If you want to plop down your money on a national title futures bet — always a risky proposition — Georgia, a heavy favorite to represent the SEC East in Atlanta, is the team to get behind. UGA holds some relative value in the SEC Championship odds.
Consider:
- The Bulldogs’ odds to win the four-team Playoff (+3300) are more than five times worse than Alabama (+650) and even worse than LSU (+2800).
- LSU rates fourth in the SEC West, tied with Arkansas, entering the season, according to Bovada.
- Even without Jonathan Williams, facing arguably the most brutal schedule, Arkansas holds a better chance of winning the SEC than Tennessee, the second-most favorable East Division team.
- 12 different FBS teams hold better national championship odds than Georgia.
In some ways, UGA holds a better chance to get into the SEC Championship Game than any of the West Division teams. If the Bulldogs didn’t face Alabama, Auburn and Georgia Tech outside of the East Division schedule, the team’s odds would be significantly higher.
Any team that reaches the SEC title unbeaten or with one loss is defying the odds. But it’s hard to discern why Alabama or Auburn holds an appreciable advantage ahead of UGA in achieving that task.
Bovada is implying that Georgia’s national championship odds are 2.94 percent. Plop down $100 on the Bulldogs to win and you’ll get $3,300 in return if they succeed.
SEC/NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP ODDS
*Odds courtesy of Bovada, listed as of Wednesday.
NOTES
- In a bit of a curiosity, Bovada asserts that Ole Miss holds the fourth-best odds to win the SEC, it simultaneously asserts that LSU is nearly twice as likely to win a national title. The discrepancy could be attributed to quarterback play, but neither team has named a starter.
- Mississippi State, ranked No. 1 in the country for five weeks last season and returning All-SEC QB Dak Prescott, is 40/1 to win the conference. That’s ahead of only Kentucky and Vanderbilt, the two conference programs that didn’t make a bowl game last season.
- Missouri, which has played in the last two SEC title games, holds about a 4.8 percent chance of winning the conference in 2015, according to these odds.
- Feeling lucky, but don’t want to buy a lottery ticket? Fork over $1,000 with the assertion that Vanderbilt will win the SEC. If coach Derek Mason and the Commodores prove the rest of the world wrong, you’ll cash out for a half-million dollars.
- Other teams with good odds to win a national championship: Ohio State (+260), TCU (+650), USC (+1600), Notre Dame (+2000), Baylor (+2000), Michigan State (+2000), Oregon (+2200) and Clemson (+2200).
An itinerant journalist, Christopher has moved between states 11 times in seven years. Formally an injury-prone Division I 800-meter specialist, he now wanders the Rockies in search of high peaks.
