Opening College Football Round 1 Playoff Odds & Early Predictions

• The first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff bracket is set and odds are our for all four first-round games
• All four home teams are favored, including #8 Ohio State (-6.5) against #9 Tennessee
• Below, see the opening College Football Playoff Round 1 odds and early predictions

Conference championships have been decided and the selection committee has cemented the first-even 12-team College Football Playoff bracket. The top-four seeds, who receive byes to the quarterfinals, are the #1 Oregon Ducks, #2 Georgia Bulldogs, #3, Boise State Broncos, and #4 Arizona State Sun Devils. The four first-round games will feature the #12 Clemson Tigers at #5 Texas Longhorns, #11 SMU Mustangs at #6 Penn State Nittany Lions, #10 Indiana Hoosiers at #7 Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and #9 Tennessee at #8 Ohio State. The table below lists the opening odds for all four first-round matchups.

College Football Playoff: Round 1 Odds

The opening lines for the quartet of first-round games are all 6.5 points or higher, with the home team heavily favored in all four matchups.

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The latest national championship odds continue to favor Oregon (+320) and Georgia (+380) after the bracket reveal. Texas (+400), Ohio State (+450) and Penn State (+750) round out the top-five favorites. After Penn State, there is a fairly big drop to sixth-favorite Notre Dame (+1200) and then an even bigger drop to seventh-favorite Tennessee (+2500).

The longest shots on the board are SMU (+3000), Clemson (+4000), Arizona State (+4000), Indiana (+4000), and Boise State (+5000).

Early CFP Round 1 Predictions

I was stunned at just how big the opening lines are for these games, and I lean to all four underdogs. Yes, home-field advantage will be a real thing in the Round 1 matchups, but every one of the better-seeded teams already has a straight-up loss on its home field this season.

Texas fell 30-15 to Georgia on Oct. 19 in a game when they were decidedly the second-best team on the field. Penn State lost 20-13 to Ohio State on Nov. 2, getting out-gained 358 to 270 yards in the process. Notre Dame lost 16-14 at home to Northern Illinois in a game that will go down as the single-most puzzling result of the season. And Ohio State lost its fourth straight iteration of The Game in Columbus against Michigan (20-13).

Bookmark the college football public betting splits to see where the early money is going on the first-round games and how the lines are shifting.