One day after the Alabama Crimson Tide defeated the Clemson Tigers 45-40 in the College Football Playoff National Championship Presented by AT&T, the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook and several books across the strip released odds for the 2016 title.
Here are best early title value bets from Phil Steele and Will Harris.
Steele: A quick caveat about these picks: I'm currently in the process of getting my magazine together, which means I'm reading a tremendous amount of material. These are my early value bets based on which teams I think have a little value in the betting odds and how many starters they have returning.
Note: I'll release my best value bets later in the summer.
Tennessee Volunteers (15-1)
One of my favorite title value bets each season is identifying the team that is most likely to win the SEC East. The SEC West is loaded and a very tough division to win, but the East is much easier to navigate. By winning the East, a team is basically in the playoff quarterfinals. They get to the SEC title game and if they knock off the SEC West champ and have just one loss, that team will get an invitation to the playoff.
The East looks very winnable this year with Kentucky, Vanderbilt, South Carolina and Missouri all trying to come back from non-bowl seasons. Georgia has had a coaching change, while Florida loses a lot of players to the NFL. Tennessee has value from 2015 and a lot of talent coming back. The Vols dominated Oklahoma and had Florida beat before surrendering a two-score lead in the fourth quarter. They had a four-point loss to Arkansas, and were once again basically one play away from a win. They had a 173-125 yardage edge at the half at Alabama and put up 21 first downs on the road versus the eventual national champs. The Vols then reeled off six straight wins including a 45-6 win over No. 13 Northwestern in their bowl game.
This year, they return quarterback Joshua Dobbs and their talented running back combo of Jalen Hurd and Alvin Kamara. They lose only a handful of seniors and just got the solid addition of defensive coordinator Bob Shoop from Penn State. I would expect the odds on this team to be shorter when the season rolls around and they have an excellent shot at being in the SEC championship game.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish (15-1)
One of these years, Brian Kelly will break through. The Irish lost nose tackle Jarron Jones and running back Greg Bryant prior to the year and lost quarterback Malik Zaire and top running back Tarean Folston in the opener. Despite the injuries they came up a two-point conversion from forcing overtime versus Clemson in Death Valley and had a 432-296 yardage edge in that game, which was DeShone Kizer's first big road start. They still had national title hopes when they played Stanford on the road, before suffering a 38-36 heartbreaking loss.
Notre Dame backers gained a little value for 2016 when the Irish lost their bowl game to Ohio State 44-28. Despite those major injuries I mentioned, their three losses were to the No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 teams in the country. They also have the bulk of the offense coming back in 2016, which makes them a dangerous team.
Harris: There's typically not much to like early in the heavily juiced championship futures market, and the Westgate's opening set of numbers provides no exception.
Vegas' top sportsbook rolled out prices on about half the FBS, with just 24 schools clocking in at less than 100-1. Seven of the 24 hail from the SEC, six from the Pac-12, four from the Big 12, three each from the ACC and the Big Ten, plus Notre Dame.
The top 10 includes five teams -- Alabama, Oklahoma, Clemson, Ohio State and Baylor -- at less than 15-1, and five more at exactly 15-1. That second group, which includes Notre Dame, Florida State, Tennessee, LSU and Michigan, is probably where we'd look if forced to play this early.
There are several schools, including four of the top five, that return their key offensive skill players, but only LSU combines that advantage with a huge coaching upgrade. After "losing" a bidding war to Auburn over the man who took the bite out of the LSU defense overnight and nearly cost future Hall of Famer Les Miles his job, LSU plucked rising star Dave Aranda from Wisconsin. If he can return the LSU stop unit to pre-2015 levels of intensity and physicality, the Tigers will again be a nationally relevant force in the SEC.
Notre Dame had a legitimate claim as the nation's top team, as the Irish lost only road games to both Clemson and Stanford by less than the standard home-field adjustment. This year's schedule will be more forgiving, and the team and staff just as talented.
Jim Harbaugh wasted no time making it apparent that Michigan is an immediate national power. The Ohio State-Michigan game will be on the sport's center stage for the next decade, and in most years that game's winner will be the biggest threat to SEC supremacy.
Three more schools outside the top 10 in the betting order have our attention:
TCU Horned Frogs (30-1)
They must replace do-it-all pivot Trevone Boykin, but this offense is notoriously plug-and-play at quarterback and the defense will boast elite coaching and vast experience throughout the two-deep.
Washington Huskies (40-1)
The Huskies are the rising power in the Pac-12 North, and we still expect Chris Petersen to claim the Pac-12's first national title since the Pete Carroll dynasty at USC. It probably won't happen as soon as 2016, but the Huskies will have the league's best defense and special teams, a blue-chip quarterback with a year under his belt and dynamic offensive stars in Myles Gaskin and John Ross.
In the barrage of headlines the past two weeks heralding players' decisions to leave early for the NFL draft or stay in school, two teams stood out as the clear winner and loser. Ohio State is losing nine underclassmen, which Urban Meyer called "over the top." On the other end of the spectrum is Louisville, which is retaining several draft-eligible defensive stars. The Cardinals are the third ACC team on the board at 60-1, and should be expected to take another step forward in 2016.
Finally, always remember that when it comes to championship futures, close doesn't count. You want teams that can actually win it all, not just make the College Football Playoff. We'll tag Baylor (12-1) and Stanford (20-1) with the same label we gave Clemson during 2015: maybe good enough to make it to the show, but not seasoned enough to finish the drill. Programs and coaches that have played for and won championships in the past should always be near the top of your list.