Betting Turf, College Football Futures
Futures for college football have been released in some places. Now that we have reached the off-season, folks are looking ahead to next season, trying to grab undervalued odds on who might win the 2015 National Championship.
Not every site has these odds out yet. I was able to find them on Bovada, and some of the odds are pretty enticing.
First, let's take a look at the favorites for next season. (Usually these aren't great bets; the odds are not in your favor.)
The Florida State Seminoles are the favorites for 2014 (2015 title game) at 4 to 1 odds.
Next comes the Alabama Crimson Tide at 13/2 odds.
From there, the rest of the top five are Oregon at 9/1, Ohio State at 12/1 and Oklahoma also at 12/1. Those are the five favorites for the upcoming FBS championship according to Bovada.
There isn't much value to be found there. While each of those programs has a very good chance at making the four-team playoff, they are hardly worth betting on. So much can change and go wrong between now and next January. I want better odds than 12 to 1 on any team I'm taking.
The place to find value is further down the list, in the teams with much longer odds. Here are a few teams that caught my eye.
The Georgia Bulldogs and the USC Trojans are both at 25 to 1 right now.
Those are interesting bets because of the amount of talent each team will be returning. Also, the key to futures bets is obviously to grab odds for something you want when they will offer the largest return. 25 to 1 may be as long as these odds get, especially if each teams' freshmen look really good in spring practices or they start out next season really well. Then the value will just shrink.
Going further down the list, the Michigan Wolverines at 40/1 and the Miami Hurricanes at 50/1 stick out.
Both teams underachieved greatly this past season. That helps push down their odds for this coming season. However, even a reasonable bounceback would put both teams in position to win their respective conference and make it into the playoff. And that's all we're really looking for here is a chance at the playoff. Trying to predict which team will actually come out of the four-teamer as victor this far in advance is a fool's errand.
