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College Football Bowl Picks and Predictions
By Kurt Boyer
Updated January 4, 2024
CFP Final: Anytime Touchdown Scorer Prop Betting Odds
Blake Corum (MICH) -360
Dillon Johnson (WASH) -145
Tybo Rogers (WASH) -130
Rome Odunze (WASH) -110
Roman Wilson (MICH) +175
Jalen McMillan (WASH) +175
Donovan Edwards (MICH) +185
Ja'Lynn Polk (WASH) +210
J.J. McCarthy (MICH) +270
Colston Loveland (MICH) +270
Cornelius Johnson (MICH) +290
Jack Westover (WASH) +320
Michael Penix Jr (WASH) +360
Michigan Defense +470
Germie Bernard (WASH) +480
A.J. Barner (MICH) +500
Will Nixon (WASH) +500
Semaj Morgan (MICH) +600
Tyler Morris (MICH) +600
Kalel Mullings (MICH) +650
Washington Defense +750
Devin Culp (WASH) +1000
Alex Orji (MICH) +1000
Giles Jackson (WASH) +1000
Betting Predictions on the 2023-24 National Championship Game
It was easy to be dismayed by the 2023-24 College Football Playoff's semifinal pairings at first. When #4 seed Alabama became the #1 seeded Wolverines' opponent for New Year's Michigan's gathered on-campus throng audibly sighed, while Washington and Texas drew what was thought to be the weaker of 2 semifinals. If UM was blown out of the water by Alabama, pundits would have asked why Georgia wasn't a playoff bid, since the Bulldogs have reigned for a calendar year over college football. If Washington walloped Texas, the Tuscaloosa fan base would have had even more reason to crow about 2024's shun.
It didn't work out that way, thankfully. The Wolverines’ overtime win against Alabama, in which Michigan netted 6 sacks and a gaggle of tackles-for-loss on defense, proved that coach Jim Harbaugh's recruiting has finally matched the very, very finest of the dominant SEC's rosters. Washington did threaten to blow away Texas behind the 400-yard passing arm of UW's Michael Penix Jr. But then UT mounted a late charge to at least prove its worth as a legitimate CFP contender in the 2020s, as a final pass out-of-bounds nixed the comeback.
Point spreads are stable for Monday's national championship kickoff. Washington is a (+4.5) point spread underdog to Michigan, though the Over/Under line of O/U (55.5) total points at FanDuel Sportsbook begs a very relevant question. Are the Wolverines not getting enough credit for stopping Alabama's strong offense when it counted last weekend, on which the Over/Under line going into a Michigan bout was not known for landing in the high 50s? On the contrary, are bookmakers thinking that UM could simply blow away Washington's defense in a way that 'Bama wouldn't allow, and run up a lopsided final tally?
Let’s defend the Washington Huskies from that analyst's daydream, since any notion that Michigan's due for one final, glorious romp to a 15-0 campaign via a crazy score must be gathered from the wrong viewpoint.
Indeed, Washington has not yet had to beat a team as powerful as Michigan, and on Monday the "Cinderella team" has to deal with a weird variety of pressure, representing the dying Pac-12 football conference and attempting to win what would be a historical anomaly of a championship, not to mention to illustrate that Pac-12 football, anachronistic or not, is still good enough to claim final superiority over the rest of the FBS in its swan song. However, the question that's not being entertained is whether Michigan is even built to blow-out an elite opponent, or whether the Wolverines are aiming for 28-7 anyway.
The Wolverines’ biggest blow-out over a solid team came against Purdue, and it was only mop-up TDs in the 4th quarter that dragged the point total over 50 in that game. Penix Jr. is seen as the type of QB who can hurt the Wolverines with well-rehearsed early scores, and force Harbaugh's game plan to open up. After Michigan's stupendous show of dominating edge-rush force against Alabama, the Huskies will have to be careful and plodding.
UM feels like a reasonable point-spread pick at (-4.5). Michigan’s degree-of-difficulty versus Alabama was far worse than Washington's climb against Texas, and each semifinal winner was forced to win with a final defensive stand as time ran down. But, the factors that make Michigan a solid ATS pick could make other picks on the board stand out much more.
Prior to the College Football Playoff, Harbaugh has allowed reports of his expected departure from the Big House to leak to the media. That was as dangerous for Michigan football as Harbaugh's mostly ceremonial suspensions from this season turned out to be dangerous for the rest of the Top 25. College teams whose head coaches are leaving can be left in a mire of indecisiveness. Harbaugh has, of course, accomplished so much at Michigan and remained doggedly loyal to the program for so long that he won't be blamed for heading back to professional football. However, once again, the theme is "pressure." Michigan would have let Harbaugh go down a bridesmaid, should the Wolverines have lost to Alabama.
Any talk of a distracted Michigan ended in the first half at the Rose Bowl. Given how the Wolverines performed under intense pressure against Alabama, we don't think that Washington can expect to flourish thanks to blown coverages by Michigan's defensive backfield, or turnovers from the Wolverines' well-oiled machine of a ground attack.
Michigan, not UW, produced the biggest turnover of the semifinals in Pasadena, recovering a loose football at midfield to turn the "Tide" of Alabama's latter-half rally.
Additionally, the Alabama game could serve as "weighted bat" training for a UM defense that's potentially surpassing Georgia's in speed, depth, and physicality. QB Penix Jr. isn't profoundly more talented overall than Missouri's 11-2 quarterback Brady Cook. We saw what Ohio State's secondary—such a comparable Big Ten unit to Michigan's that spelling it out would be a waste of space—did to Mizzou's passing game last week, even while Ohio State's undermanned offense looked like a total catastrophe.
With less of an opportunity to shine against Michigan's ball control and mighty edge rush, we are considerably skeptical that UW could turn Monday's battle into a track meet.
Recommended Picks: Under (55.5), Michigan ATS (-4.5)
How to Wager and Win on FBS Bowl Picks
Over a significantly short amount of time, postseason college football has evolved from an exercise in pomp and tradition to one of the world's most exciting playoff-bracket events. There was, after all, a time not too long ago in which there was no such thing as the College Football Playoff, and fans of Power-5 squads had to argue about which team was the real national champion once each bowl season came to an end.
Texas Christian's bid in the College Football Playoff bowls of 2022-23 was an anomaly, not the norm in CFP qualification. Though the media's Top 25 polls still play a role in determining the match-ups of College Football Playoff semifinals and major bowl games, it's almost impossible for a Football Bowl Subdivision team to lose its conference championship (in regulation time, at least) and still ascend to the CFP. The 4 teams honored as picks for the CFP are acknowledged to be league champions or very, very strong division winners before stepping onto a neutral field. Interestingly, other marquee bowl games haven't lost their luster due to the CFP's "Final Four" format of play.
Alabama and Clemson have ruled over College Football Playoff brackets for a while. Since the CFP began in 2014-15, the Crimson Tide has made 6 appearances and won 3 national championships, while Death Valley has won twice and appeared 5 times. Not far behind those programs are the defending national champions from Georgia, OSU, and UND.
CFP and "New Year's Six" bowl candidates serve as an early-autumn source of merriment at FanDuel, as wild "Over/Under" lines and spreads as yawning as "(-49)" attempt to compensate when a small-conference patsy travels to Tuscaloosa. But the scientific scheduling of college football creates evenly-matched kickoffs from October through January, causing O/U lines to shrink and point-spread picks to tighten.
If you’re new to football's moneylines, totals, and spreads, or simply a first-time FanDuel user in need of a map to the sportsbook, keep scrolling for a look at our FBS odds, lines, and users' options for making picks and wagers on games throughout the bowl season.
Futures Odds on a College Football Playoff Winner
FBS bowl committees enjoy a years-in-advance jump on managing the "rota" of major bowl events which host the playoff semifinals. FanDuel's bettors can at least claim to be 12-month forecasters, if not among those helping to plan the Rose Bowl of 2032.
The conclusion of each CFP season often signals the start of picking the next season’s college football national champion. Most sportsbooks, including FanDuel Sportsbook, are also happy to offer "floating" CFP championship picks throughout the season. In December, when campuses break for the holidays prior to teams meeting in bowl match-ups, a set of fresh handicaps and wagers on a potential College Football Playoff winner come into play.
The top of the CFP odds board is ruled by a slew of dominant brands. Alabama or Clemson might be a 4/1 or shorter pick to repeat following a national title triumph, while powerhouses from the Big Ten and Big 12 can vie for the most-popular betting lines alongside Alabama's rivals Florida, Georgia, and LSU.
Oftentimes, teams from the Group of 5, which include 5 smaller conferences including the MAC, Mountain West, AAC, Sun Belt, and C-USA, are left out of the mix of serious national championship picks almost entirely. When a G5 team becomes a dominant force in college football, like Central Florida in the 2010s or Brigham Young in 2020, gaps in the program's strength-of-schedule and a landscape tinged with big-money corruption will combine to lock the squad out of a CFP berth 9 out of 10 times. Group of 5 contenders like BYU and UCF are often found as "sleeper" futures picks with long odds starting around 25-to-1, or (+2500). However, such teams often make great December bowl picks.
The FBS plans to continue evolving its playoff system, and is in the process of instituting an 8-team or a 12-team College Football Playoff. Including undefeated Group of 5 teams as "#8" or "#12" seeds, however, could be considered a case of treating the symptom and not the problem.
Many "prop" futures picks on the CFP will shrink shorter as fans wager in preseason on whether a school is among the last 12, 8, or 4 brands eliminated. That means there's less of a shot for BYU or Northern Illinois to be a “final 4” pick as opposed to a “final 12” pick.
FanDuel Sportsbook offers FBS futures odds in "moneyline" form, with potential picks weighed against $100 on either side of the market. Keep scrolling for a run-down of CFB moneyline odds, point spreads, and Over/Under totals.
College Football's Moneyline Odds to Win
Moneyline odds promise a % payoff when a gambler’s pick wins the game straight-up. A favorite’s moneyline odds are denoted with a “-” as in (-300). Underdog moneylines are marked with a “+” as in a ML of (+230). Payoff is calculated differently for the betting picks in the favorite’s and underdog’s markets but is always done with imaginary Benjamins, or $100 bills, as part of the calculation.
If there are moneyline betting odds of (-250) on a team, it means that for every $250 wagered on a pick, the house will pay out $100 if that pick wins. (-500) odds stand for $100 payoff on every $500 wagered at the sportsbook.
Turning now to the underdog side, moneyline odds represent the amount paid out on won $100 bets if the pick surprises. Odds of (+350) on Georgia Tech promise a $350 payout on a $100 wager if the Ramblin' Wreck prevails on Saturday. Longer underdog odds, such as (+1000) represent a $1000 payout on the same risk.
Because there can be hundreds of college football kickoffs every weekend, sportsbooks aren't obligated to place moneyline odds on all of them. Sportsbooks often skip the moneyline when a Top 25 team hosts a "thrash for cash" contest against a weak sister from the Football Championship Subdivision. In other cases, news of a star freshman's injury or a veteran's lack of focus late in the week can send a moneyline reeling, prompting bookmakers to suspend betting lines until further adjustments are made. There are no tied games in modern college football, so every moneyline pick on the FBS either wins or loses. The only "push" returned bets occur when a game is scratched from the schedule completely.
How Point Spreads Work For Bowl Games
Understanding how FBS point spreads work requires a bit more effort, as points will be “spotted” to the underdog and “taken” from the favorite prior to kickoff. For instance, if the Oklahoma Sooners are a (+3) underdog pick prior to the Peach Bowl and lose by exactly 3 points, every point spread bet is returned 100% in a push outcome. If Oklahoma loses by only 2 points or otherwise exceeds expectations, the Sooners have “covered the spread.” If OU's rival at (-3) wins by 4 or more, the opponent has “covered” the spread.
In other words, FanDuel gamblers picking a CFB favorite “ATS" must hope that a (-3.5) team wins by 4 or more points—a 1, 2, or 3-point victory or a straight-up loss loses the wager. Underdog point-spread gamblers are hoping that their picks will “cover” by winning by any amount or losing by any amount smaller than what the point spread is listed as. Bettors will still win the payout if the underdog’s spread is (+6) and the club loses by 5.
However, bear in mind that a head coach rarely worries about whether his college pigskin team loses by 5 or 6 points: a 1+ point victory is his only mission. Many ATS bettors have been sorely disappointed (or pleased) when a coach whose (-3) team is losing by 6 points eschews a field goal try that could close the point spread gap.
A “moneyline” offer for winning picks exists for each side of the point spread. The offer often comes at (-110) for each but can also be (-120) vs (-105) or (-125) vs (+100) if the sportsbook is trying to balance the game's betting "handle" without moving the spread too much.
FBS bowl games of December are notorious for "opt-outs," or players with NFL Draft hopes skipping the final game of their college careers, and leaving a "Michigan" or an "NC State" without the veteran, marquee talent associated with Big Ten or ACC contenders. Point spreads on CFB bowl games can shift wildly as athletes decide to opt out, making the "intact" team a big favorite. Bryce Young's courageous decision to play for Alabama in a 2022-23 bowl game that wasn't part of the College Football Playoff could be a landmark in encouraging other kids to play ball when bowl-season hardware is finally on the line.
CFB Bowl Picks: Over/Under Point Total Betting Lines
Gamblers will be tasked with predicting the total number of points scored in a game when placing Over/Under wagers. This type of bet combines a pair of teams' performances into a single market. "O/U" lines on FBS games are numbers with no symbols, no bells, and no whistles, just (45), (51.5) (with the “.5” fraction blocking a potential push, since teams can’t score half-points), or maybe (55) if a pair of high-scoring teams are set to face off in a warm bowl game. Over/Under payoff odds are usually around 1-to-1 risk and reward on either the "Under" or "Over" for each of 2 possible picks in the betting market.
Once again, the specter of "opt-outs" can greatly affect a bowl team's starting offense, and therefore its scoring ability, in the postseason. Expert gamblers look to pick the "Under" on early "opening" point-total odds, tracking opt-outs carefully and hoping that each bowl contender will be forced into playing its backup offense.
College Football, Bowl Games, and the NFL Draft
NFL and NCAA conferences are inextricably linked, starting with the NFL Draft of top college players every April. Part of the SEC's reputation as a top FBS league is that National Football League GMs prefer to draft players from the SEC when possible. High school and college coaches may choose to watch the NFL for fun, but NFL coaches have to follow the top teams and players of college football if they want their team to succeed.
The betting community has a keen understanding of NFL and FBS symbiosis. Gambling odds on potential #1 NFL Draft picks are a popular hobby horse every springtime. Heisman Trophy outcomes may or may not affect how NFL clubs choose to draft top-ranked college players, but it's not uncommon for a Heisman winner (or even a short-odds betting favorite to win the award) to go on to contend for an MVP award in pro pigskin.
Bettors can predict NFL and college football outcomes in a single wager with prop bets. For instance, if a weekend NFC playoff game between the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers occurs in the same 24 to 48 hours as an important FBS bowl game, a college + NFL football prop bet might ask whether the Dallas QB or a QB from the Oklahoma State "Cowboys" will lasso more opposing tacklers and whip more passes on-target. Cross-league prop bets can also be made on running backs and wide receivers.
Experts shy away from making NFL prop bets on players due to their efforts in bowl season. For instance, Joe Montana's teams at Notre Dame were sometimes duds when the winter rolled around, and Johnny Manziel's scrambling, flinging effort in a New Year's Eve bowl game prior to the next year's NFL Draft helped to make the eventual pro football wash-out's odds shorter than they ought to have been.
However, the College Football Playoff could be changing that calculus, along with SEC teams like Alabama that are fostering an environment of teamwork in which players feel encouraged to participate in bowl games. As the SEC and a couple of alternate conferences keep dominating college football, the championship games of the New Year's Six bowl series and College Football Playoff will increasingly serve as "qualification" games for individual athletes seeking pro contracts, as scouts from the NFL, XFL, USFL, Canadian Football League, and beyond watch prospects compete under college football's brightest lights.
Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa is the latest College Football Playoff bowl game hero to translate his CFP success into a quick starting role in the NFL. Running back Nick Chubb, formerly of the Georgia Bulldogs, immediately defied his naysayers by punishing NFL defenses as if they were populated by Alabama, OSU, and Clemson linebackers.
CFB Bowl Picks at FanDuel: Frequently Asked Questions
Are There Too Many Bowl Games Each Postseason?
FanDuel strives to answer all of the FAQs asked on our website. However, the question of whether college football's bowl calendar should be markedly scaled-down for quality is a purely subjective exercise. While a majority of polled FBS fans may say they're in favor of upping bowl qualification standards to throw .500 teams out of the postseason, you'd be hard-pressed to find a booster at a MAC school who agreed with that in the same year which included a bowl date dotted by their alma mater's first 6-win record in 5 years. The "controversy" about whether there are too many CFB bowl games has no right answer, except that the common practice of corporate-labeling a bowl game (and scrimping on player accommodations and media) does lead to dreary, forgettable December bowls.
The next time your Friday Night Lights buddy suggests carving up the state's playoff system to "give lesser teams a chance to win one last time," ask yourself if the Greater Houston Save-on-a-Muffler Bowl is a success story that should be copied elsewhere. A thinning—or at least a winnowing—of college football's goofy, corrupt bowl season could potentially help to stem the tide of NFL Draft prospects opting out of countless games.
Why Do Top Players Opt Out of New Year's Six Bowls?
This frequently asked question has a much simpler answer … money! The annual College Football Playoff between 4 top-ranked teams has served to make New Year's traditions like the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl into something more akin to exhibition games than championship contests. Potential opening-round NFL Draft picks are forced to consider what millions of dollars they could lose on a single unlucky injury during the game, if ligament or bone damage were to ruin their spring draft stock among NFL scouts.
The opt-out practice has become so common that SEC and Big Ten teams perform as virtual reserve units during many less-prestigious bowls. So many upperclassmen from Georgia's starting lineup opted out of the 2019 Sugar Bowl that Texas beat the Dawgs with ease. Thankfully, the courage of today's CFB superstars is starting to give fans real hope that bowl games won't become battles of backup student-athletes outside of the College Football Playoff. Bryce Young, the Heisman quarterback from Alabama, made no bones about his intention to perform in last season's Sugar Bowl against Kansas State, and several of Young's draft-prospect teammates suited up alongside him for a rousing 45-20 win.
Why Don't Some Top 25 CFB Games Have Moneylines?
Whenever a Top 25 power hosts a "thrash for cash" date, often against a weak sister from the Football Bowl Subdivision, sportsbooks often pass on offering moneyline, or "ML" odds on each opponent to win. That's because everyone's pick to win the game would be alike, and subsequently no investor could hope to make money off a moneyline such as "(-10000) regardless. However, FanDuel Sportsbook usually offers O/U lines and point spreads on college football games even when a ML is not offered for a "thrash for cash" kickoff.
The "cash" in the slang term for such David vs Goliath meetings refers to an FCS school's sizable sum of ticket money earned for playing the game, even if its lineup should lose by 75+ points. SEMO, or Southeast Missouri State, was mocked for its walk-the-plank kickoffs in Columbia against the Missouri Tigers. But those $400,000 paychecks added up quickly, giving the RedHawks monies to upgrade their facilities and recruiting efforts, and to eventually find more success on the gridiron (against both divisions) in the 2020s.
Can I Play Fantasy College Football at FanDuel?
Of course. Just surf to our College Football DFS Training Guide to find out how FanDuel matches the excitement of Daily Fantasy Sports to the tradition of FBS pigskin.