Now that the 2011-12 season has come to a close, les go ahead and look at the future odds on tap for next year's college football season. Who should you jump on now, and who are the sportsbooks overvaluing?
All hail the new king of
College Football, the Alabama Crimson Tide, who captured the 2011-2012 BCS title
with a convincing 21-0 shutout of previously unbeaten LSU. The victory for the
Tide (12-1) avenged a 9-6 overtime loss to the Bayou Bengals (13-1) on November
5. It also marked the fifth straight year that a team from the SEC has won the
national title, and it might have been the worst college football game of the year.
Now what?
Maybe there will be some
tweaking to the BCS playoff format because what they’ve got now isn’t working.
That is unless you enjoy seeing teams from the same conference, who have
already met during the regular season, square off again for the national title.
If you’re a fan of ultra conservative play calling, field goals and defense,
then you likely don’t want a change in the current playoff system.
Since I
didn’t have a dog in the hunt, I can state without hesitation that any
combination of teams other than LSU and Alabama would have made for a
better game than we saw. Maybe a college football “Final Four” with a couple of
other non-SEC teams invited.
TV executives were
predicting this would be the lowest-rated BCS title game ever, as it came less
than a week after the Clemson and West Virginia Orange Bowl became the
lowest-rated BCS bowl of all time. Maybe this time the NCAA dealmakers will get
the message.
Are you kidding me?
Channeling my inner John
McEnroe, it was too much to bear after watching such a lousy game. There was
LSU head coach Les Miles still politicking for votes even after getting
dominated like no team before. Yahoo Sports put it best: “When the coach
of a team that was shut out in the championship game is arguing that he should
win the championship anyway, the system is an unqualified disaster”. I concur.
The mucky mucks of NCAA
football will meet to discuss the future, and many say that significant changes
will come to the BCS system. Hopefully after the BCS title game action will come
sooner than later and will lead to a playoff of some sort. If that’s the case,
the futures that I preview today could change dramatically if the
current postseason schedule is scrapped.
Until that happens, its
all-SEC, all the time. The futures for the 2012-13 season show that the college football betting
landscape is tilted towards the Southeastern Conference--again. Several sportsbooks
are out with opening numbers that have LSU favored at 7/2 followed by Alabama
and USC who are co-second favorites at 6/1.
In fact the Trojans and
Oregon Ducks (8/1) are the only non-SEC schools in the top six. Along with the
Tigers and Tide, Arkansas and Georgia are fifth and sixth respectively.
What about the other
‘power’ conferences?
Michigan and Oklahoma at
18/1 are favored out of the Big Ten and Big 12 respectively. From the Big East,
West Virginia is listed at 30/1, while Clemson looks like the ACC favorite at
30/1.
LSU is in a position
where it doesn’t rebuild it just stocks up. The same can be said for Alabama, as one group of
blue chippers exit and another batch enters. The Crimson Tide’s defense will be
gutted by the NFL draft, but its offense will come back with a little more
experience.
USC quarterback Matt
Barkley did us a favor by coming back instead of opting for the NFL draft; so
did Landry Jones of Oklahoma and Monte Ball of Wisconsin. The return of those
three players at least provided a little balance from the top heavy SEC
futures. But those decisions as noble as they are still aren’t enough to change
the college football landscape. For the last five years it’s been all about the
SEC, and if the college football odds are right, that’s not likely to change anytime soon.
Here’s a look at the
current Top 25 teams and their futures:
LSU
3/1
USC 6/1
Alabama 7/1
Oregon 9/1
Arkansas 12/1
Georgia 15/1
Florida State 18/1
Oklahoma 18/1
Virginia Tech 18/1
Michigan 18/1
Notre Dame 22/1
Kansas State 25/1
South Carolina 28/1
Clemson 28/1
Nebraska 30/1
Texas 30/1
Auburn 30/1-1
Wisconsin
30/1
Florida 35-1
Oklahoma State 40/1
Michigan State 40/1
Boise State 50/1
West Virginia 50/1
TCU 50/11
Washington 50/1