# CFP Bracket Pool — College Football Playoff Bracket Rules & Scoring > How a College Football Playoff bracket pool works: fill out all 11 CFP games before the first round, score 1, 2, 4 and 8 points by round, and break ties on the title game's total points. Source: https://piksheet.com/pools/cfp_bracket Last updated: 2026-10-21 **CFP Bracket:** Fill out the College Football Playoff bracket once. Later rounds are worth more. Pick all 11 College Football Playoff games before the first round kicks off, national champion included, for 1, 2, 4 and 8 points by round. Sport: [College Football](https://piksheet.com/college-football) ## How it works 1. The 12-team playoff has four rounds: the first round on campus for seeds 5–12, the quarterfinals, where the top four seeds enter after their byes, the semifinals and the national championship: 11 games. 2. Picks open on Selection Sunday, December 6, once the committee's 12 seeds are set. Fill out the whole bracket before the first-round kickoff on December 18: a winner for every game, through the national champion. Your bracket must be consistent — a team can only win a game you've picked it to reach. 3. The bracket is fixed by seed: the 1 seed meets the 8–9 winner, the 2 the 7–10 winner, the 3 the 6–11 winner and the 4 the 5–12 winner, and the semifinals pair the 1 and 4 sides and the 2 and 3 sides. 4. A correct pick earns its round's points: by default 1 in the first round, 2 in the quarterfinals, 4 in the semifinals and 8 in the title game, so a perfect bracket is worth 28. A correct winner scores whoever it beats. 5. The tiebreaker (on by default) is total points in the national championship, entered with your bracket. The closest prediction wins a tie. 6. Brackets stay hidden until the first-round kickoff, when every bracket locks. PikSheet records each result as the game goes final, and the standings update from there. ## 2025–26 playoff example (default round points) 1. First round: 3 of 4 right (Alabama, Oregon and Ole Miss; Miami upset Texas A&M) → 3 × 1 = 3 points 2. Quarterfinals: Indiana, Oregon and Ole Miss right, Ohio State missed → 3 × 2 = 6 points 3. Semifinals: Indiana right, Ole Miss missed (Miami won the Fiesta Bowl) → 1 × 4 = 4 points 4. National championship: Indiana right → 8 points 5. Total: 21 of a possible 28. ## How to win - The late rounds carry the bracket: the two finalists and the champion are worth 16 of the 28 points. Spend most of your thinking on the semifinals and the title game. - A bye isn't a guarantee. The top four seeds sit out the first round, then face a team that has just won a playoff game; weigh that before sending all four to the semifinals. - An early miss only costs the later picks that needed that team. A correct winner scores whoever it beats, so a bracket with a first-round miss is still very much alive. - Don't treat the tiebreaker as an afterthought. In a close pool the title game's total points decides ties at the top. ## What the commissioner controls Round points and the tiebreaker are editable until the first-round kickoff on December 18, when brackets, new entries and settings all lock for the playoff. - Round points: 1 to 1,000 per round (default 1, 2, 4, 8) - Tiebreaker: total points in the national championship (default) or off - Entry fee (optional — you collect, we don't touch it) - Max entries per member ## Frequently asked questions ### What is a CFP bracket pool? A pool where each member predicts the whole College Football Playoff before it starts: the winner of all 11 games, from the first round to the national championship. Correct picks score more in later rounds — 1, 2, 4 and 8 points on PikSheet by default — and the highest total wins. ### How is CFP Bracket different from CFP Pick'em? CFP Pick'em is picked round by round as the matchups are set, with optional spreads and totals. CFP Bracket is straight up and filled out once, before the first round, so you call the national champion before a game is played. Groups often run both. ### What if my quarterfinal winner beats a different team than my bracket had? You still get the points. A pick scores when that team wins a game in that round, whoever it beats, so a first-round miss only costs the later picks that depended on that team. ### When do picks open and lock? Pools can be created and joined any time. Picks open on Selection Sunday, December 6, 2026, once the 12-team field is set, and lock at the first first-round kickoff on December 18. Until then you can change your bracket as often as you like; after it, brackets, new entries and settings are locked and everyone's bracket becomes visible. ## Related - [CFP Bracket walkthrough](https://piksheet.com/help/pool-types/cfp_bracket) - [Compare every pool format](https://piksheet.com/pools/compare) - [Pricing](https://piksheet.com/pricing) --- Most pages on https://piksheet.com have a markdown version: add .md to the URL (the home page is https://piksheet.com/index.md) or request the page with `Accept: text/markdown`. https://piksheet.com/llms.txt lists every page and links each markdown version.