CFB/LAB

showing — FBS teams

CFB/LAB is cfb-lab's season team rating. FBS median is ~49; the top 25 sit above ~62, the top 10 above ~72, and #1 lands in the high 80s to low 90s. Higher = better team.

How to read this table

2018–25 are settled ratings — what each team actually was, once the games were played. 2026 is live: the same formula run on the games played so far, with every column pulled toward the FBS average by how much football is behind it and the preseason projection blended in until a team has 8 FBS games. (For the preseason forecast with uncertainty bands, see the 2026 Outlook.) Click any column's ? for how it's computed.
What makes this different
  • Built from play-by-play, not the box score. The yield, havoc, stuff, and on-schedule columns measure how a team won or lost — efficiency a final score hides.
  • Talent yield is the headline. It moves with results, not with talent: it correlates 0.80 with win rate and 0.06 with the talent index, so read it as how much a team produced, not as a verdict on development.
  • No black box. Every column's ? shows exactly how it's computed, and hovering any cell breaks it into parts.
Cell colors
bottom 15% bottom third middle top third top 15%
Gold is reserved for postseason signal
  • National champion (row wash + trophy)
  • Conference champion
  • CFP committee seed
  • #1 in CFB/LAB (full gold gradient) or in the CFP field (soft gold)
Interactions
  • Hover any column header's ? for that column's methodology.
  • Click a header to sort. Click a row for the team profile.
  • Sort by the Conf column to flip every rank chip from national rank to conference rank (e.g. B1G 3).
  • Hover any metric cell to see its component breakdown.
  • The colored 2px borders separate the seven column groups.
What each column is
Ratings
CFB/LAB
cfb-lab Net Rating — the headline number
OFF / DEF
Offense rating / Defense rating
ST
Special Teams rating
SOR
Strength of Record
SOS
Strength of Schedule
How they got there — play-by-play rates
OS-O / OS-D
On-schedule rate, offense / defense
XR-O / XR-D
Explosive rate, offense / defense
RZ-O / RZ-D
Red-zone points per trip, offense / defense
STUF-O / STUF-D
Stuff rate, offense (avoided) / defense (created)
HAV-O / HAV-D
Havoc rate, offense (avoided) / defense (created)
Talent & yield
XV-O / XV-D
Explosive value, offense / defense (long plays by yardage tier)
TO-O / TO-D
Turnover rate, offense (avoided) / defense (created), per drive
Luck
Luck index — won more or fewer games than the underlying stats say
Talent
Average recruiting rating of the full roster
Yield
Talent yield (production vs talent baseline)
Rank checks
Δ AP
CFB/LAB rank vs AP rank
Δ Cons
CFB/LAB rank vs preseason consensus rank

Sources: CollegeFootballData play-by-play and schedules (2018–26), ESPN box scores (distribution columns), 247Sports recruiting, and AP & CFP-committee rankings.