College Football Playoff: Best bets for the Semi-Finals
How market reactions to early-round CFP results alter perceptions in the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl
Ok, so, we learned that maybe having the bye into a quarterfinal isn’t the best thing in the 12-team College Football Playoff.
It’s also possible that the four teams that got to skip the first round, who all closed as underdogs, just weren’t as good as their opponent, as closing line favorites improved to 7-1 in the playoff ATS and 8-0 straight up.
You can’t paint all four results with the same brush, though. With ten minutes to go in the Fiesta Bowl, the underdog Boise State Broncos looked to be in good shape to cover. They didn’t, as Penn State won and covered without playing particularly well. The next day, Arizona State - even bigger underdogs - looked like they were headed for a blowout ATS loss, but all-of-a-sudden that game flipped and the Sun Devils pushed Texas to the brink in overtime.
In the Rose Bowl, Ohio State fit the narrative, looking more up-to-speed than Oregon.
As for the Sugar Bowl, both teams started sleepily, but it was Notre Dame’s coaching staff who looked far more prepared, while Kirby Smart’s group was plagued with poor coaching decisions (throwing with an inexperienced QB with seconds left in the first half), undisciplined play (key false starts and offsides), and however you want to file away a walk-on spectator taking a 15-yard penalty for interfering with an official on the sideline.
What does it all mean for the CFP semis? A pair of markets that look considerably different than if these matchups just a few games ago.
(6) Penn State vs. (7) Notre Dame (-2.5, 47)
Orange Bowl: 7:30pm ET, Jan. 9 (Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, FL)
Projected spread: Notre Dame PK
Opening line: Notre Dame -1.5If sports betting were as easy as adding up yards per play numbers, red zone conversion rates, and turnover margin, we’d all be rich.
Notre Dame beat Georgia in the margins.
Sure, a sack/fumble set them up for their lone offensive touchdown - on a one-play/13-yard drive, but Kirby Smart was complicit, opting for reckless aggression with 39 seconds left. Mike Bobo’s play-call - for Gunner Stockton (in his first career start on the Sugar Bowl stage) to drop back against a defense that had been winning in pass-rush to his blindside - was an unnecessary risk that the Irish took advantage of. If that weren’t enough to break open a low-scoring game, a kick-return touchdown to start the second half was.
That sequence was the headline, but in the margins? What if Mitch Jeter - who’d struggled all season to the point where a made kick against Indiana elicited an epic celebration - had missed the near-50-yard field goal two plays before the Bulldogs’ pivotal turnover? We’ve seen our fair share of kicking fiascos this postseason.
In the first quarter, Georgia had been in field goal range themselves, only to commit their other fumble, and squandered three points. If two plays go differently, wouldn’t a Bulldogs’ 6-3 halftime lead result in a considerably different game script the rest of the way?
In the second half, with a 17-point lead, Marcus Freeman and his coaching staff could effectively toy with the seemingly underprepared Bulldogs, forcing Stockton to throw to beat them (without much help from receivers who took turns dropping the ball), and deploying gambits like the hurried, fourth-down fake-out that caused the Dawgs to jump offside, killing any chance for a miracle comeback.
The Irish win was impressive in its combination of simplicity (Riley Leonard: 90 yards passing, 80 yards rushing, and little from anyone else) but also an attention to detail that denotes an understanding of the complexity of winning football.
Is James Franklin and his staff capable of matching Freeman and his coaches ability to get everything out of a game? Historically speaking, Penn State hasn’t been able to win THESE games - the ones lined around pick’em.
Most of those games (and their point spreads) had a market built on the hopes that the Nittany Lions could break through against the powers of the Big Ten - Ohio State, Michigan, and more recently, the only undefeated team during this CFB regular season - Oregon. All of those were national title contenders - teams rated in the 90s in our estimated market rating system - who could play a high-scoring shootout or battle in the trenches, and were/are loaded with NFL prospects.
The question for Thursday’s Orange Bowl - does a convincing home win over Indiana and beating Georgia thanks to a superior game plan, mean we should be fading Penn State because Notre Dame is in the category of those teams Franklin’s had trouble with?
As usual, the reason for this query stems from how the market is treating each team.
Going into last week, while these two were matched up with considerably different opponents in games with vastly different point spreads, Notre Dame and Penn State were not only rated the same in the betting market, but at 87/100, their rating was identical to how they came into the season.
The Irish rating went way down after losing to Northern Illinois, eventually getting back up to that of a 10.5-win team. Penn State took a different route, as their rating drifted up during their win/cover stretches against mediocre teams, only to fall back down after losses to the Buckeyes and Ducks.
While they took different routes to get back to equal before last week, anything other than a pick’em on a neutral field in Miami is overrating the most recent games, where Notre Dame found a way to win without traditional production, and Penn State made beating Boise State look a little too easy.
Unlike Indiana, and this year’s edition of Georgia (a year after they lost numerous eventual rookie NFL standouts), Penn State is loaded with pro talent in a way they’ve never been before, including an unguardable force in Tyler Warren, and two future NFL running backs providing more danger than the Bulldogs’ backfield. While the Irish can brag about their explosive runners, that didn’t show up against Georgia, while the Nittany Lions’ ran for nine yards per carry in the Big Ten title game.
We’ll trust that the winner is going to have to have success passing in a close game. Given the combination of Drew Allar running Andy Kotelnicki’s plays, and getting a couple points that may come in handy late, it makes sense to take Penn State and hope Franklin doesn’t fall on his face against a comparable opponent yet again.
Pick: Penn State (+2.5, DraftKings)
(5) Texas vs. (8) Ohio State (-6, 53.5)
Cotton Bowl: 7:30pm ET, Jan. 10 (AT&T Stadium, Dallas, TX)
Projected spread: Ohio State -1.5
Opening line: Ohio State -4.5The unpredictability of sports is awesome.
No one thought Michigan would be able to stay in Ohio State’s head this season.
When the Buckeyes lost, it was widely assumed (even in Columbus) the Buckeyes had little chance to get off the mat to go on a 4-game run to win the National title.
Now they’re lined as slightly better than a coin flip to win the whole thing, despite a route (with all the favorites winning) that hasn’t been paved in such a way to improve the Buckeyes’ chances. All that’s happened is that Buckeyes have looked awesome.
That’s not nothin’, but we just spent much of the 2024 regular season believing that Texas was the most complete team in college football - capable of running, throwing, and playing defense, all while having football’s most famous last name on the back of the backup quarterback’s jersey.
It’s a compliment to Ohio State’s roster talent that, despite the two losses that kept them out of the Big Ten title game, they were still made better than a touchdown favorite against Tennessee and a favorite over undefeated Oregon in the Rose Bowl, but there are no discounts on backing the Buckeyes to make it three dominant performances in a row.
The team rating that made OSU -2.5 against Oregon would have made them -11 against Tennessee. The team rating that makes OSU -6 against the Longhorns (in Dallas), would have them -5 against Oregon, -13.5 against Tennessee, and -22.5 against Michigan. While all coverable (yes, even the Wolverines game), the requirement is ANOTHER “best game of their season” for the Buckeyes.
Alternatively, think about it this way:
Texas was favored by 3 on a neutral against Georgia
Texas was favored by 14 against Clemson
Texas closed as 13-point favorites against the Big 12 Champion Arizona State Sun Devils
A 6-point spread makes Ohio State almost 20 better than ASU. It says they’d be -20 at home against Clemson (you know, like the Michigan game). It suggests the Buckeyes would be -9 in Atlanta.
All those lines are unrealistic, so why is this line where it is? The market bet it up there. Oddsmakers knew they’d get Ohio State money, after the Buckeyes jumped on the Ducks in the first half of the Rose Bowl, so they opened the Cotton Bowl with an inflated 4.5-point line. Bettors didn’t care, taking Ohio State, before resistance hit just shy of a full touchdown.
I can’t promise that Quinn Ewers will play better - skipping the lofty lob into double-coverage, nor can I swear that two Longhorns’ defensive backs won’t find themselves lost while double-covering a receiver on a halfback pass on fourth down.
I can say, with confidence, that if either of those two plays were executed correctly, Texas would have sealed a cover in the Peach Bowl (and a higher perception).
Also, I can tell you that assuming Ohio State is a good bet to roll over another really good team, and paying the tax for it, comes with negative expected value.
The Longhorns’ corners will be tested, but if there’s one thing that should be on the first page of the game plan, it’s “double Jeremiah Smith.” Meanwhile, Texas will put up the best run defense of anyone the Buckeyes have faced this season. If the Longhorns are able to be more multi-dimensional offensively than Tennessee (not hard) or Oregon (a better game script would help), this should be an all-timer.
We’re always looking for bets that we think will pay out 55%-60% of the time. An excitable, pro-Buckeye betting market has pushed this line to where backing the Longhorns in front of a crowd that was likely planning for this game at AT&T Stadium under the assumption their team were a certainty to get by ASU. With a second lease on life after that scare, the Longhorns are more likely than not to at least keep it close in Dallas.