College Football Playoff: Who gets in? Who wins it all?
It’s not often that we get essentially a new market to bet into and one that’s as high profile and important as “to make the College Football Playoff.”
The category is technically not new, of course. After all, we’ve had great recent success betting on longshots to make the CFP with TCU in 2022 and both Washington and Texas in 2023.
What is new is the math around what it takes to make it. Going from four teams to 12, the CFP is easier to get into so the viable longshots go from big prices to medium prices, and if you want a longshot, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a team with a coach like Kalen DeBoer or a quarterback like Michael Penix, and the supporting cast the Huskies had last year.
It’s possible though, that the new-look of the market makes it more difficult to price, even if longshots are harder to come by.
College Football Playoff odds
Let’s use 2023 Washington as an example. The Huskies were the 13th choice, nine slots away from being considered a top-4 team. Their odds to finish among those four teams were +600. Oklahoma is the 21st choice to make the CFP, nine slots away from getting in the top-12. Their odds to make it in are between +450 and +475.
As for the calculus on winning the National Championship, you might think 12 playoff spots means more teams have a chance to win the title. After all, a Group of 5 team finally gets a chance to win the title!
Think about it this way:
Two years ago, TCU won close game after close game, including a shootout with Michigan in the national semi-final. The new format likely gives the committee a chance to leave TCU out of the top-4 (after they lost to Kansas State), while still including them in the playoff. That drop in seeding means they’d have to overcome two more difficult games just to get to the semis.
Last year, Georgia had a soft schedule, leaving them vulnerable to the degree where a loss to Alabama made it impossible to include the 2-time defending champions. Had this format existed last year, UGA makes the CFP and gets a second chance to prove why they were considered a top-2 team all season long. That’s great for viewers, but brutal for a potential Cinderella.
Under the new system, if you’re going to make the national title game, you’ll have to earn it.
Best bets
Let’s start by projecting out the CFP, figuring how each conference will slot in, to try to get an idea of what the supply will look like.
Maybe the SEC gets a fourth team, but the committee will have to do one of four things:
Leave out Notre Dame
Make no mistake, one of the reasons we’re up to 12 teams is that so Notre Dame (and their following) can be included every year they’re even remotely good.
With a win total of 10.5, the expectation is 10 wins, and a 10-win Irish team is getting a spot in the playoffs.
Leave out the second-best team in the ACC
One of Clemson or Florida State?
What if Miami’s good?
Limit the Big Ten to two teams
This would have been viable before they added Oregon, Washington, USC, and UCLA, but they didn’t become a super-conference just to get two teams into the CFP
Leave out the second-best team in the Big 12
This is the most likely, but would be a clear shot at the Big 12
With this framework in place, you can see how Georgia has shorter odds to win the CFP than Ohio State but slightly longer odds to make the CFP. Meanwhile, even though LSU and Penn State have the same odds to win the Natty, the Nittany Lions are favored to get in, but LSU is not.
The SEC having six teams in the top-12 (and eight of the top-14) on the oddsboard means something has to give. Even with four SEC teams in, there are two playoff spots up for grabs for teams with longer odds than those in the top 14.
Similarly, there are four Big Ten teams about our CFP line of demarcation, so perhaps a third longshot slots exits.
To make the College Football Playoff
Favorite value exists
Penn State (-140, Bet365)
Amongst the uncertainty of the head coaching carousel and radical conference realignment, we know what James Franklin’s Penn State is all about - blowing away inferior teams, while falling short against Michigan (at its recent peak) and Ohio State.
Even if the Nittany Lions fall to Ohio State (whom they’re excited to face in State College), they avoid both Michigan and Oregon on a schedule that, as usual, is soft in the non-conference. There’s a direct path to 10-2, and that third slot in the Big Ten for the CFP, with the upside they surprise us and are actually a title contender as well. Of course, the latter doesn’t matter, as we’re only asking PSU to be just good enough to be on the level of a New Year’s Six team in the past. Something they’ve comfortably reached the last two seasons.
Penn State’s -170 to go over 9.5 wins, and it’s hard to imagine 10 wins isn’t enough to make the playoff, so -140 seems like a relatively good deal to back Franklin’s Nittany Lions to have another predictable season.
Movin’ on up
Clemson (+200, FanDuel)
In our ACC preview, we liked Miami to win the ACC at +400 or better - a season that would get them into the CFP at odds better than their +210 listing above. Ideally though, if we think there’s a second spot for an ACC team, and we’re down on Florida State - after a peak season where they’re replacing Jordan Travis with D.J. Uiagalalei - then the third team of the ACC’s 3-headed monster might have some value.
Dabo Swinney’s unwillingness to use the transfer portal likely takes Clemson out of a national championship contending tier, but the Tigers still have the brand power and homegrown talent to get into the ACC title game. A good showing in Week 1 with Georgia would be helpful to their resume in the eyes of the committee, and if they managed to pull of an upset, we’d really have something brewing.
Oklahoma (+450, Bet365)
It’s going to take a shocking run for a surprise winner or even conference finalist in the SEC. In the same way TCU and Washington can make the CFP title game, but when it came to winning, that’s a tall task. However, it wouldn’t be so weird to see a surprise fourth-best team in any conference, including the SEC.
Since fourth place might get you into the CFP - after being compared to the Big 12’s runner-up or 10-2 Notre Dame - it might worth looking down oddsboard while staying in the SEC.
Currently 8.5-point underdogs in “Game of the Year” lines for the Red River Rivalry, what if Oklahoma beats Texas in a matchup that’s seemingly always close if both sides have a functional quarterback? The Sooners might be 7-0 with a pair of nice-looking wins on their resume and have a virtual tiebreaker over the Longhorns - who would still have Georgia, and a trip to Texas A&M, ahead of them.
Once the committee takes notice, even a pair of losses down the stretch might not knock them that far off the radar.
“Like a G5”
Memphis (+600, Bet365)
Appalachian State (+1400, FanDuel)
Speaking of (sorta) new markets, while the G5 teams are listed with the big boys of college football, the top teams of the American, Mountain West, Sun Belt, MAC and Conference USA (Liberty), are all battling for their own reserved spot.
If sportsbooks removed them from the listing above and gave them a separate market, I wonder if the odds would still look like this:
As for making a bet - or in this case multiple bets to create a hybrid bet - Boise State might be really good this year, but they’re not going to have that glowing “0” in the loss column after getting beat by Oregon. Then, one Mountain West loss could be enough to kill their CFP hopes.
Meanwhile, Liberty has to go to Appalachian State, where the Flames will be underdogs. Even if they win, they might get painted as merely the undefeated team that got blown out by Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl.
If App State can win that game and run the table in the increasingly difficult Sun Belt, even if they’re hurt by an early season loss to Clemson, an undefeated conference season would look pretty. The Mountaineers have caused enough problems in the past - without a trip to a big bowl game - to get the benefit of the doubt. App State is paying out triple that of Boise State. Odds that I think should be tighter.
The favorite I will add is AAC favorite Memphis. Instead of +230 to win their conference - where we opted for South Florida at +700 - give me +450 that a conference championship is enough to give the Tigers the first-ever G5 pass to the College Football Playoff. For my money, they have the best chance at a mega-upset in the non-conference (facing Florida State instead of Oregon or Clemson) and are in the most reputable league of the Group of 5. That should help their cause if we’re comparing undefeated conference seasons in the first week December.
If either of our squads fail, maybe it means that USF and/or Texas State have won the respective conferences and we’ll be profitable in the Group of 5 anyway.
That’s gonna be a “No” for me, Dawg
Ole Miss to miss the CFP (+106, FanDuel)
Someone in the SEC has to be left out, and I’m looking at all the love for Ole Miss and thinking their odds to make the CFP are inflated. The committee might look down on a super-soft non-conference schedule, and if they’re 10-2 with losses to Georgia and at LSU (and/or maybe one at Florida), there are too many other good SEC teams to think Lane Kiffin’s going to get the benefit of the doubt.
To win the College Football Playoff
Oregon (+728, Pinnacle)
Simply put, if you’re willing to be a team with short odds to win a super-conference in the way we are with Oregon to take the Big Ten (very weird to say that), you probably like them on a national level.
It’s weird to say that there’s value on a team listed third at many sportsbooks, but you can get them as the fourth choice at +728 to win the national title at Pinnacle.
Dan Lanning has the money and, thereby the talent - to accompany the style of play that he brought over from his days at Georgia - to compete with anyone. I thought they were a top-2 team in the country last year, and had they not ran into an all-time season from a conference rival last year, I believe they could have beaten Michigan and won the national championship. Instead, the Ducks fly slightly under the radar and are worth a buy before they start the season hot and take out Ohio State in Eugene.