Underdog College Football Playoff Best Ball Tips and Strategy

Underdog College Football Playoff Best Ball Strategy Guide

With Underdog launching a College Football Playoff Best Ball for the first time during the 2025-26 season, I figured I'd provide some advice as to how to go about it as someone with a decent amount of experience playing in NFL playoff best ball tournaments in the past.

Unlike the regular season, the best play typically isn't to just take all of the best players you can. That will leave you in a really tough spot come the CFP Championship Game, when you only have one or two players playing, and you're competing against those with a full lineup. 

Before I get into a few strategies, I want to go over the lineup structure and a few basic rules to follow.

Underdog CFP Best Ball Lineup Structure

1 QB

1 RB

2 WR/TE

1 Flex

5 Bench

This lineup structure is distinctly different from that of the regular-season best ball format in a handful of ways. 

1. No Superflex - usually occupied by a second quarterback. So, you will only need to account for one quarterback each week. 
   1. Playoff Best Ball - 1/5 = 20% of your lineup
   2. Regular season: 2/8 starting spots = 25% of your lineup
2. 1 RB vs. 2 RBs - Running backs could, theoretically, have occupied up to four spots in the lineup during the regular season when including the superflex. 
   1. CFP Best Ball:1-2/5 = 20-40% 
   2. Regular season:  2-4/8 = 25-50%
3. WR value increase - Wide receivers and tight ends get looped together in the playoff format and keep two spots, making wide receivers more valuable in this format, while tight ends don't need to be utilized.
   1. CFP Best Ball - 2-3/5 = 40-60% of lineup
   2. Regular season - 2-4/8 = 25-50% of lineup

Underdog CFP Best Ball Strategy and Tips

Before I get into a breakdown of some potential builds for your CFP lineups, I want to mention a singular rule of thumb to live by in these contests.

Rules of Thumb

Play to win 

Make sure you build a team that will have at least five players playing every week, or you will stand little chance of taking home any serious prize in the contest. 

Balance CFP First Round and CFP Championship

Sure, we want to look forward and load up on players we think will make it all the way, but we need enough good players performing in the first round of the CFP to even advance to future rounds. That means no more than five players from the top four teams on bye, as that likely puts you out of contention to advance out of the first round. 

If you are feeling really frisky, you could play for one of your players going off and carrying you through the first round with only four total starters, but that's a tough ask.

Look at the bracket

While getting a bunch of good players is the goal, we also want to look at the bracket in this instance. We don't want to take both Ole Miss and Tulane players, because we're guaranteed to be eliminating some of our players off the bat. We also don't want to grab a bunch of Oregon and Texas Tech players, as those teams seem likely to face each other in the quarterfinals. 

Don't completely discount the one-and-dones

While having players advance is generally what you want to aim for,  getting star players on potential one-and-done teams in the CFP can sometimes help you get over the hump of the first round to your bigger pool of players, which is a key goal. Don't completely write off teams because you expect them to lose in the first round.

There may be some other rules of thumb, but these are what immediately came to mind for me.

Diversify

For those intending to enter multiple lineups, it's not typically going to be the best practice to pick the same team and players with your primary stack multiple times. Sure, back your favorites with a larger share of your lineups, but don't force it either. Having multiple combinations of teams gives you a better shot at it. If you are only entering a few lineups, then it makes sense to mostly back your favorites and take your chances.

Be flexible - Have a plan B

in your draft. You may have your set of semifinalists and championship game teams in mind, but someone may have a similar set of teams in mind and also wants to stack those teams. That could lead to issues where you need to reach for players to fill out the roster you want, instead of just taking a chance with better players from another squad. Instead, that could yield better results if those teams make it to the Championship Game. If you notice players you are aiming to stack are getting taken before you get a chance, have a backup plan ready.

Underdog CFP Best Ball Stacking Strategies

The Full-Team Stack

Basically, this method involves stacking a full team's worth of players (five total) that you think will make the college football playoffs. You don't necessarily need to draft the top five players for the team, but it guarantees you will have a full lineup of players to turn to in the CFP Championship Game, albeit from the same squad.

However, if you stack a full team of players for one of the first four seeds, it does put you in a bit of a bind for the first round, as it guarantees you'll only have five active players in the first round. Mixing in some earlier picks on star players to help you past Round 1 will be important here.

This isn't my favorite method, as even if you get five from one team to the championship, it means all five of your players are from the same team in the National Championship Game, which isn't generally fruitful from a fantasy standpoint.

The "Oregon" Stack

I was going to save this for last, but I think it will be useful to mention this here before I get into some of the others below. Basically, this is a strategy that can be used to give your lineup more flexibility than if you stack two top-four seeds. It involves stacking players on a team that play in the first round who you think have a chance of going on an Ohio State-like run from last year and making it to the National Championship Game without a bye week.

t I'm calling it the "Oregon" stack because the Ducks have the best odds to win the championship of the teams that play in the opening set of games. 

This strategy allows you to be more flexible in taking the best players from some of the other top-seeded teams. If you stack 3-4 Oregon players, you could then stack 2-3 Ohio State/Georgia players as well and potentially have a surplus in the national championship (six players for five lineup spots without jeopardizing your first-round lineup).

The 4-and-1 Stack

The four-and-one stack is kind of just like it sounds. This involves taking at least four players from one team and one player from teams on the other side of the bracket, who we think will make the national championship. 

This stack gives us a little more flexibility to choose a single player from the other side of the bracket, but it requires us to take a player from the other side of the bracket to fill the starting lineup. 

This does, however, allow you to take a few shots at the other side of the bracket to fill it out, though if you stack four from a first-round bye team, it would be advisable to only grab one player from a first-round bye team on the other side of the bracket.

Example:

You somehow get Julian Sayin, Jeremiah Smith, Bo Jackson and Carnell Tate for Ohio State.

You can take one player from either Indiana or Texas Tech, but likely not both. However, you can take another shot or two at Oregon and other teams you think could make it further in the bracket that play in the first round.

The 3-and-2 Stack

This is another option if you get sniped on a player or two you like from a team. Basically, you pick two teams that you think will make the National Championship Game and grab three players from one and two players from the other.

However, you'll need to make sure the pieces fit together.

Example:

You take Sayin, Smith and Jackson but don't get Tate or another player you want.

So, you have a QB, RB and WR filled. From the other side of the bracket, you will then need another WR and a flex to fill out a National Championship Game roster. You could then take WR/TE-WR/TE or WR/TE-RB stack from Indiana or Texas Tech to go along with it to fill it out, along with another WR/TE-WR/TE or WR/TE-RB stack from Oregon, or you could just take the two to get you to five and go with a hodgepodge of best players to help you get past the early round.

Filling out the Bench

As I've mentioned above, there are multiple ways to go about filling out your bench in this format. Realistically, you want to have as many players as possible available as deep as possible in these tournaments, as it gives you a better shot to advance each week.

That said, it doesn't hurt to take a player or two from a team that could be eliminated in the first round if they do enough in the contest to aid you in advancing beyond it.

The other consideration is whether to focus on teams on the other side of the bracket when supplementing your primary stack. As mentioned, in a 4-1 stack or a 3-2 stack, you can take a shot at a couple of teams, but you likely don't want to do so with multiple teams that have byes in the first round.