National Championship Odds for College Football Playoff Contenders

The College Football Playoff Committee released its initial rankings Tuesday and the order of the top teams breaks with the national title odds at SI Sportsbook.

Tennessee earned the top spot, followed by Ohio State, Georgia and Clemson. All four teams are still undefeated, though at least one of them will have a loss after this week as the Bulldogs host the Volunteers in a battle of the top two teams in the AP Top 25 that has massive implications in the SEC East and beyond.

As far as national championship futures, Georgia and Ohio State are tied for the shortest odds at +200, followed by Alabama at +275 odds and then Tennessee at a distant +750 odds. Clemson and Michigan are tied for the fifth-best odds at +950.

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The Crimson Tide and Wolverines were left out of the CFP top four after both made the College Football Playoff last year. Alabama is 7-1 with its lone loss coming by three points on the road to Tennessee. Michigan is also undefeated, albeit against a lighter schedule than the rest of the top teams have faced.

Then there’s another undefeated team in TCU. The Horned Frogs find themselves seventh in the CFP rankings and AP Poll and tied with a handful of programs for the ninth-best odds at +8000.

There’s still plenty of football left to be played and the top teams will separate themselves with a handful of games remaining between some of the top teams.

The Tennessee-Georgia bout will essentially decide which team represents the SEC East in the conference title game, Ohio State and Michigan play in late November and both teams should run the table until then (unless Illinois gets in the way). Clemson should be favored in every game down the stretch on its march back to the ACC championship game where North Carolina could await the Tigers. And Alabama has two tough games coming up on the road against LSU and Ole Miss in back-to-back weeks and then the Iron Bowl to end the year.

Then there’s the Pac-12 to consider, which has three top-12 teams in the CFP rankings. After Clemson, there’s a massive falloff in the title odds to Oregon at +3300 and then USC at +4000, which essentially make up their own tier. The Ducks’ only loss came in the opener against Georgia and they could go undefeated in conference play, though games against Utah and Oregon State could prevent that.

There’s likely to be a sizable shakeup in the championship odds after this weekend, and there will be weekly updates to the CFP rankings until Selection Sunday in early December.

CFP No. 3 Georgia: +200
CFP No. 2 Ohio State: +200
CFP No. 6 Alabama: +275
CFP No. 1 Tennessee: +750
CFP No. 5 Michigan: +950
CFP No. 4 Clemson +950
CFP No. 8 Oregon: +3300
CFP No. 9 USC: +400
CFP No. 7 TCU: +8000
CFP No. 11 Ole Miss: +8000
CFP No. 16 Illinois: +10000
CFP No. 12 UCLA: +10000
CFP No. 17 North Carolina: +10000
CFP No. 13 Kansas State: +12500
CFP No. 14 Utah: +12500
CFP No. 10 LSU: +12500