▶ SECTION 01
Season Structure.
The MVPicker 2026 season runs from preseason lock — the night before NCAAFB Week 1 — through the CFP National Championship in January 2027. Points accumulate across the entire season.
The 2026 season locks at Friday, August 28, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET. Picks submitted after this miss the preseason-only scoring bonuses (Rules 1, 4, and 5). Regular per-week scoring (Rules 2 and 3) is available to anyone who joins during the season.
If you join late: you can still play. You just won't earn the +7 conference lock bonuses, you can't predict team records retroactively, and your postseason picks will be due before the CFP rankings are announced rather than at preseason. Your weekly picks count exactly the same as everyone else's.
▶ SECTION 02
Pick Deadlines.
The weekly rhythm of MVPicker is built around three deadlines:
- Picks open · Wednesday 9:00 AM ET — for that weekend's games
- Picks lock · Thursday 5:00 PM ET, OR kickoff (whichever is earlier for any individual game)
- Auto-fill · At lock, any game you didn't update keeps your previously saved pick. If you have no saved pick for that game, no pick is locked and zero points are possible.
The lock is enforced server-side at the database level — the clock that matters is MVPicker's, not your local time. Picks attempted at 5:00:01 PM ET Thursday will be rejected, even if your browser shows 4:59:59.
Conference locks and weekly editing. If you opted to lock a Power 4 conference at preseason (see
Rule 1), picks within that conference cannot be edited during weekly windows without first breaking the lock. Attempting to edit a locked pick prompts a confirmation: editing forfeits the +7 conference lock bonus for that conference. Once broken, the lock cannot be re-set.
▶ SECTION 03
Rule 1 · Conference Lock Bonus.
The Conference Lock Bonus rewards conviction. Locking is an opt-in action — you choose to lock a Power 4 conference, committing that your picks within it stay intact for the season. It behaves differently before and after the preseason lock (Friday, August 28, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET):
- Preseason (before the Aug 28 lock): all editing is free — pick, change, or un-pick any game, and nothing breaks. A conference can be locked with gaps — there's no requirement to have picked every game first — and locking is reversible (you can unlock during preseason). Any game left unpicked when the lock hits simply freezes as empty and scores as wrong; it doesn't block the lock.
- In-season (after the Aug 28 lock): the lock is live. Changing or removing a committed pick within that conference breaks the lock and forfeits the +7 for that conference. Filling a game you never picked is benign (it doesn't break the lock). Once broken, a lock cannot be re-set.
Keep every committed pick in a locked conference intact through the season and you earn +7 points at season end.
Four Power 4 conferences each grant a separate lock bonus. Locks are independent — you can lock SEC and Big Ten while leaving ACC and Big 12 unlocked. Max +28 from this rule alone.
Correctness does not affect the lock bonus. Rule 1 is purely a conviction bonus. Even if every locked SEC pick turned out wrong, you still earn +7 for keeping the lock intact. Per-game correctness is rewarded separately by Rule 2.
The conferences eligible for the lock bonus are:
| Conference | Games | Bonus if locked |
|---|
| SEC | ~70 | +7 |
| Big Ten | ~72 | +7 |
| ACC | ~64 | +7 |
| Big 12 | ~56 | +7 |
Notre Dame, as an independent, is not eligible for a conference lock bonus. Conference rosters are pulled from CollegeFootballData.com and locked at preseason.
▶ SECTION 04
Rule 2 · Correct Pick.
For each completed game where your locked pick matches the winner: +1 point. Points are awarded within one hour of game completion. There are 478 games across the regular season, plus bowl games and CFP rounds.
Ties and cancelled games award zero to any user. If a game is later vacated by the NCAA, points awarded for that game are retroactively removed — this happens rarely and affected users are notified.
▶ SECTION 05
Rule 3 · Weekly Accuracy Bonus.
At week end (Monday 6:00 AM ET), your weekly accuracy is calculated as:
accuracy = correct_picks ÷ total_locked_picks × 100
Your Rule 2 points for that week are then multiplied by the bonus band you achieved:
| Weekly accuracy | Bonus multiplier |
|---|
| Below 60% | 1.00× (no bonus) |
| 60–69% | +5% bonus |
| 70–79% | +10% bonus |
| 80–89% | +15% bonus |
| 90–99% | +20% bonus |
| 100% | +25% bonus |
Bonus points are calculated to the nearest whole point, rounded down. Example: 16 correct picks at 88% accuracy → 16 × 1.15 = 18.4 → +2 bonus points (16 base + 2 bonus = 18 total).
▶ SECTION 06
Rule 4 · Team Record Predictions.
Your game picks set each in-scope team's projected regular-season record — every Power 4 team (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC) plus Notre Dame. There's no separate entry: a team's record is an output of the games you pick. At regular season end it's scored on wins (losses follow from the fixed schedule):
- Exact win total → +2 points
- Within one win → +1 point
- More than one win off → zero
Example: a team that finishes 11-2 (11 wins) awards +2 for a projected 11-win record, +1 for 10 or 12 wins, and zero for 9 or 13.
▶ SECTION 07
Rule 5 · Postseason Predictions.
At preseason you predict the whole postseason — the conference title games, the 12-team playoff field, and the bracket. It's scored automatically from the results:
| Prediction | Per correct |
|---|
| Conference finalist (either side of the title game) | +2 |
| Conference champion (the winner) | +3 |
| Playoff qualifier (named team or G6 marker) | +2 |
| Each round a playoff team reaches (QF / SF / Final) | +2 |
| National Champion | +7 |
Conference championships. For each Power 4 conference you pick the two title-game finalists and which one wins. You earn +2 for each finalist that actually reaches the title game — either side, it doesn't matter which slot you put them in — and +3 more if your pick wins it. (Notre Dame is an Independent with no conference title game, so it isn't pickable here — but it is eligible for the playoff field.)
The 12-team field is filled two ways — a named Power 4 / Notre Dame team, or a team-agnostic G6 marker ("a Group-of-Six team makes it"). Each correct qualifier is +2; G6 markers score by count, not identity — min(your G6 count, actual G6 count) × 2. Seeding doesn't affect this — only whether the team qualified.
The bracket. Seeds 1–4 get a first-round bye; seeds 5–12 play in. You pick the winner of every game. Each team you correctly send to the next round — Quarterfinal, Semifinal, or Final — is worth +2, and your National Champion is +7. (G6 markers can play but don't score advancement.)
▶ SECTION 08
Tiebreakers · Applied In Order.
When two or more pickers finish with identical total point totals, tiebreakers are applied in this specific sequence until one resolves:
- Highest season-long accuracy percentage — total correct picks ÷ total locked picks across the whole season
- Most conference locks earned (Rule 1) — counts the +7 bonuses you successfully claimed
- Most postseason points earned (Rule 5) — the higher-risk preseason calls break tier
- Earliest preseason lock-in timestamp — the picker who committed first wins
If pickers are still tied after all four tiebreakers, the tie stands and all tied users share the rank. This happens vanishingly rarely.