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College Football Playoff Sleepers: Odds and Best Bets

by Mike Allen - 8/26/2024

College Football Playoff sleepers odds and best bets Maddux Madsen Boise State

Is there a magic number of wins a college football team needs to be selected to be a part of the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff? I'm hearing many people say that teams who win 10 games will be invited to the playoff. That makes sense. Looking at several projections, however, has me scratching my head. That’s because only two teams, the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Georgia Bulldogs, are favored to win double-digit games.

Well, there are the Liberty Flames, but their schedule is borderline preposterous. It's so easy. I should pull for them more. They are in my hometown, and I have been winning bets through their rise to the point they are now. However, I believe their showing in the Fiesta Bowl has left such a nasty taste in the selection committees' mouths. It made them look silly that they will use this season to make an example out of LU not to make too easy of a schedule.

I’ve been eying a bet on LU to make these playoffs since last season. They will need to look awfully good throughout the year to make it. They might, though. The 3-1 odds aren’t bad. Let’s digress into some other sleepers to make the first-ever college football playoff. We have several teams with much longer betting odds for you to add to your bag.

There are a couple of different strategies to take when picking a sleeper team. For me, both involve looking at the strength of schedule ranking for every team. I did my best to target teams with difficult schedules that will be respected in a strong conference when a team only has nine or maybe even eight wins if there is a lot of parity this season.

I went through about 30 teams' schedules, and the best value is with historically strong programs with easy slates ahead. Not one of our sleepers today has a schedule ranked inside the top 50 most difficult.

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Odds to Make the College Football Playoff

Sleepers to Make the College Football Playoff

Boise State: +460

Boise State was turning it on down the stretch last season after the firing of Andy Avalos. The subsequent hiring of Spencer Danielson helped the team turn it around. They looked like their old selves for the first time in years. The blue crew is just outside most top 25 rankings and primed for a top 10 finish should they get to that 10-win mark.

Coming out of the Mountain West Conference, that's just how it will be. It's hard to argue against a 9-3 SEC team making the playoff over one with the same record from the MWC. Boise State has one of the easiest of easy schedules, as it ranks 86th in college football. Well, that's after a Week 1 trip to Eugene. I feel like being the underdog gives you a small advantage in the first game of the year. It's a road game against a top 3 opponent. I predict the Broncos look decent and sneak into the top 25 after their first win the following week.

This schedule is cake. They will probably win 11.

Oklahoma State: +800

From the Broncos to the men who ride them, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, with a current rank of 17th in the AP Poll, don't have the easiest schedule of our picks today to make the CFP, but they are easily the highest-ranked.

The strength of schedule (59th) isn't bad, either, coming from a strong Big 12 Conference. They play both Kansas State and Utah in back-to-back weeks at the end of September. If they can split there, they can still have one potential slip-up and still slide into the playoff.

Virginia Tech: +800

Just like I can't believe I am not picking Liberty in this spot, I didn't expect to be putting the Hokies up there. I did love what I saw from developing quarterback Kyron Drones in his first year in Blacksburg. A native of Pearland, Texas, Drones is a fast, strong, dual-threat quarterback who is averaging 7 yards per pass attempt as well as 7 yards per rush with VT. His 15 touchdowns to only 3 picks look good also.

Virginia Tech needed a fresh start after the Justin Fuente era finally ended. They got that. The fandom will be reinvigorated. Metallica will get the fans and students jumping before the game, and their schedule is manageably ranked at 54th.

They have to travel to Miami in about a month and host the Clemson Tigers toward the end of the season. They're at least a coin flip to win 1 out of these 2. From there, though, it isn't much. Boston College and Georgia Tech are their next two most difficult games, and they will be played at home.

SMU: +1000

One of the newest members of the ACC, SMU won 11 games last season for the first time since 1982. It was in the indicative 2nd full season with the team that head coach Rhett Lashley showed the school made the right choice when they hired him. The Mustangs have managed to fly under the radar, which is good.

SMU did play this past weekend in a Zero Week game on the road in Reno against Nevada. I thought maybe they would be sluggish through the first quarter or maybe the first half, but the Mustangs were down 24-13 heading into the 4th quarter. That is when they turned it on, however, eventually winning 29-24.

At this point, we have the opportunity to jump ship, or we can sell ourselves on the idea that this team is now tested. They laid their egg early, unexpectedly, but still found a way to impose their will and end the game with dominance.

I prefer the latter.

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