College Football Playoff odds: Oregon drops after rankings, Miami’s collapse leaves a void
The reveal of the first College Football Playoff rankings is a fun talking point and sets the stage for the next month of games, but the rankings are a metric of things that have happened so far. The betting market is more concerned with measuring the likelihood of what will happen and has the teams in a different order.
Week 10 did not change the order of the top three favorites, mostly because Ohio State and Indiana won convincingly and Alabama was on a bye. The Buckeyes are still the favorite to win the national title on BetMGM with +200 odds. A 24-point win against Penn State, even a greatly disappointing version of the Nittany Lions, was another hurdle cleared for OSU.
Indiana beat Maryland 55-10 and is +500 to win the national title, moving from +700 a week ago. Alabama is +700, moving up from +800 last week.
The next group of teams did see some movement, with Texas A&M moving down after being on a bye. The Aggies’ odds to win it all got longer despite not playing. A&M is now +1100 after being +900 a week ago. This is likely due to other teams’ chances of making the College Football Playoff increasing. At least in the betting market, A&M still isn’t viewed as highly as Oregon (+1000) and Notre Dame (+1000), and both got good news on the CFP front (mostly in the form of other contenders losing, more on that later).
For example, Austin Mock’s projection model rates A&M as the seventh-best team, but with a 99 percent chance of making the Playoff and a 12 percent chance of winning the title. That 12 percent is the third-highest of any team, but is partially weighted because of how much more likely the Aggies are to make the CFP than other contenders.
Odds to make the College Football Playoff
Speaking of how likely teams are to make the CFP, there was some big movement on that front after Week 10. That is expected with Miami, Georgia Tech and Vanderbilt losing.
Indiana has joined Ohio State off the board in odds to make the CFP. Both teams are virtual locks by any reasonable measure at this point. Texas A&M could reach that threshold if it wins at a ranked Missouri team as a touchdown-favorite on Saturday. The undefeated Aggies are -10000 (99.01 percent probability) to get into the CFP.
With losses elsewhere, it seems more likely that Alabama and Ole Miss could get into the CFP with their losses. Both just have one. Both also have -1100 odds to make the 12-team field (91.7 percent chance).
Georgia is in the same boat, but the betting market is being more skeptical of the Bulldogs. Georgia beat Florida by four on a neutral field and saw its national title odds drop from +1000 to +1300 even after winning. Georgia is still likely headed to the playoff with -450 odds (implying a better than 80 percent chance), but the Bulldogs aren’t quite in the same category as Bama and Ole Miss at the moment.
Three more teams have minus odds, implying a greater than 50 percent chance of making the CFP: Notre Dame (-350), Texas Tech (-285) and Oregon (-220). ND is the top-ranked two-loss team in the CFP rankings and did not drop in the rankings or in the odds even after Miami, which beat Notre Dame to open the season, suffered its second loss. Texas Tech is the clear favorite in the Big 12, even though BYU is undefeated (although those teams play this weekend, which will shift things dramatically for both teams either way).
Oregon is the more interesting story, though. The Ducks were the only top contender to see their playoff odds dramatically shift after the rankings came out. Oregon was -450 earlier on Tuesday, right there with Georgia (both were also -300 last week) until the Ducks came in at No. 9 in the new rankings, behind BYU and Texas Tech. The concern with Oregon’s lower ranking is that it’s starting to look possible, although maybe not quite probable, that even 10-2 might not be enough. Oregon isn’t even favored by a touchdown this week at Iowa. It’s plausible that things get dicey for Oregon, thus the odds move.
There are only nine teams with minus-odds, a drop from 10 the past couple of weeks. That’s because of Miami’s catastrophic loss at SMU. The Hurricanes now have two losses and are down at No. 18 in the CFP rankings. Miami went from -235 (implying a roughly 70 percent chance) to +350 (around 22 percent). Ouch.
No other contender has taken their spot in minus odds yet. Texas was somewhat controversially ranked No. 11, but the odds market gives the Longhorns the 10th-best chance to make the Playoff at +170. Texas has two losses and has games at No. 5 Georgia and against No. 3 Texas A&M still ahead. It’s going to be a tough path, and there’s too much football left to start projecting potential 9-3 teams that could get in.
BYU (+175), Louisville (+210), Georgia Tech (+270), Oklahoma (+300) and Vanderbilt (+320) are the next contenders.
The ACC is a special kind of mess with four teams ranked between 14 and 18, but unranked Duke, with a 4-1 conference record but two nonconference losses, is actually the co-favorite at +300 to win the league with Georgia Tech.
Speaking of messy conference races, the American continues to beat itself up, leaving no clear favorite. South Florida is viewed as the most likely non-power conference team to make the CFP at +240, followed by North Texas (+270) and Memphis (+350). Sun Belt leader James Madison is lurking at +300 if the American beats up on itself too much.
