Should We Bet on the SEC to Win the CFB Playoffs Every Season?

Another College Football Semifinal in the books and another CFP Championship Game featuring an SEC team. In fact, both teams this year are from the SEC. A conference that has become the dominant force in College Football over the last decade and change. Back when I was young and watching college football, the Big Ten, Big 12 and the ACC were the conferences to beat most years.

But since the CFP format has started, and for some time beforehand, the SEC has been the conference that teams are struggling to best.

So, let us take a quick look at the SEC’s amazing record in CFP play and whether or we should be wagering on an SEC team to win the CFP in preseason betting. 

First off, let us start with the most obvious team that annoys most people outside of the SEC. The Alabama Crimson Tide. In the eight years that the CFP format has been in use, the Crimson Tide has made the semifinals in seven of them. The only season Bama failed to make it to the show was the 2019-2020 season. However, LSU did. This means that the SEC has been represented each of the last eight seasons in the CFP. 

Moving on, we take a look at the Crimson Tides’ opponent in this season’s title game, the Georgia Bulldogs. They are the next “best” SEC team in terms of appearance in the CFP with two.

This includes their current run to the finals along with a 2017 loss in the finals to, you guessed it, Alameda. I bring this up because, for as much as the SEC is all over the CFP, it is really just Alabama that has kept that streak going. LSU has only one appearance in the CFP but won it all in 2019-20. 

Circling back to the original question of betting on SEC teams to make the playoffs, I have to admit it makes a lot of sense. I am not one to “blind bet” due to a system or stat, but the SEC’s presence in the CFP feels different.

They have had at least one team in the final four in each of the last eight years and only once did one of those teams not make the finals. Back in 2014-15, Ohio State beat Oregon for the first Championship. Since then, an SEC team has always competed in the finals. 

What all this boils down to is not so much to trust that the SEC makes an appearance in the CFP, but rather Alabama.

Nick Saban has this team playing so well that they have five CFP final appearances in eight seasons and 2021 has been no different. So, don’t just go betting on the SEC to win it all, but, betting preseason for Alabama to make win the CFP isn’t the worst idea.

If you had done this each of the last seven years, you would be 3-4 which is not bad for blindly betting a team based solely on historic records. If you just bet on them to make the CFP, you would be 7-1.

So, as long as Saban is the coach and they continue to recruit as they have been, I think you could do a lot worse than betting Bama in the preseason market.