The first year of the 12-team College Football Playoff brought plenty of controversy on Selection Sunday, and didn’t provide the greatest of first-round matchups, as all four favorites covered the spread and three of the four games were blowouts.
To wit:
- No. 8 Ohio State (-7) won 42-17 against No. 9 Tennessee
- No. 6 Penn State (-9) won 38-10 against No. 11 SMU
- No. 7 Notre Dame (-6.5) won 27-17 against No. 10 Indiana, and was up 27-3 late in the fourth quarter
One bettor at Caesars Sportsbook in Louisiana has a particularly significant rooting interest in the rest of the playoffs, as he wagered $1.5 million on the Texas Longhorns to win the playoff at +390 odds back on Dec. 6 before the bracket was released. The wager would win $5.85 million.
“For college football, that’s one of the largest bets that we’ve taken,” Joey Feazel, lead college football and NFL trader at Caesars Sportsbook told Odds Shark. “The Longhorns are going to be the best-case for the customer and our biggest liability in the playoff.”
Texas, the No. 5 seed in the CFP, defeated Clemson on Saturday 38-24 as a 13.5-point favorite. The Longhorns are a 14-point favorite against No. 4 seed Arizona State on Jan. 1 in the College Football Playoff quarterfinal at The Peach Bowl in Atlanta, Georgia. If Texas wins, it would face the winner of the Oregon-Ohio State matchup, which is also on Jan. 1.
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