College football futures: Best bets to make the College Football Playoff
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The 2026 college football season is almost here.
It’s a great time to survey the futures market to look for value ahead of Week 0. In this story, we’ll be looking at College Football Playoff-related futures.
For each pick, I’ve attempted to find the best price being offered from a variety of sports betting apps as well as the best prediction markets.
College Football Playoff futures bets
Let’s break it down:
Penn State to MAKE the College Football Playoff
Penn State is coming off of a nightmare season that saw the Nittany Lions fire head coach James Franklin midway through the year. Matt Campbell was brought in following more than a decade of success (mostly) at Iowa State. Joining Campbell will be quarterback Rocco Becht as well as a host of other players and personnel from the Cyclones’ program.
As a roster, I’m only slightly optimistic about what Penn State will be this season. There are question marks, admittedly. But the schedule is highly appealing for a team that’s nearly 4-to-1 to make the CFP. The Nittany Lions don’t play any of Ohio State, Oregon or Indiana. Road trips to Michigan and Washington won’t be easy, nor will a home game against USC. But Penn State may only need to win 1 of those 3 games in order to make the CFP. At the current market price, I like those odds.
Pick: Penn State to make the CFP (+375 on bet365)
Texas A&M to MISS the College Football Playoff
I wrote about Texas A&M earlier this week, making the case for under 8.5 wins. I’m a big believer in Mike Elko longterm, but I think the Aggies have too much helium entering this season. They started 11-0 last year but sputtered down the stretch when the schedule got tougher (and required a historic comeback over a bad South Carolina team to get to 11-0 in the first place).
A&M’s schedule is among the toughest in the country this season. The Aggies have road trips to Baton Rouge, Tuscaloosa and Norman and then will likely be a home underdog to rival Texas in Week 13. I think 9-3 is close to best-case scenario and that may not be enough for a CFP berth this season.
Pick: Texas A&M to miss the CFP (64% chance on Kalshi) | Implied odds: -178
BYU to MAKE the College Football Playoff
This is as much about believing in BYU as it is about fading Texas Tech. I wrote about my skepticism of the Red Raiders’ quarterback situation earlier this offseason — the Brendan Sorsby debacle could prove to be a bigger disaster than expected if Will Hammond has any setbacks in his ACL surgery recovery.
As for the Cougars, they return quarterback Bear Bachmeier and are 6th nationally in defensive returning production, per ESPN. BYU will avoid Texas Tech in the regular season, increasing the chance that it will end up in the Big 12 title game. The Cougars also get Notre Dame at home — a virtually free chance at a marquee win.
Another thing worth considering: BYU is the type of program that could indirectly benefit from the SEC moving to a 9-game schedule. We don’t yet know how the committee will treat 9-3 SEC teams in this era. Historically, albeit in a small sample, those programs have not made the 12-team CFP field (Alabama made it at 10-3 last season, but that was a separate case). If BYU has losses to Notre Dame and Texas Tech (in the conference title game), there’s at least some chance it would be granted a spot in the field as an at-large.
Pick: BYU to make the CFP (+350 on BetMGM)
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Big Ten program to win the national championship
Per Kalshi’s latest odds, this is a neck-and-neck race between the Big Ten and the SEC at around 38-39% for each league. That’s surprising given the Big Ten’s dominance in the top 5 of most polls and models. The latest example would be Bill Connelly’s SP+ metric, which has Ohio State and Oregon as the top teams in the nation plus Indiana at No. 5.
The SEC’s depth has been well-documented, but its top teams have struggled to reach the heights necessary to win the national title in recent years. Whether or not you believe in the narrative that SEC teams falter down the stretch due to a more-grueling regular-season schedule, it’s only going to get tougher in 2026 with a 9-game slate.
Ohio State, Indiana and Oregon all have significant championship equity and manageable-enough schedules to earn Playoff berths. Out of the SEC, only Georgia can really say that. Texas is a preseason favorite, but the Longhorns will be tasked with facing the No. 1 strength-of-schedule in the country, per SP+. As we saw last year, an extra slip-up or two may be enough to knock the Longhorns out of the 12-team field even if their talent level merits inclusion.
The SEC has lots of smaller slices of championship equity via programs like LSU, Oklahoma, Ole Miss and Texas A&M, among others. They have the kind of depth that the Big Ten is missing. But I’d just rather bet on the 3-headed Big Ten monster, especially when recent history tells us it’s those types of profiles that are well-equipped to win games in January during this era of college football.
Pick: Big Ten team to win the national championship (39% chance on Kalshi) | Implied odds: +157
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Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
