Welcome to the
Pickle Jar

Every added signal has to earn its place.

Pickle Jar ratings start with opponent-adjusted football performance: what a team consistently does after accounting for the quality of its opponents. The Jar looks for repeatable traits, including efficiency, disruption and Havoc, and performance in the trenches, rather than rewarding raw volume or reputation.

Overall is the public 60–100 team-strength grade derived from the locked Pickle Rating. OFF and DEF appear as FBS ranks only when a separately validated preseason outlook or current-season unit rating is available; otherwise, they remain unavailable. Resume is different. It measures accomplishment against quality competition, so it is not earned before games are played and is never replaced by a preseason projection.

Preseason ratings are expectations built from the best approved evidence available. Once the season begins, actual football evidence progressively replaces those assumptions under the Jar's validated transition. Verified personnel and coaching information may provide helpful context without automatically changing a rating.

For matchups, the approved engine uses the current team-strength state and venue to produce a win probability and expected margin. Market information does not drive the Jar. The Scorecard closes the loop by publicly tracking how the Jar's official predictions perform over time.