CFP Championship Odds: Usual Suspects Top Board For 2022 College Football Season
Rinse and repeat
Good luck finding value when it comes to betting the national champion for the 2022 college football season.
The Georgia Bulldogs are kings of the NCAA gridiron after pulling away from Alabama on Monday night in the College Football Playoff national championship. The title was the first in UGA history in more than 40 years and is the culmination of Kirby Smart’s rebuild in Athens.
It probably comes as little surprise, then, that Georgia is one of the early betting favorites next season. FanDuel Sportsbook already has released its early national title odds, and Georgia, unsurprisingly, is joined by Alabama at the top.
Here’s the top of the betting board at FanDuel.
Georgia +200
Alabama +200
Ohio State +800
Clemson +1000
Oregon +4000
Texas A&M +4000
Oklahoma +4000
Florida +4000
Michigan +400
Miami +6000
Penn State +6000
It’s a pretty tough sell to take any team at 2-1 to win a championship roughly 365 days in advance. But it’s also hard to make a justification for an early bet on just about anyone outside the top four. There have been eight CFP title games, and those four teams — Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State and Clemson — have now combined to win seven of them. The one outlier was LSU beating Clemson two years ago. In fact, the only other time a team outside that grouping even played in the title game was the first year when Oregon lost to Ohio State.
If there’s one relative long shot that could make some noise next season it’s USC, currently listed at 80-1 at FanDuel, which feels like very good value compared to the top of the board (not to mention other sportsbooks; Caesars currently has the Trojans at 20-1). USC will be a popular pick after hiring Lincoln Riley as head coach. It’s also assumed Oklahoma quarterback Caleb Williams will join Riley in LA, so the Trojans might waste little time getting back to the top.
That being said, don’t be surprised when Alabama and Ohio State are duking it out at SoFi Stadium on Jan. 9, 2023.
