How Conference Locks Actually Work

The conference lock is the single highest-leverage call you make all season. Each Power-4 conference you lock and keep intact is worth +7, up to +28 if you sweep all four. But a lock is a commitment, not a freebie — so it pays to understand exactly how it works before you click.

The timeline model

A lock behaves differently before and after the season starts.

Preseason (before the Aug 28 lock): locking is a free, reversible opt-in. You can lock a conference, change your mind, and unlock it — nothing breaks. You can even lock a conference with gaps: you don't have to have picked every game in it. Any game you leave unpicked simply freezes as empty when the season locks, and scores as a miss.

In-season (after Aug 28): a locked conference is live. Changing or removing a committed pick inside it breaks the lock — terminal, and you forfeit the +7 for that conference. Filling in a game you never picked is benign. That removal rule is the important one: you can't dodge the break by clearing a pick and re-picking later.

How to lock without getting burned

1. Pick the conference out first. Use the By Team view or the conference filter to make sure every game that touches the conference has a pick. A lock is only worth +7 if the games under it actually score.
2. Lock the conferences you're most sure of. You don't have to lock all four. Three confident locks (+21) beats four shaky ones where you break one in October.
3. Watch the at-risk warning. The Stats page flags any locked conference that still has unpicked games — those freeze as zero, which can drag a lock from a strength into a liability.

The math that matters

+28 is a quarter of a strong season's points for a lot of players. But a broken lock isn't just a zero — it's the +7 you were counting on, gone. Treat each lock like a season-long thesis: only commit to the ones you'd defend in November.