Who Will Make the College Football Playoff? Odds Favor SMU Over Alabama

After a full season of college football action, we’re just hours away from finding out the 12 teams who will be competing in the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff.

We already know 11 of the 12 teams who will have a shot at competing for a National Championship, but there has been plenty of talk about which school should be awarded the 12th seed. The answer was obvious if SMU had defeated Clemson in the ACC Championship game. If that had happened, SMU would’ve got in as a conference championship and Alabama likely would have been awarded the final at-large bid.

Instead, Clemson won the conference championship on a last-second 56-yard field goal which has thrown a wrench into the committee’s plans. Now, the Tigers have secured a spot but it’s a toss-up between SMU and Alabama for the final at-large bid. The Mustangs have had an impressive 11-2 season and were the No. 8 ranked team in the country before losing to Clemson while Alabama is 9-3 on the season but with a couple of ugly losses to Vanderbilt and Oklahoma.

So, which team will get the final spot? Let’s take a look at what the oddsmakers think:

Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook

DraftKings Sportsbook has given SMU -330 odds of making the College Football Playoff. If you translate those odds to implied probability, they believe the Mustangs have a 76.64% chance of being awarded an at-large bid over Alabama.

Those odds should give SMU fans hope, but we won’t know for certain until the College Football Playoff bracket is unveiled today at noon ET.

Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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