Questions

What is Atlas?

Every college football game gets a card: what the betting market says, what Atlas projects, what is driving the difference between them, and a letter for how much that card's information has historically been worth. Atlas never tells anyone what to do with it.

Is this a selections service?

No. No card names a side — not as a lean, not as an arrow, not as a highlighted row. Every page is checked at build time by a test that fails if a side appears anywhere, and again by an audit over all 179 built pages.

Do I need to know anything about betting?

No. The market number is a reference point because it is the best public forecast of a game that exists. One thing does assume the notation - “MIA −41.5” means Miami is favored by 41.5 points — and everything else is in plain English.

Do I need to understand modeling?

No. The card's first screen is written for somebody who does not, and the grade explains itself in three plain sentences on every card. The technical detail is behind panels and on the research page.

Is an A card the one I should read first?

No, and this is the least intuitive thing about Atlas. Cards where Atlas and the market agree to within a point have realized 50.8% against a 51.3% claim across 760 games — statistically a coin flip. They grade highest because they are the most reliable, and they are the most reliable because Atlas has added nothing to them. The grade tells you what to discount, not what to look at.

Why does a large difference lower the grade?

Because, measured across every completed season out of sample, that is where the model is worst. Cards claiming 77% accuracy delivered 50%. Everything else in this category shouts loudest where its model disagrees most; Atlas grades itself down there.

Is an A card a better game to watch?

No. The grade says nothing about the game. It is about how much weight Atlas's own numbers on that card deserve.

Who assigns the grades?

Nobody. The rubric is code, nothing is entered by hand or adjusted afterwards, and the calibration curve behind it is refitted from the full record on every build — so the site cannot drift away from the research it cites.

Why do so few cards get A+?

The thresholds were set once from the out-of-sample record and then fixed, and about 6% of cards historically reach A+. Atlas does not grade on a curve: a curve would make the same card mean something different depending on which Saturday you looked at it.

Can a card's grade change during the week?

Yes. The grade depends partly on how far Atlas sits from the market, and the market moves. A card graded B on Tuesday can be graded C by Saturday if the line moves away from Atlas's number.

What does “marked down” mean?

A card graded D or F. There is a filter for them on the board, because the cards Atlas trusts least are the ones a reader most needs to know about.

What is “the difference”?

Atlas's projected home margin minus the market's spread, with the total beneath it. Positive means Atlas likes the home side more than the market does; negative, less. It is coloured only above one point, because below that the two are statistically indistinguishable.

Why does Atlas show the market at all?

Because it is the reference. Atlas's number is its own - the market is never an input to it - and the card puts the two side by side so the difference, and the reasons behind it, are the product. Measured out of sample, the closing line is the closer forecast, and the grade is built from exactly that record.

What is “point-in-time”?

Every figure attached to a game uses only information that existed before kickoff. A team's profile in week 4 is what was knowable in week 4 - no hindsight, anywhere in the database.

Why does every card say one book is quoting?

Because the live tracker currently captures a single provider. It is a real limitation, it is named on the card rather than hidden, and adding a second provider is the highest-value item on the roadmap.

Which sports?

College football and the NFL, each from its own model, fitted and back-tested to the same standard and graded from its own record. No other sports are planned.

Is the NFL card the same as the college one?

The same card: the market first, Atlas's own number second, the drivers third, and a grade. The model underneath differs where the sport does — the NFL carries a quarterback state and a fitted home advantage, and no preseason recruiting or talent inputs.

Is Atlas free?

Yes. The grade, the research, the methodology, the reliability record and everything needed to judge a card this week are free and always will be.

Will there be a paid tier?

Eventually, for history, depth and delivery — past weeks and seasons, every driver rather than the leading three, the full market history, and email. Not the grade, not the research, not the record. There is no payment path on this site.

Does Atlas take affiliate money from sportsbooks?

No, and it never will. Books pay for traffic that converts to deposits, which would mean Atlas earns more when readers act — an interest directly opposed to the product's only claim.

Is anything blurred or teased?

No. A premium surface is absent and named, never blurred. A blurred number is an advertisement wearing the clothes of information.

How do I know the record is real?

It is recomputed from the database on every build rather than transcribed, and the research page shows claimed accuracy against realized accuracy for every band of disagreement, with the number of games behind each row.

Has Atlas been wrong?

Constantly, and the product is built around saying so. The grading system exists because the research found the model's most confident cards were its worst ones.

Does Atlas track me?

Server logs and a single first-party counter. No third-party analytics, no ad pixel, no cross-site identity, no account. There is nothing to sign into.

Does the site work without JavaScript?

Yes. Every page is complete before anything loads. The only script is 40 lines of filtering on the board; the card's expanding panels are native HTML.

Why is it so plain?

Because it is a research product, and because a page that loads instantly on a phone on a stadium network beats a page that looks impressive on a laptop.

Can I get this by email?

A weekly board email is planned. There is no sender yet, so nothing is collecting addresses.