You can hear the SEC callers now. “PAWLLLLLLLLL.”
The College Football Playoff selection committee has put the Alabama Crimson Tide on the edge of missing the Playoff, with Alabama possibly looking at needing to win the SEC championship to make the final Playoff bracket.
Sportsbooks had already braced for that possibility, as FanDuel dropped the Tide to +1500 to win the national championship before Tuesday’s rankings release and furthered that to only +1600 immediately after the rankings dropped.
Oddly, no one’s odds improved after the rankings release, not in the National Championship odds, at least. The most notable bettered college football odds were in the wonders of who would make the Playoff at all, with the Tulane Green Wave at the forefront of the movement.
College Football Playoff odds
Biggest Riser
Tulane is now only a +194 underdog to make the Playoff, compared to +540 before the rankings release. In the American Conference, the first tiebreaker for reaching the championship isn’t record against common opponents or opponents’ winning percentage — it’s the team’s ranking in the Playoff committee’s eyes.
And the Green Wave are the only Group of Five team ranked, not to mention the only AAC team ranked. Tulane now has the clearest path to the conference championship game, particularly with only Temple and Charlotte remaining on the schedule.
North Texas’s odds shifted a touch, down to +100 from -104, but the Mean Green have the edge in the second AAC tiebreaker, ranking in a combination of advanced analytics. They, not Navy or East Carolina, should meet Tulane in the title game. That is not the shift.
The Green Wave having a clear path and not hoping to hold off the Midshipmen and the Pirates in those advanced analytics is the shift.
Related, James Madison’s hopes have effectively been extinguished. The Dukes were as short as +156 to make the Playoff before these rankings were released. But with only Tulane ranked among the Group of Five, the presumptive Sun Belt champion has to wince, now at +420 to make the Playoff.
Biggest Drop
Surprisingly, Oklahoma's odds fell the furthest, down to +3000 from +2700 before the rankings were released.
Why? Oklahoma slots in at No. 8 right now. The Sooners would have a home game in the first round. Shouldn’t that shorten the odds?
Consider this the bookmakers’ nod to how good they believe Notre Dame is, which is Oklahoma’s likely opponent in that first round. That may be a bit short-sighted, both in that the Sooners have arguably the best defensive front in college football and in that these rankings are likely to still shuffle, making that matchup far from a certainty... but it still makes sense.
The most likely bracket is some version of this one, with Oklahoma at No. 8 and Notre Dame at No. 9 — but look at USC at No. 7 Oregon, No. 4 Georgia at Georgia Tech, and No. 6 Mississippi at Mississippi State as possible causes of chaos — and in that most likely bracket, the Sooners would have the most difficult path to the Playoff semifinals, going through both the Irish and the No. 1 Ohio State Buckeyes.
