canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/collegefootballdata.com/collegefootballdata

# College Football Data API

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.

## For AI agents

Pull NCAA college football games, plays, drives, advanced box scores, betting lines, recruiting, transfer portal, and predictive metrics through 53 read-only endpoints.

## Scope

Does not handle ticket sales, fantasy contest entry, or live video - use for read-only NCAA football statistics, lines, and metadata only.

## Capabilities

- 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

### 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.

Example prompt: 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.

Example prompt: 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.

Example prompt: 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.

Example prompt: 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.

Example prompt: 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

| 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 |

## Key resources

- **Games** — Season schedules, scores, weather, media, team and player game stats
- **Plays and Drives** — Play-by-play, drive summaries, and play stat types
- **Advanced Box Scores** — Success rate, explosiveness, and per-play efficiency metrics
- **Betting Lines** — Spreads and totals from multiple sportsbooks per game
- **Player Movement** — Transfer portal, recruiting, and NFL draft data
- **Predictive Metrics** — PPA/EPA, win probability, and expected points

## Why Jentic

- **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 handling:** 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.
- **Discovery method:** 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

- **SportsData.io API** — Commercial multi-sport feed with NCAA football coverage and SLAs
- **API-Sports** — Multi-sport API with affordable tiers and broad coverage
- **API-Football** — Soccer-focused feed for sites that cover both football codes

## FAQ

### 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.