Alabama and Clemson open as prohibitive favorites over Oklahoma and Notre Dame, respectively in their College Football Playoff games.
The College Football Playoff field is set and now it’s time to figure out how to bet on these games.
Alabama and Oklahoma will play in the Orange Bowl on Dec. 29 with Clemson and Notre Dame playing in the Cotton Bowl.
Georgia and Ohio State were the first two teams left out. Both had good cases, but the committee went with Kyler Murray and the Big 12 champions who avenged their lone regular season loss by defeating Texas.
While the debate will continue about who the No. 4 team should have been, the conversation should turn to the four teams in and the two games coming at the end of the month.
Both Alabama and Clemson are heavy betting favorites based on the opening odds released after the announcement.
According to SuperBook USA, Alabama opens as a 14-point favorite over Oklahoma. Clemson also opens up as a double-digit favorite over Notre Dame. The Tigers are favored by 11.5 points.
With the odds heavily in favor of Alabama and Clemson, fans could be headed toward the third National Championship Game between these two powers in the last four years.
You can’t dismiss the underdog in a championship game, but the oddsmakers have done just that.
Alabama outscored SEC opponents by 261 points in the regular season and Clemson has blown out opponents all year too, so it stands to reason that the oddsmakers have laid a pretty good line to get betting traffic on both sides. After all, that’s their ultimate goal.
According to Sportsline, Alabama has the best National Championship odds with a 64.7 percent chance to win it all for the second year in a row.
Clemson has the second best odds at 18.2 percent, followed by 11 percent for Alabama and 6.1 percent for Oklahoma.
Who will you be betting on in the Cotton and Orange Bowls and who is your bet to win the National Championship?
My knee-jerk reaction is to take the favorites and lay the points. My champion remains Alabama just as it was in the preseason.