College Football Futures Update

The good news is that we have the Big 12 winner and will make money. The bad news is that it took us three teams to do it. We have Oklahoma at +275, Oklahoma State at +650, and West Virginia at +1400 to win the Big 12.

The Houston beatdown of Louisville gave our Washington at 49-1 to win the national title some life. Washington's two best defensive players, however, are out for the year, so they will be hard-pressed to finish with one loss.

We have both UNC at 11-1 and VaTech at 30-1 to win the ACC, so one of them should be in the title game, requiring a hefty hedge. It's a tough call as to which is the better choice -- UNC, which I think could possibly beat Clemson, or VaTech, which really cannot, I think.

The only true bust appears to be Nebraska at 9-1 to win the Big 10, but we may still be able to finagle half of our money back, depending how things shake out.

Almost took Auburn at long odds to win the SEC three weeks back, but we missed the best of the numbers and decided to wait. Saved us some money. We planned to take LSU to win the SEC at the start of the year, but the non-conference loss to Wisconsin gave us pause, so that saved us some money.

We have twice as much on Oklahoma at the +275 as we do on Oklahoma State at +650, so that is a wash requiring no hedging.

With 49-1, our Washington to win the national title has some wiggle room, so we will aspire to get the majority of our money back with a ML wager on Wash State or we may open a teaser or both. Our assumption, which could be wrong, is that the loser of Michigan/Ohio State is out. Frankly, Washington may only be the fourth best team in the Pac 12, behind USC, Wash State, and a really nasty Colorado team. In a sport where so many high-profile quarterbacks have not really improved (think Miami (FL), Nebraska, Tennessee), it was refreshing to see Colorado's QB improve immensely over the course of his career.

Nebraska will require a bit of a miracle, as they have to beat Iowa, a game wherein they are a small dog, and then Wisconsin would have to lose to Minnesota, which is not likely at all. So we will sit out the Nebraska game Friday, and if they win, then there's not much we can do but root, root, root for the Gophers on Saturday. The key was Nebraska losing to Wisconsin in OT a month ago, which gives Wisconsin the tiebreaker.

And we just sit and wait for the ACC title game, where we will hedge it out and make as much as we can, no matter if it's UNC or VaTech as our squad versus Clemson.