2025 CFB Preseason Alt Win Total Bets- Part 1
Methodology
There’s a fun addition to the college football betting scene this year- alternative win totals. Regular win total bets (e.g. Oklahoma over 6.5 wins) are commonplace, but in a new twist for 2025, I’ve seen alternative win total bets listed for each FBS team. These include odds to win 6+ games, odds to win 10+ games and odds to go undefeated.
I already have several posts going through my win total bets. Why do I need to make alt win total bets as well? The main reason is that I think the books fundamentally misprice these bets. To illustrate this, I’ll compare the projections that my model produces with the projections from another popular college football model (KFord). No shade against Kelley Ford, I love his content and he makes some amazing graphics, I just think that he has not modeled this particular aspect of things well and sportsbooks make a similar mistake.
Let’s look at my projections for Duke this year and compare it to KFord. I’ve picked Duke as an example because our projection for Duke is pretty much exactly the same (6.99 vs. 6.95 wins, respectively).
We both think that the most likely scenario is that Duke goes 7-5. However, I give them a 16% chance of going 10-2 or better, and he gives them a 4% chance. I give them a 9% chance of going 3-9 or worse, and he gives them a 1% chance. I am thus assuming a lot more volatility in the distribution of Duke’s outcomes than he is. In fact, I assume more volatility in the distribution of all 136 FBS teams, I just chose to use Duke as an example.
The data shows that my approach matches reality better. My statistical rationale into how I measure “better” is complicated and I won’t get into it here. Instead, let’s look at what happened last season. Here are some power conference teams whose actual record differed greatly from their projected win total in the preseason.
Florida State (9.5 win total, 2 wins)
Utah (9.5 win total, 5 wins)
Arizona (8 win total, 4 wins)
Duke (6 win total, 9 wins)
Illinois (5.5 win total, 9 wins)
South Carolina (5.5 win total, 9 wins)
Indiana (5 win total, 11 wins)
BYU (4.5 win total, 10 wins)
Arizona State (4.5 win total, 10 wins)
This shows the importance of having wider confidence intervals in the preseason.
I use this not as an exercise to pick on KFord, but rather to show that I think lots of people in the college football world (the betting markets included) often underestimate how likely far-flung outcomes are.
The moral of the story- college football is a notoriously unpredictable sport, and we shouldn’t be surprised when weird stuff happens!
SEC
Oklahoma to win 10+ games +600 (1 unit)
This bet should come as no surprise after I bet on Oklahoma over 6.5 wins and Oklahoma to make the playoff +500. I love the Sooners’ upside this year- they had awful injury luck last year and are extremely talented. They combine Brent Venables’ signature defense with a revamped offense led by dual-threat transfer QB John Mateer. I’m all-in on the Sooners this year.
Alabama to go undefeated +850 (1 unit)
When placing these sorts of bets, it’s important to identify teams with high ceilings and low floors. Alabama is a perfect case. Alabama has arguably the most talented roster in the country with 5-stars everywhere you look, and a healthy dose of skepticism surrounding second year coach Kalen DeBoer.
Would it surprise me if they go 12-0 and are the best team in the country? Nope. Would it surprise me if they go 8-4 and DeBoer gets chased out of Tuscaloosa by an angry mob? Also nope. This is the most unpredictable good team in the country, and I really like the value here.
Big Ten
Indiana to win 10+ games +340 (1 unit)
I’m both bullish on Indiana’s chances this year, and think that there is a lot of uncertainty in how good they can be. That makes an alt win total on the Hoosiers a great bet. We don’t have a ton of data points on how these heavily-portaled surprise teams behave in year two. Maybe Indiana has built a foundation and can win double digit games again against a soft schedule. Maybe they’ll go crashing back down to earth. Also, the ceiling is pretty high on transfer QB Fernando Mendoza- he’s starting to pop up in the first rounds of mock drafts. It wouldn’t shock me at all to see Indiana make a return trip to the playoff.
Minnesota to win 10+ games +800 (1 unit)
If Indiana isn’t this year’s Big Ten surprise team, I like Minnesota’s chances to take that spot. I covered why I like the Gophers in my Big Ten preseason picks article, and I’m just adding a bit of exposure on their upside tail with this bet.