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If we've learned anything from past years it's that the top four heading into conference play are very rarely the top four at the end of the season, oh and that Alabama will make the playoff.
The odds agree on that second part:
Week 4 Odds to Win 2018-19 College Football Playoff via @FDSportsbook
— TheDuel (@TheDuelSports) September 17, 2018
Alabama +125
Clemson +500
Ohio St. +650
Georgia +750
Oklahoma +2000
Michigan +2200
Washington +2200
Notre Dame +2900
Penn St. +2900
LSU +3600
Wisconsin +4500
Auburn +4500
Miami +5000
WVU +6500
Stanford +6500
Alabama comes in as a significant favorite to win the national title again, even when compared to Clemson at +500. The current No. 2 team in the nation, Georgia, has the fourth best odds at +750 probably because they're going to have to play Alabama in SEC championship game. Theoretically, only one team between Alabama and Georgia can make the playoff, but who knows with the SEC, especially after both of those teams made it last year.
The Big Ten shockingly has four different teams among the Top 15 favorites here and that's more because of how mediocre the conference is as a whole than anything else. The route to the playoff is fairly simple for them. It just revolves around beating Ohio State. Or for Ohio State, it's just going undefeated. Still, Michigan as the sixth highest favorite to win the national title seems like a bit of a stretch, especially over Notre Dame who they lost to head to head.
Wisconsin is also a stretch even at +4500 given that they just lost to BYU at home. Then there's having the No. 7 team in the nation, Stanford, at +6500 while No. 10 Washington is +2200.
All this being said, it's still very early in the year and only a handful of conference games have been played. The closest things to sure things are Alabama and Clemson, but even Clemson has missed the playoff before.
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Ian McCafferty is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Ian McCafferty also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username itmccaff. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in their articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.