College Football: Ohio State Early Favorite to Win Back-to-Back National Championships

Will Howard has made the ultimate lemonade from the lemons of losing his starting quarterback job at Kansas State a year ago. Ryan Day is now forgiven for losing to Michigan (just don’t let it happen again). Yes, there is joy again in Columbus, as Ohio State is the national champion of college football for the first time in 10 years.

Ohio State completed its dominant run through the College Football Playoff on Monday night with a 34-23 win over Notre Dame. Now, it’s time to go about the task of doing it all again. There is a transfer portal to get to, required finishing touch ups on recruiting, and a title to defend.

Odds to Win 2025-26 College Football Playoff

Ohio State (+450)

There will be a mass exodus in the coming days of Ohio State Buckeyes declaring for the NFL Draft. Will Howard is gone, and his primary backup quarterback, Devin Brown, is transferring. But five-star recruit Julian Sayin should be ready to be QB1 next season.

And this is, after all, Ohio State. They will lose a lot of players, but they will reload with more ease than most.

Texas (+500)

Prepare for the era of Arch Manning. Along with the Texas Longhorns turning over the offense to the heir apparent to the Manning quarterback family tree, they have the top-ranked recruiting class in the country headed to Austin.

If you are salivating at the thought of Texas and Ohio State facing off for a second straight year in the CFP, you won’t have to wait that long. On Saturday, August 30, these two national championship hopefuls will open the season against each other in Columbus. The Buckeyes are the (very) early 3.5-point favorites.

Georgia (+550)

Gunnar Stockton was pressed into starting quarterback duties when Carson Beck got injured in the SEC Championship Game, and Stockton will be the full-time QB1 when the 2025 season begins. He will have an upgraded wide receiving corps from a year ago, with a pair of big-time transfers (Zachariah Branch from USC and Noah Thomas from Texas A&M) and a largely new offensive line.

As is the annual tradition, many members of the Georgia defense will move to the NFL next season. But the Bulldogs always seem to have a second set of future pros ready to step up.

Oregon (+750)

Oregon won the Big Ten in its first season in the conference, but its inability to stop Ohio State in the Rose Bowl is a concern. They have their next quarterback in Dante Moore, a transfer from UCLA a year ago, and their top running back is Makhi Hughes, who comes to Eugene from Tulane.

The offense is set with those two stars. But the defensive questions won’t be answered until the Ducks play at Penn State the final Saturday in September. Circle your calendars for that one.

Penn State (+900)

Speaking of the Nittany Lions, who made it to the semifinals of this past College Football Playoff, almost all of their future NFL players are still going to be with the team for another year. There is that Oregon game in September, and they go to Ohio State the first Saturday of November. So if Penn State is for real (they are ranked No. 1 in some early top 25s), we will know it by November.

Alabama (+1200)

Much was made about Alabama missing the CFP, with most of the noise coming from Alabama themselves. That quieted significantly when they lost their bowl game to Michigan. And then they lost nearly two dozen players to the transfer portal, and quarterback Jalen Milroe is headed to the NFL.

However, Crimson Tide fans do not suffer rebuilds well. Head coach Kalen DeBoer has to get back into the CFP this year, and the key will be quarterback Ty Simpson, long the QB1 in waiting. If he doesn’t step up, the locals will become restless.

Notre Dame (+1600)

Notre Dame goes from one win away from the national championship to seventh in next year’s betting odds. They lose quarterback Riley Leonard, but the two players most likely to replace him – CJ Carr and Steve Angeli – are both very good.

The thing working against Notre Dame, or for them, depending on how things go, is the difficulty of this coming year’s schedule. They open at Miami, host Texas A&M, play at Arkansas, and then host Boise State, all before they play their traditional game with USC in the middle of the season.

The line on the season opener at the Hurricanes has Notre Dame favored by 2.5.