kickoff and members get them first. $24/mo founder rate.
NFL reader? The NFL futures board is live: all 32 win
totals and the Super Bowl board, every book side by side.
Provenance: win total prices hand captured from VegasInsider (BetMGM, DraftKings, Caesars)
on Aug 13, 2026; championship prices from a live five book capture (DraftKings, FanDuel,
BetMGM, BetRivers, BetOnline) the same day, 138 teams priced; conference winner and Heisman
prices hand captured from the VegasInsider per-conference and Heisman pages (Bet365, BetMGM,
DraftKings, Caesars, FanDuel, BetRivers) the same day, with Chambliss and Russell school
attributions via sportsbettingdime.com (Aug 1). Our numbers: the EL Preseason
Rating v1, built from the Edge Labs database (prior season ratings, four year recruiting,
returning production, transfer and portal records, coaching records) and walked over the
full 2026 schedule. Leans, not guarantees. Research and context · 21+.
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