Alabama, Ohio State top college football season win totals

Alabama had nine players selected in the first three rounds of the NFL Draft, but Las Vegas oddsmakers don’t expect the Crimson Tide to miss a beat next season.

Alabama, which lost to Clemson in last season’s national title game, opened with the highest regular-season win total of any college football team in numbers posted by CG Technology sports books.

The Crimson Tide’s total is 10½, and the price is over minus-150, meaning bettors have to wager $150 to win $100 that Alabama will win at least 11 games for the sixth straight season.

“They’re a difficult team to make numbers for, just because they’re so good at reloading,” said Matthew Holt, vice president of CG Technology sports books. “If you look at their season win totals the last five years — and they’ve had a ton of guys get drafted — they’re 10½, 10, 9½ (over minus-160), 10½ (over minus-150), 11½ and 10½.

“They’re always a huge number and have a long history of reloading, especially in the Nick Saban era.”

Ohio State, which opened with a win total of 10 (over minus-125), is the only other team with a double-digit total. The Buckeyes won 10 regular-season games last season after compiling at least 11 wins in each of coach Urban Meyer’s first four years at the school.

“They bet them over already,” Holt said. “They have to go 11-1. There’s not a lot of cushion. But there’s a lot of love for the Ohio State Buckeyes.”

The win totals don’t include conference championships, bowl games or playoff games.

Southern California, led by Heisman Trophy favorite Sam Darnold (5-1), is one of six teams with win totals of 9½. The others are Florida State, Penn State, Washington, Wisconsin and Oklahoma.

Louisville, led by Heisman winner Lamar Jackson, is one of six teams with a total of 9. The others are Clemson, Michigan, Louisiana State, Oklahoma State and Virginia Tech.

Holt said the heaviest action since the totals were posted Thursday has been on overs on Ohio State, Washington, Kansas State (7½) and Northwestern (7) and under on Oklahoma State.

“We’ve had a pretty good reception once we released them. A lot of people are betting on them,” he said. “We tried to come up with something fun this year. We decided to release new wagering content every Thursday.”

There are totals on 47 teams from Power Five conferences, with additional totals on Notre Dame, UNLV, UNR and other teams to be posted in coming weeks.

CG Technology, which has books at The Venetian, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, M Resort and the Palms, among others, also has released futures odds on each of the Power Five conferences and the Mountain West. The favorites are Alabama (minus-150) in the Southeastern Conference, Florida State (plus-120) in the Atlantic Coast Conference, Ohio State (plus-160) in the Big Ten, Southern California (minus-110) in the Pac 12, Oklahoma (minus-140) in the Big 12 and Boise State (plus-150) in the Mountain West.

UNLV is listed at 15-1 to win the Mountain West after opening at 30-1, and UNR is 25-1.

Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com or 702-266-6080. Follow @tdewey33 on Twitter.