College Football Data API
Official vendor OpenAPI document · agent-readyAnalyticsBusiness IntelligenceapiKey53 EndpointsREST
For Agents
Pull NCAA college football games, plays, drives, advanced box scores, betting lines, recruiting, transfer portal, and predictive metrics through 53 read-only endpoints.
Use for: Get the box score for a specific college football game, Retrieve play-by-play data for an Alabama game in 2024, List all transfer portal entrants for the 2025 season, Find the betting lines for week 5 games
Not supported: Does not handle ticket sales, fantasy contest entry, or live video - use for read-only NCAA football statistics, lines, and metadata only.
The College Football Data API is a community-built feed of NCAA college football data covering games, plays, drives, advanced box scores, betting lines, recruiting, transfer portal, NFL draft, coaches, ratings, and predictive metrics. The API exposes 53 GET endpoints authenticated with a Bearer-style API key in the Authorization header. It is widely used by analysts, fantasy modellers, and journalists who need machine-readable college football data with deep history.
Install Jentic One Beta
Connect the College Football Data API to your agent
Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the College Football Data API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.
Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.
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Step 1: Jentic One Host machine
# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL "https://jentic.com/install.sh?src=apis&api=%2Fapis%2Fcollegefootballdata.com%2Fcollegefootballdata" | sh2
Step 2: Agent machine
# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL "https://jentic.com/install.sh?src=apis&api=%2Fapis%2Fcollegefootballdata.com%2Fcollegefootballdata" | sh
jentic register # connects your agent to your Jentic One instanceJentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.
Capabilities
What an agent can do with College Football Data API.
Pull game results and scores by season, week, conference, or team via GET /games
Retrieve play-by-play data with EPA and win-probability via GET /plays and /metrics/wp
Fetch drive-level summaries via GET /drives
Get advanced box scores including success rate and explosiveness via GET /game/box/advanced
Access betting lines and Vegas spreads via GET /lines
Track recruiting classes, transfer-portal entrants, and NFL draft picks via /player/portal and /draft/picks
Pull team and player Predicted Points Added (PPA/EPA) via /ppa/games and /ppa/players/season
Use Cases
Patterns agents use College Football Data API for, with concrete tasks.
★ Fantasy and Pick'em Modelling
Build a college football pick'em or fantasy model by combining historical games (/games), advanced box scores (/game/box/advanced), and PPA metrics (/ppa/games). The API returns multi-season history per call so a modeller can train regressions or gradient-boosted models on schedule strength, explosiveness, and success rate without scraping. Pair with /lines to backtest against the closing Vegas spread.
Pull GET /games?year=2024 plus GET /ppa/games?year=2024 and join them by gameId to produce a per-game features table
Live and Post-Game Reporting
Power a sports newsroom or fan dashboard by fetching scores, drive summaries, and play-by-play after each weekend. /games returns final scores and metadata, /drives returns drive-level outcomes, and /plays returns the full PBP stream. A reporter can generate post-game summaries from the structured payload without watching the broadcast.
After each game, call GET /games?id={gameId}, GET /drives?gameId={gameId}, and GET /plays?gameId={gameId} and synthesise a post-game recap
Recruiting and Transfer Tracking
Track college football roster movement by polling /player/portal for transfer-portal entries, /player/returning for returning production, and /draft/picks for NFL outflow. A site like 247Sports could mirror this data structure or a fan blog could publish weekly transfer roundups without manual scraping. Each endpoint accepts season parameters for historical comparisons.
Call GET /player/portal?season=2025 and group results by destination team to build a top-transfers leaderboard
Betting Analytics
Build a betting analytics dashboard by combining /lines (spreads and totals from multiple books) with /metrics/wp (win probability) and /games (final scores). Backtest a model's edge against the closing line over multiple seasons with a single set of API calls. The endpoint exposes lines from several sportsbooks per game.
Pull GET /lines?year=2024&seasonType=regular and GET /games?year=2024, join by gameId, and compute model edge versus the closing spread
AI Agent College Football Insights via Jentic
Let an AI agent answer college football questions by searching Jentic for the relevant operation (game results, transfer portal, betting lines) and executing it. The API key lives in your Jentic One instance so agents never see it. Useful for chat copilots, fantasy assistants, and beat-reporter helpers.
Use Jentic to search 'get college football game results', load the GET /games schema, and execute it with year=2024 and team=Alabama
Key Endpoints
53 endpoints — the college football data api is a community-built feed of ncaa college football data covering games, plays, drives, advanced box scores, betting lines, recruiting, transfer portal, nfl draft, coaches, ratings, and predictive metrics.
METHOD
PATH
DESCRIPTION
GET
/games
Season schedule and final scores
GET
/plays
Play-by-play data
GET
/drives
Drive summaries
GET
/game/box/advanced
Advanced box scores
GET
/lines
Betting lines and spreads
GET
/player/portal
Transfer portal entrants
GET
/draft/picks
NFL Draft picks by college
GET
/games
Season schedule and final scores
GET
/plays
Play-by-play data
GET
/drives
Drive summaries
GET
/game/box/advanced
Advanced box scores
GET
/lines
Betting lines and spreads
GET
/player/portal
Transfer portal entrants
GET
/draft/picks
NFL Draft picks by college
Why Jentic?
What agents get from Jentic-routed access to this vendor.
Setup
Wiring the College Football Data API by hand means setting its Authorization bearer key on the api.collegefootballdata.com host and handling season and round filtering across more than fifty statistics and betting-line endpoints yourself. Through Jentic you install once, import College Football Data from the API Directory, store the key once, and your agent calls it.
Permission scoping
The College Football Data API serves read-only statistics, so you scope by choosing the operations the agent may call: limit it to what it needs, such as reading game results or betting lines, and other calls like draft picks are not included unless you add them.
Credential isolation
Your College Football Data API key is stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected into the Authorization header at execution time. It never enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context.
Intent-based discovery
Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'get college football game results' or 'read the betting lines for a week', and Jentic returns the matching College Football Data operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.
Related APIs
Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.
FAQs
Specific to using College Football Data API through Jentic.
What authentication does the College Football Data API use?
The API expects an API key in the Authorization header (formatted as 'Bearer {key}'). Through Jentic the key lives in the encrypted vault and is injected at execution so it never enters the agent prompt. Get a key by registering at the College Football Data developer portal.
Does the College Football Data API include play-by-play data?
Yes. GET /plays returns play-by-play, GET /drives returns drive-level summaries, and GET /play/stats returns per-play stat lines. Pair with GET /metrics/wp for win-probability tracking through the game.
Can I get betting lines for college football games?
Yes. GET /lines returns spreads and totals from multiple sportsbooks per game, parameterised by year, week, and team. Combine with GET /games to attach line data to final scores for backtesting.
What are the rate limits for the College Football Data API?
The OpenAPI spec does not enumerate explicit rate limits; consult the College Football Data developer portal for your tier. Some endpoints (GET /games/weather, GET /live/plays) require Patreon-tier access - the spec marks these explicitly.
Is the College Football Data API free?
The base API is free to use after registering for an API key. Patreon-tier endpoints (live plays, weather) require a paid Patreon subscription. The spec notes that this version is deprecated in favour of APINext.CollegeFootballData.com.
How do I pull transfer portal data through Jentic?
Search Jentic for 'list transfer portal players', load the GET /player/portal schema, and execute it with the season parameter (e.g. season=2025). Jentic injects the Authorization header from the vault and returns the entrants ready to render.
Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the College Football Data API?
Yes. Because you self-host Jentic One, your own rules decide which of the API's read-only operations the agent may call. Since every endpoint is a GET, you scope by selecting exactly the operations it needs, such as game results from GET /games or betting lines from GET /lines, while other calls like GET /draft/picks or GET /player/portal stay unavailable unless you add them. Your API key is stored by your own instance and injected into the Authorization header at execution, so the agent can only reach the operations you have allowed.
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