2024 College Football Season Futures | Playoff Odds
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00:00My focus is always college football, and we are not all that far away from football being here.
00:07Thursday is August. College football games will be played in that month starting Saturday, August
00:1324th, just about three and a half weeks away. And of course, the 2024 college football season
00:20holds a lot of changes in store. Realigned leagues that we have broken down for you here,
00:27and maybe most notably, the expanded now 12-team college football playoff. There are so many
00:33storylines that offer intrigue entering the 2024 campaign, whether it is conference realignment
00:40and expansion. What do those traditional rivalries now look like in new leagues? Maybe it's just your
00:47favorite team and how you feel about college football in this altered landscape. One of my
00:52favorite storylines, and something I'm going to be paying attention to, is what the selection
00:57committee does for the college football playoff now with 12 teams. Here's what we know of the
01:04format. Five automatic bids given to the five highest ranked conference champions. That does
01:10not necessarily list out the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, and SEC champ, and then one of the group of five
01:17conferences. But that's generally how things are structured. So five automatic bids to the five
01:23highest ranked conference title winners, and then seven at-large bids. What I am most fascinated by
01:30is not the automatic bids and how that plays out with the AQs moving forward, but how the college
01:37football playoff committee is going to rank throughout the year, and then ultimately on
01:42selection Sunday, decide those at-large bids. Because let's look at the 10 best prices to reach
01:49the college football playoff. You will see in this list of 10, five SEC schools. That's Georgia,
01:58Texas, Ole Miss, Alabama, LSU. Four Big 10 schools, that's Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State,
02:05and Michigan in one independent program, that is Notre Dame. Of the 10 best prices to reach the CFP,
02:14five come from the SEC, and four come from the Big 10. And then you have an independent school
02:23in the fighting Irish. They're on your screen. You see seven teams, Ohio State, Georgia, Oregon,
02:31Texas, Notre Dame, Penn State, Ole Miss, that have a minus money price, projected, expected
02:39to reach the college football playoff in 2024. And that, of course, does not take into account
02:45the three other automatic bids that will be given to the three other conference champions that are
02:52not the Big 10 and the SEC. And of course, you have to take that into account here as well when
03:00you look at these odds. Not all of these teams in this top 10 can reach the college football playoff
03:08because you have three automatic berths to give out for the champs of the ACC, the Big 12,
03:14and whatever group of five league is the highest ranked in terms of its conference title winner.
03:20Does that mean if we are to follow the oddsmakers, where of course there is so much uncertainty
03:25because it is the first year. And anytime it is the inaugural year of something, there is so much
03:31to learn. There is no track record that has been set. It starts to be displayed in 2024.
03:39But if we are, again, to follow the oddsmakers, does that mean that every at-large berth comes
03:45from the SEC or the Big 10? Will the ACC and the Big 12 simply be a one-big-bid league for whoever
03:53wins that conference championship? The oddsmakers are anticipating that bias to be a big part of the
04:00selection criteria for the college football playoff committee, which of course should inform
04:06your handicapping. Florida State has the 11th best price to reach the college football playoff just
04:11outside the top 10 at plus 130. But if you think the Seminoles are a college football playoff team,
04:18more than likely it's FSU winning the ACC as the favorites and maybe not truly being in the
04:24running for an at-large berth to the college football playoff. There is so much to learn
04:30with so many new things in store for the 2024 college football season. I'm Ben Stevens,
04:36Donnie Rightside back. We'll talk to you tomorrow, 8 a.m. Eastern time on The Early.