Updated National Championship Odds

Courtesey of Bovada.

Odds on 9/2/15             Current Odds

Ohio State                                5/2                                7/4

Alabama                                   7/1                                8/1

TCU                                          7/1                                8/1

Auburn                                      14/1                              14/1

Baylor                                       12/1                              14/1

Notre Dame                              12/1                              14/1

Michigan State                          16/1                              18/1

Georgia                                    20/1                              20/1

LSU                                         25/1                              20/1

USC                                        20/1                              20/1

Oh, look at you LSU, getting a not even playing bump.

Chubb also gets a bettor's bump in the Heisman odds:

Odds on 9/2/15                         Current Odds   

Cardale Jones (QB Ohio State)                          16/1                              7/1

Trevone Boykin (QB TCU)                                  6/1                                9/1

Ezekiel Elliott (RB Ohio State)                            5/1                                9/1

Nick Chubb (RB Georgia)                                   12/1                              10/1                 

Keep in mind, this number will change a lot through the year. Also notable that several guys were taken off the board, mostly due to injury. 

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Haven't we been saying this all along?

Hey, look a playoff. Solves everything right because picking two teams is more fair than picking just two. 

Unless you are the fifth team....

"One thing people don't realize is that mathematically it's harder to separate a No. 5 [team] from a No. 4 than it is a No. 2 from a No. 3," Colley said. "What's the difference between the 51st team and the 50th? It's indifferent. I think there will be more reason to debate the merits of four versus five than there was with two versus three. I think you will see a pretty good debate on four versus five in most years."

And if you don't think that's true, think about the list of teams that have a legitimate beef about being left out of the 64+ team NCAA basketball tourney.

The fine line distinctions that have to be made between a one loss Pac-12 runner up and a no loss B1.5G champion are far easier than between one loss B1.5G runner up and a one loss Big12 runner up and a no loss Northern Illinios and a one loss ACC champion.

But hey, we've got a playoff and that is American. So is bitching about your team not getting a shot at the title, which now goes from one or two teams to 3-5 teams each year.
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Dennis Dodd on College Football: Studio Football

Like him or not, I think he's on to something:

What we're left with is "studio football" -- a term coined (by me) to describe how far we've come in monetizing the game. Attendance, increasingly, doesn't matter.

Probably because I said the same thing 11 months ago in the context of the 9 game SEC schedule. I still think I am right about this:

if the money is right, the stadium is merely a prop for the show happening on the field.

Why would they care about a few hundred thousand dollars when ESPN is offering hundreds of millions? The bowls are already suffering, at least in terms of match-ups, due to this phenomenon. Bowls that have failed have done so because they have tried to go up against other bowls or better programming  The ones that are surviving are the ones that work with ESPN to be creative in their air time.

Think about the New Mexico Bowl at 11:00am Pacific time the week after the regular season ended. Why kick off then? Because millions of sports fans were asked to choose between that game (which was attended by fewer than 25K people), a random NBA game, and an early season out of conference NCAA basketball game.

More people tuned in to watch a 7-5 Arizona and 7-5 Nevada in Albuquerque than to watch Butler beat #1 Indiana. Bowls are no longer about compelling match ups. They are about providing higher revenue blocks of programming for ESPN. A commercial in a four hour block of college football is more expensive than one in a four hour block of 30 for 30 re-runs or a random Sacramento vs. Utah game.

Dodd also sees the law of diminishing return at play. Importantly, he thinks that could end up being a limiting factor in the size of a college football playoff:

The playoff games themselves are guaranteed ratings and financial winners. As mentioned, the four-team playoff has been priced at $500 million per season. Would an eight-team playoff be worth $1 billion? That's where industry analyst say the game may reach the law of diminishing returns.

I'm not optimistic that is the case, but you can bet the same people who found reason it is good for college football to have a playoff will find good reason to not expand it if there isn't more money involved.
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Is the BCS Dead?

If you didn't read the article linked in the prior post, take a few minutes and look it over. Not sure Jack Swarbrick meant to divulge as much as he did, but damn if it doesn't look like the new selection committee is going to be a simplified version of the BCS (which is what Blutarsky was pointing out in his post).

The other interesting thing is about how payouts might work in the non-top playoff bowls:

"In the new college football world order, though, the line may blur between bowl tiers. Whereas, the BCS plateau of games was preordained to have the mega-payouts that dwarfed those of the other bowls, in the new structure, the market will determine payout and appeal."

Reading between the lines, it looks like we could go back to the days of bowls figuring out who they could get, then going and trying to afford the payout to bring those teams in. In that regard, we could be in a place for much more interesting bowl match-ups. I haven't taken the time to figure out all of the bowl tie ins and it sounds like the world of bowl tie ins will live post playoff, but there is a chance there could be pretty significant re-order in how we, or more likely the college football power brokers, view the hierarchy of the bowls.

Does that mean the Pinstripe and Motor City Bowls are headed for oblivion? Who knows, but this change does present an opportunity for conference commissioners to re-think some of the bowl tie ins. Hopefully Slive is already working on building something that will give the SEC more than three B1G and three ACC match-ups and will put the SEC in a position to play games in more interesting places than Nashville and Birmingham (no offense meant to either place, but Nashville in December or the Gray Lady anytime is easily dwarfed by the chance to go to San Diego or Phoenix.

It will also be interesting to see if bowls get creative and try to buy their way into relevance. I'm thinking Mark Cuban putting $100 million on the table for the #5 and #6 teams...or Texas and Texas A&M....to play the afternoon of the National Championship game on Fox in San Antonio. Anything is possible right now.

One last thing that occurs to me, and it is absolutely tea leaf reading, but Swarbrick specifically mentioned the Rose, Champions, and Orange Bowl when talking about top tier tie-ins. Are the SEC and Big 12's automatic place in the Sugar and Fiesta Bowls a give away in this (or is it just that they won't be automatically playing in those games due to the new champion vs champion arrangement)?
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College Football Playoffs

Ok, we now know that in 2014 there will be a college football playoff.  The one thing that *everyone* has been clamoring for is 'settling it on the field'. I guess this will allow it to be settled on the field, at least for two more teams.

The question I have is given limited resources for fans, would you go to a semi-final bowl game or would you wait and see if your team makes the championship game? Would you simply clean out the college fund and do both?

I know we Georgia fans tend to travel well when we are excited for our team, but being realistic, a Sugar Bowl Trip combined with a possible trip to Dallas, Los Angeles or Miami, considering the near certainty of elevated hotel prices and 3-4 night mins, you are talking in excess of $3000 per person for the two game trip. If the trips were LA and Miami/Dallas that number easily goes to $4000 per person.

I'm not saying we'll be faced with this decision, just thinking about how this is something 'for the fans' that is less fan friendly than playing 11:00 AM games against Directional A&T.

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