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NCAA Football 2027 National Champion Odds & Analysis

Georgia Takes Over the Top of a Wide-Open Board

As of October 2026, prediction markets price the Georgia Bulldogs at 19.95% to win the 2026-27 College Football Playoff national championship, ahead of Ohio State at 13.5%, Miami at 13.05%, Notre Dame at 11.5%, Alabama at 9.95%, Texas at 9% and Indiana at 7.4%. No other team trades above 3%. Those are the NCAA football 2027 national champion odds after a weekend that reshuffled the sport: Georgia won 20-17 at Alabama, previously unbeaten Texas lost 27-24 to Oklahoma in Dallas, and Oregon lost 17-15 at home to UCLA. The level matters less than the direction of travel - Georgia has roughly doubled over the past month while Oregon, a preseason top-two team in the AP poll, has fallen from double digits to 1.65%. Each of the 16 team contracts on this board can also be traded as a leveraged position on PredMart.

The first thing to understand about this market is how flat it is. The favorite is priced at one in five, and seven teams sit between 7% and 20%. That is a structural feature of the 12-team playoff, not indecision: even the best team in the country now has to win three or four postseason games against top-tier opponents, and every extra round cuts the champion's probability. The second thing to understand is what is missing. The 16 listed contracts add up to about 95.5%, which leaves roughly 4.5% of implied probability for every team not on the board. That residual covers several unbeaten teams currently in the AP top 12 - BYU (No. 8), Utah (No. 11) and UCLA (No. 12) - none of which has its own contract here. If one of them wins the title, every listed contract resolves No.

The resolution rules are simple. A contract resolves Yes if its team is named the national champion of the 2026-27 College Football Playoff and No if the team wins anything less, including the moment it is eliminated. The title game is scheduled for January 25, 2027, at Allegiant Stadium in the Las Vegas area, and the market has a late fallback date of February 8, 2027, if the game is delayed.

The Front-Runner: Georgia at 19.95%

Georgia's price has moved more in the last month than any other contract on the board. The Bulldogs traded near 10% a month ago, added about four points over the last week, and now sit at a 19.9% bid against a 20% ask, a tight market that tells you the number is real rather than a stale print.

The catalyst was Saturday in Tuscaloosa. Georgia beat Alabama 20-17 and moved to 6-0 (4-0 in the SEC). Gunner Stockton went 18 of 22 for 249 yards and accounted for both Georgia touchdowns, a 20-yard pass to London Humphreys and a 14-yard run, while Dwight Phillips Jr. ran for 120 yards on 17 carries. It was a three-point game on the scoreboard, but Georgia outgained Alabama 455-346, and the voters responded: Georgia jumped from No. 2 to No. 1 in the AP poll released October 11 with 66 first-place votes.

The market is pricing two things. First, Georgia now has the clearest path in the SEC to a top-four seed and a first-round bye, which removes one playoff game from its road to the title. Second, the Bulldogs have just cleared one of the hardest road games on their schedule. That does not make the rest of the season easy. Georgia still faces two currently ranked opponents, a trip to No. 9 Ole Miss on November 7 and No. 13 Missouri at home a week later, plus Florida at a neutral site on October 31. A loss in Oxford would not end Georgia's season under a 12-team format, but it would likely push the price back toward the low teens.

Is 20% too high for a team that just won a three-point game? Probably not by much. A 6-0 SEC team with a quarterback completing better than 80% of his passes in its biggest game, a 109-yard edge in total offense at Alabama and a likely bye is a reasonable favorite in a field this balanced. What the market is not pricing is dominance: one in five is a favorite's price, not a juggernaut's. That is the right posture after one big win.

The Biggest Movers: Texas and Oregon Fall Hard

The two biggest negative moves on the board came from two different kinds of losses.

Texas entered the weekend as the AP No. 1 and left it at No. 7. Oklahoma beat the Longhorns 27-24 in the Red River rivalry, with a 47-yard field goal by Tate Sandell as time expired. The details made it a painful loss to price: Texas outgained Oklahoma 382-238, but Arch Manning threw two interceptions, one of which Peyton Bowen returned 42 yards for a fourth-quarter Oklahoma touchdown. Texas is now 4-1. Its title contract dropped 6.5 points over the week, from roughly 15.5% to 9%, and the bid-ask spread has widened to 8%-10%, a sign that traders are less certain where fair value sits.

The market's harsher reaction to Texas than to Alabama, which also lost on Saturday, is about schedule. After hosting Florida on Saturday, Texas faces four currently ranked opponents in four straight weeks: Ole Miss and Mississippi State at home, then Missouri and LSU on the road. A loss in a game Texas dominated statistically is not by itself a reason to fade the team; a schedule that leaves little margin for a second loss is. That is why Texas sits below Alabama despite beating Ohio State earlier in the year.

Oregon's collapse is the bigger story over a longer window. The Ducks began the season No. 2 in the preseason AP poll. They are now 3-2 after a Week 2 road loss at Oklahoma State and Saturday's turnover-heavy 17-15 home loss to UCLA, and they are unranked for the first time in four years, per Fox Sports. NBC Sports reported that Dan Lanning benched Dylan Raiola for Brock Thomas, who finished 11 of 15 for 156 yards and a touchdown. Oregon's title contract has fallen about 12 points over the past month to 1.65%, and its next marquee test is a trip to Ohio State on November 7.

The size of these moves shows why the direction of travel matters more than the level in a futures market. Georgia going from about 10% to about 20% in a month is roughly a 100% gain on the contract, which at 4x would be close to a 400% return on margin before fees, while Oregon's slide from the low teens would have wiped out a leveraged long well before Saturday. The same arithmetic runs in both directions.

The Rest of the Field: Where the Value Debate Sits

Ohio State at 13.5%. The Buckeyes are 5-1, with the loss a one-possession game against Texas, and they are No. 4 in the AP poll. Julian Sayin threw for 242 yards and four touchdowns in a 45-16 win over Maryland, and NBC Sports describes wide receiver Jeremiah Smith as the Heisman favorite. Ohio State's price has barely moved over the past month, which makes sense: its only loss was 24-23 at Texas in September, when the Buckeyes were ranked No. 1, and its remaining path still runs through games against Indiana and Oregon. Saturday's game against Indiana is the most important single fixture on the board this week.

Miami at 13.05%. The Hurricanes are 5-0, No. 3 in the AP poll, and beat Clemson 41-13. They also lost the 2025-26 national championship game to Indiana, 27-21, in January, so the roster has recent title-game experience. Miami's price has been steady, up about three points over the week. The ACC gives Miami a cleaner route to a high seed than any SEC or Big Ten contender has, which is part of why the market keeps it level with Ohio State despite a lighter résumé of ranked wins.

Notre Dame at 11.5%. The Fighting Irish are 6-0 and No. 2 in the AP poll after a 58-7 win over Stanford, their 16th straight win per NBC Sports. Oddly, Notre Dame's contract is down about three points over the past month despite the unbeaten run. One plausible reading is that traders are weighting the quality of the opposition more than the record: as an independent, Notre Dame has no conference title game to add a marquee win late in the season. Saturday's trip to BYU, the AP No. 8, is the test that decides whether the market's caution or the poll's enthusiasm is right.

Alabama at 9.95%. Alabama is 5-1 after the Georgia loss, with Keelon Russell at quarterback. Its contract has risen about eight points over the past month, including about five over the past week, so the market has not marked it down for a three-point loss to the new No. 1. Bleacher Report's read is that Alabama should comfortably make the 12-team field if it wins its two big remaining road games, at Tennessee on Saturday and at LSU on November 7. The market is treating the Georgia loss as a seeding problem rather than a title problem, which is reasonable in this format.

Indiana at 7.4%. The defending national champion is 6-0 and No. 5 in the AP poll, but its order book is the hardest to read on the board. The midpoint is 7.4%, the bid is 6.5% and the ask is 8.3%, while the last traded price was 3.8%. The contract is down about three points over the past month, partly because Indiana had to come from behind to win 20-17 at Nebraska, where it trailed 10-3 at halftime and did not take its first lead until about seven minutes remained. Saturday's game against Ohio State will probably settle where this price belongs.

The cheap tier. Below 3%, the prices are a mix of fading contenders and teams the market barely believes in. Ole Miss (2.7%) is 4-1, No. 9 in the AP poll, and beat Vanderbilt 52-17; it hosts Missouri on Saturday and Georgia on November 7, which gives it a direct way to reprice. LSU (2.6%) fell to No. 22 after a 35-34 overtime loss at Kentucky and is now 4-2, and its contract is down more than five points over the month. Florida (1.6%) is 4-2 after a 38-19 home loss to South Carolina, its second straight defeat, and dropped out of the AP top 25 before games against Texas and Georgia. Oregon is at 1.65%.

At the bottom, the most interesting mismatch between poll and price is Texas Tech. The Red Raiders are 5-0 and No. 10 in the AP poll, yet their contract trades at 0.55%. USC, 6-1 and No. 19 after a 31-23 win over Penn State, sits at 0.65%. Oklahoma, fresh off the upset of Texas but receiving only votes in the AP poll, is at 0.45%, as are Texas A&M, which lost 27-6 to Missouri, and Michigan. Texas Tech is the clearest case of a team whose ranking and title price disagree, but that disagreement has a logical basis: a Big 12 champion is very likely to make the field, and much less likely to win three or four playoff games against SEC and Big Ten opponents. Traders who think that discount is too steep get the most asymmetry per dollar at these prices, but a leveraged position on a sub-1% contract is mostly a bet on a repricing rather than on the title, since one bad Saturday can push the price low enough to liquidate it.

One caution applies to the whole lower half of the board. Several of these contracts have bid-ask spreads that are wide relative to their prices - Ole Miss shows 1.6% bid and 3.8% ask, LSU 1.9% and 3.4% - so the midpoint is an estimate rather than a price anyone can actually trade at in size.

Catalysts: The Windows That Will Reprice the Board

Saturday, October 17. This is the densest week of the season for this market. Ohio State and Indiana play each other in the game most likely to move two of the top seven contracts at once; Ohio State goes to Bloomington as a narrow road favorite of about a field goal. Notre Dame visits BYU as a double-digit favorite, Alabama plays at Tennessee, Missouri visits Ole Miss, Mississippi State visits LSU, Florida plays at Texas, Miami plays Florida State and Georgia plays Auburn. Most of the listed contenders play a ranked or rivalry opponent on the same afternoon.

Late October. The selection committee's first rankings of the season come out in late October. The committee's order matters more than the AP poll because it decides byes and seeding, and the market tends to reprice independents like Notre Dame and Group of Five or Big 12 contenders when the committee's view first becomes public. Georgia and Florida meet at a neutral site on October 31, the same week.

November 7. This is the second crowded Saturday. Georgia at Ole Miss is the Bulldogs' toughest remaining road game and the best chance for Ole Miss to reprice from the cheap tier into the contender group. Alabama plays at LSU and Oregon visits Ohio State on the same day, which decides whether LSU and Oregon, the two slumping contracts, have any way back.

December 4-6. Conference championship games are played December 4 and 5, and the final committee rankings and playoff bracket are announced on December 6. This is where a contract's probability changes in steps: teams that miss the field go to zero, and teams that earn a top-four seed and a bye get one fewer game to win.

December 18-19 through January 25, 2027. First-round games are played at campus sites on December 18 and 19, and the playoff rounds then compress the remaining uncertainty into four weekends. Every win shortens a contract sharply; every loss sends it to zero. The national championship game at Allegiant Stadium on January 25 resolves the market.

Bottom Line

The board has a deserved but modest favorite in Georgia at about 20%, a tight second tier of Ohio State, Miami and Notre Dame between 11.5% and 13.5%, and Alabama, Texas and Indiana between 7% and 10%. The weekend's results moved the market in sensible directions: Georgia up after winning at Alabama, Texas down on a schedule that leaves less room for a second loss, and Oregon nearly priced out after two losses and a quarterback change.

My read is that the market has the shape right and the details slightly off in two places. Notre Dame at 11.5% looks a little cheap for an unbeaten team on a 16-game winning streak, provided it survives BYU on Saturday, and Texas at 9% has fallen further than one three-point loss justifies, though its schedule makes that a less comfortable bet. Georgia at 20% is fair rather than generous. The most important single event between now and the bracket is Saturday's Ohio State-Indiana game, and anyone holding a leveraged position on either side should size it for the possibility that one afternoon moves the contract by a third in either direction.

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