The inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff is still months away.
Let’s be real, training camps haven’t even opened yet for the vast majority of schools. Yet that’s no reason not to look ahead and predict which programs will find themselves playing for a national championship in this year’s expanded tournament.
For the oddsmakers at BetMGM, it turns out there’s a pretty clear consensus on at least eight of the 12 playoff spots up for grabs:
Alabama (+115) is the first team listed with odds worse than +100 (even money) to make the postseason while reigning champion Michigan just barely made the cut.
Both schools just underwent a coaching change as Nick Saban retired and Jim Harbaugh left the Wolverines for the Los Angeles Chargers.
Aside from independent Notre Dame, the schools considered favorites play in either the Big Ten or SEC. No Big 12, ACC or Group of 5 teams made the cut.
That’s obviously likely to change between now and December, but does go to show how oddsmakers view the offseason changes across the sport.
At BetMGM, 30.9 percent of all money wagered on a team to make the playoff is on Ohio State. Only one other team has more than 10 percent of the handle: Utah, which was just picked to finish first in the Big 12, is +250 to make the playoff and accounts for 15.6 percent of the handle.
Meanwhile, Colorado remains the most-bet team overall to make the playoff with 10.3 percent of all wagers despite +2000 odds that haven’t shifted since betting opened after last season.
