College Football Playoff Winner Odds: Ohio State Sits Atop a Wide-Open Board

The 2026 college football season hasn’t kicked off yet, and the NCAAF champion futures market is already telling a fascinating story: nobody’s a lock. Ohio State opened as the favorite at major sportsbooks back in January and has stayed there ever since, but at odds hovering around +600, the Buckeyes represent one of the longest preseason favorite prices in the two decades books have been tracking this market. That tells you everything about how bunched up the contenders group is heading into the year.

Notre Dame, Texas, Indiana, Oregon and Georgia are all within shouting distance, and defending national champion Indiana somehow isn’t even the second choice. If you like betting futures betting markets where the field is deep and the value is spread out rather than locked up in one or two obvious teams, this is about as good as college football gets.

Where the Board Actually Stands

Ohio State opened at +600 and has held that number about as firmly as a preseason favorite can, currently sitting around +600 at BetMGM and +550 to +600 elsewhere. Notre Dame and Texas are both bunched right behind at roughly +650, with Indiana and Oregon a tick behind them around +800, and Georgia rounding out the top six near +900. From there, the drop-off gets real — Miami sits around +1100, LSU and Texas A&M are in the +1500 to +1800 range, and everyone else needs a lot to go right just to sniff the four-team field, let alone win it.

What’s notable is how little separation there is at the top. A six- or seven-team group within a few hundred points of each other is rare for this market, and it’s a sign that oddsmakers genuinely don’t see a clear-cut best team in the country right now.

Top Contenders

Ohio State (+600) returns Heisman finalist Julian Sayin at quarterback and Jeremiah Smith, arguably the best wide receiver in the country, at the skill position everyone builds around. Smith is a unanimous preseason first-team All-American, and Sayin has already landed on multiple preseason award watch lists. The catch: the Buckeyes lost a ton of defensive talent off last year’s group, which is a big part of why the market is pricing them as one of the softer favorites in recent memory.

Notre Dame (+650) is riding a different kind of momentum. The Irish were the first team left out of last year’s CFP field and turned that snub into a loaded roster rebuild under Marcus Freeman. CJ Carr enters as the clear-cut starting quarterback — a rare luxury for a program that hasn’t had a returning starter at the position in years — and he’s already drawing Heisman buzz in some corners.

Texas (+650-750) gets Arch Manning back after a 2025 season in which he racked up more than 3,500 total yards, and Steve Sarkisian shook things up defensively by bringing in Will Muschamp as coordinator. The Longhorns also host Ohio State early in the year in a rematch that could swing this entire market one way or the other in September.

Indiana (+800) is the defending champ, and yet the market is betting against a repeat. Quarterback Fernando Mendoza is off to the NFL, and the Hoosiers are turning to transfer Josh Hoover to try to replicate the magic. That’s either a massive value number on a program that just proved it belongs, or the market correctly sniffing out that last year’s run was more circumstance than dynasty.

Oregon (+800) brings back Dante Moore at quarterback after a season that ended in a lopsided CFP semifinal loss to, fittingly, Indiana. Georgia (+900) is Georgia — perpetually loaded on raw talent and never more than one recruiting cycle away from being the best team in the country, even in a “down” year by Kirby Smart’s standards.

The Best Bet

Betting a field this bunched up is really a question of which flaw you’re willing to live with. Ohio State’s offense is close to unguardable with Sayin and Smith, but a defense that lost as much talent as theirs did is a real liability against the level of competition the Big Ten throws at you every week.

• Pick: Notre Dame (+650)
• Value alternative: Indiana (+800)

Notre Dame gets the nod here because Carr gives them offensive stability nobody else in the top tier can match, and Freeman has built this roster specifically to answer for last year’s near-miss. Indiana is the sharper long-shot value if you think the market is overreacting to Mendoza’s departure — a defending champion at plus-money is rarely a bad price, even with a new starting quarterback under center.