2023 College Football Playoff odd: Alabama Crimson Tide disaster

The 2023 College Football season is set up for chaos and one of the main reasons for the volatility is that Alabama has looked decidedly pedestrian through the first month of the season.

After routing Middle Tennessee State, 56-7, in their season-opener, the Crimson Tide lost to Texas, 34-24, in Tuscaloosa and then struggled to put away South Florida a week later.

The lackluster performances made Alabama look like a vulnerable favorite against Ole Miss at home, but Jalen Milroe and the Crimson Tide got on track with a 24-10 win to keep themselves on the fringe of the College Football Playoff picture after Week 4.

At the time of writing, Alabama is +5000 to win the College Football Playoff at BetMGM Sportsbook. That gives the Crimson Tide 12th-best odds to win the national championship.

It’s unfamiliar territory for the Tide to find themselves in this early in a campaign.

There is a case to be made for Alabama at this price.

For one, you still have Nick Saban as head coach and there are star players up and down the lineup.

And things should look better for the Tide after next week, as they’re 15.5-point favorites on the road against Mississippi State. A convincing win over the Bulldogs and we’ll likely see this number drop a bit, especially if there’s some carnage with other CFP contenders above them.

Things do get a bit choppier after that for the Tide, as they’d travel to Texas A&M in Week 6, but they do get the benefit of hosting Arkansas, LSU and Tennessee over their next three contests.

That showdown with LSU on Nov. 4 has all the makings of a College Football Playoff elimination game.

It’s not an easy schedule by any means, but in most years you’d back the Tide to handle it.

But the problem is that for as strong as Alabama looked on defense against Ole Miss, it’s really hard to envision this team going undefeated against this schedule, then winning the SEC Championship Game –potentially against No. 1 Georgia — to get into the College Football Playoff.

Betting on College Football?

That’s essentially the task at hand here for the Tide. They’d need to run the table with a quarterback who has already been benched this season due to inconsistent performances. 

I won’t sit here and call anybody crazy for betting Alabama at +5000.

Action Network’s Power Ratings make the Crimson Tide the eighth-best team in the nation right now and there’s definitely a chance that Milroe improves as the season progresses and the defense does the rest.

But when you take a step back and look at the path, I think you’d want a bigger number on ‘Bama than what we’re being offered at the time of writing.