How to play

How the day works

A new game starts every night at midnight Eastern time. Everyone who opens the site that day gets the same warm-up question, the same three map clues and the same mini-games, so a score in your group chat means the same thing as a score in mine. The rounds run in a fixed order: the tailgate, the map challenge, Stadium Pulse, Follow the Ball and the finale, where your scorecard and a rivalry roast wait for you.

You can still play yesterday’s game from a shared link if you missed it, and once the daily game is done you can keep going with practice sets. Practice sets use fresh clues and never change your daily result. Finished days, with every answer explained, go into the archive.

The tailgate

Every day opens in the parking lot with one multiple-choice question about the sport: a tradition, a trophy, a piece of history. Tap an answer and you see straight away whether you got it, along with a short explanation of why. The tailgate is a warm-up for your memory and does not add to your score, so guess freely.

The map challenge: three clues, one ladder

Next comes the heart of the game. You get three clues, one at a time, and each one points at a real place: a stadium, a campus, a college town, the site of a famous game or a bowl. Tap the map to drop a pin where you think the answer is, tap again to move it, then press Lock it in. A school bus drives from your pin to the true spot and the card shows the answer and the story behind it.

The three clues climb a ladder, so the day gets harder as you go:

1. The opener is a layup. It may name the state, and most fans will have a foothold.
2. The middle clue asks you to reason it out. It never names its own state or city, but it leaves a hint such as a neighbouring state, a river, a conference or a rival.
3. The closer is the stumper. It is framed nationally, with no regional hint at all, so getting close takes real knowledge or a very good guess.

Every map answer is checked against open coordinate data before it can appear, and every dated clue comes from 2006 or later, so you are playing on the modern game you have actually watched.

The speed clock

A shot clock starts the moment a clue becomes playable. Lock in within 10 seconds and you earn the full speed bonus of +150. After that the bonus fades a little each second until it reaches zero at 30 seconds. Taking your time is never punished: past the window the clock simply cools down and you play on with no penalty. A pin more than 500 miles off (Lost the Bus) earns no speed bonus, however quick. Speed can lift a good round; accuracy still wins the day.

Scoring: points, bus miles and tiers

Each clue is worth up to 1,000 points. A pin within 10 miles of the answer earns all of them. Beyond that the score falls away smoothly with distance: about 751 points a hundred miles past that radius, about 368 at 350 miles past it and only a few dozen at a thousand. Three perfect pins make 3,000.

Your bus miles are the total distance between your pins and the answers across all three clues. Lower is better, and it is the number friends tend to argue about. Each pin also earns a tier, shown as a coloured square on your card:

• On Campus: within 25 miles.
• Same State: within 150 miles.
• Conference Road Trip: within 500 miles.
• Lost the Bus: anything farther.

Stadium Pulse

After the map you take your seat and get the crowd going. For 5 seconds you tap as fast as you can. Every tap pumps up the crowd meter, but the noise drains away the whole time, so you have to keep tapping to keep it high. The bonus, up to +300, rewards the loudest moment you reach, how loud the crowd still is when the whistle blows and how steadily you tapped. Fill the meter and the stadium is SOLD OUT; below that you will see ROARING, LOUD or WARMING UP. The feel changes a little from day to day, but a full meter is always within reach of quick fingers.

Follow the Ball

The last mini-game is the old shell game, stadium style. A ball goes under a cup, the cups shuffle, and you pick the one you think is hiding it. Round one is three cups and a classic shuffle, worth +150. Most days add a second round worth +250: faster, sometimes with more cups, and on some days fake-outs and frantic moves meant to pull your eye away. Early in the week is gentle; Saturday, as it should be, is the hardest.

The finale and your card

The finale adds everything up: your map points, your speed bonus, Stadium Pulse and Follow the Ball. Pick your school and you get a matchup with a rival and a chirp, a short roast of the other side. The default chirps are PG-13 and aimed at programs and traditions, never at people; a spicier tier is there if you switch it on.

Then share it. The card lists the date, your map points and bus miles, a coloured square for each pin, your Pulse and Follow the Ball results and your chirp, with a link to the same day so friends can play the exact game you did. It never shows the answers, so you can post it without spoiling anything.

A few tips

• On the middle clue, find the hint first (a river, a rival, a conference), then narrow it down.
• If you are unsure on the closer, a pin in the middle of the likely region keeps your bus miles down.
• In Follow the Ball, keep your eyes on one cup rather than the whole table.

Ready? Play today’s game.