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David Purdum, ESPN Staff Writer
Bookmakers estimate 90% of the action on the opening round of the College Football Playoff will be placed this week, ahead of the four on-campus games that kick off Friday. The games begin with an in-state tilt featuring the popular underdog Indiana Hoosiers and culminate with a potential redemption game for the Ohio State Buckeyes on Saturday night at the Horseshoe.
Point spreads opened last week when the CFP bracket was released and have held mostly steady, with the higher seeds — Texas Longhorns, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Penn State Nittany Lions and Ohio State Buckeyes — favored by a least a touchdown. The Oregon Ducks, Georgia Bulldogs and two long shots — the Boise State Broncos and Arizona State Sun Devils — await the winners of the opening-round games.
Here is a look at the early betting storylines.
Toughest road
The top half of the CFP bracket is stacked, featuring the best three teams in most oddsmakers’ power ratings: Oregon, Texas and Ohio State, in varying orders. Barring monumental upsets, oddsmakers believe the team that comes out of the top half of the bracket will be favored in the championship game.
“That half of the bracket is just so much harder than the other one,” Ed Salmons, veteran oddsmaker for the Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas, told ESPN. “You basically could argue that there are three teams that could be No. 1 seeds.”
Oregon and Texas are listed as around +350 co-favorites to win the national championship at ESPN BET and other sportsbooks. Georgia, at +400, is ahead of Ohio State (+500) at ESPN BET, but oddsmakers say that’s mostly because the Bulldogs have a seemingly easier path to the championship game, which will be played Jan. 20, in Atlanta.
Ohio State would likely be favored over Georgia, oddsmakers say, especially with the Bulldogs’ injury situation at quarterback.
Georgia’s odds reflect backup QB playing
Early lookahead lines on second-round games have Georgia as a small underdog to Notre Dame, a line that reflects the Bulldogs being quarterbacked by backup redshirt sophomore Gunner Stockton. Starter Carson Beck injured his right elbow late in the second half of the SEC Championship Game and sat out all but one play in the second half. With Stockton under center, Georgia prevailed, beating Texas for the second time this season.
Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said last week that Beck underwent an MRI and was evaluating his options. The university offered no timeline for Beck’s potential return, but oddsmakers aren’t expecting him to play in Georgia’s quarterfinal game Jan. 1.
“At this time, we are pricing Georgia with Carson Beck doubtful at best,” Joey Feazel, who oversees college football odds for Caesars Sportsbook, said. “The strength of the Bulldogs is not their QB, so we do not expect a large decrease in their probability of winning the national championship.”
Salmons of the SuperBook noted the challenge of gauging how good Stockton is after one half of football and said the Bulldogs have been inconsistent offensively even with Beck under center.
“It’s an unknown right now,” he said. “Usually when a quarterback goes out, you drop a team seven points in the power ratings. But I don’t know how much to drop this Georgia team.”
Even with the quarterback questions, Georgia remains an odds-on favorite to reach the semifinal round at sportsbooks and has the best odds of any team to make the championship game at +130 at ESPN BET.
Ohio State still has respect from bettors, bookmakers
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Why Pamela Maldonado is backing Ohio State against the spread
Pamela Maldonado likes Ohio State against the spread vs. Tennessee.
The betting public is the most invested in Ohio State to win the national championship.
More bets have been placed and more money wagered on the Buckeyes to the win the CFP than any other team at multiple sportsbooks, and oddsmakers say Ohio State remains at or near the top of their power ratings — even after their stunning loss to Michigan.
In one of the biggest upsets of the season, the Buckeyes lost as three-touchdown home favorites to the Wolverines. It didn’t slow the betting public interest in Ohio State, though. In the first 24 hours after the Michigan loss, ESPN BET reported receiving more action on the Buckeyes than any other team.
Ohio State looked conservative and uptight against the Wolverines, especially quarterback Will Howard. But oddsmakers still believe the Buckeyes have the talent to potentially play the highest level of football.
“They got sucked into Michigan’s game and then they played conservative in the second half,” Salmons said. “Hopefully, they learned a lesson from it, from their end. The lesson of how not to do it when you’ve got so much more talent than the other team. We know their talent.”
Ohio State opened as a consensus 7-point home favorites over Tennessee in its first-round matchup Saturday in Columbus.
“The only sharp action we’ve seen was as soon as we put Ohio State -7, one of our sharper players laid seven right off the bat,” Salmons said.
Early action on underdog Hoosiers
Bettors are siding with Indiana in their cross-state first-round matchup with Notre Dame.
Notre Dame began the week as a 7-point favorite, but the early action was on the underdog Hoosiers, including at sportsbooks located in Indiana. As of Monday at BetMGM’s Indiana sportsbooks, seven of every 10 bets on the game’s point spread were on the Hoosiers.
“The only opinionated sharp action we have seen for the first-round games has been on the Indiana Hoosiers at +7.5,” Feazel of Caesars Sportsbook said. “The sharp action we have seen thus far has been to a minimum. I expect to see some sharper action in the middle of this week on the first-round playoff games.”
Salmons of the SuperBook said that as of Sunday the biggest bet they had taken on a CFP game was $40,000 on Indiana +7.5 that was placed last week in Las Vegas.
“I was surprised to see a bet that big that early,” Salmons said. “We’re pretty one-side [on Indiana] right now, but it’s still early. Usually 90% of the money comes in Friday and Saturday.”
Chris Andrews, a veteran Las Vegas sportsbook director at the South Point casino, opened the Fighting Irish as 9-point favorites, higher than other sportsbooks and quickly took bets on the Hoosiers. Within three days of opening, Andrews had dropped the line to Notre Dame -7.
“I like Notre Dame, so I opened that a little high,” Andrews said. “I’ve got a lot of action on that game.”
