The 2025 college football season is not exactly around the corner, but it’s never too early to start looking at the odds for next fall. And unfortunately for the Big 12, it’s not pretty.
Ohio State and Texas lead the way with the best odds, at 5-1, to win the National Championship next season. Georgia, Oregon and Penn State round out the Top 5 odds. But as you go down the list, there isn’t a Big 12 team in sight.
In fact, no Big 12 football team has better than 100-1 odds to win the National Championship, and that would be the Arizona State Sun Devils, at exactly 100-1. Then comes the run on Big 12 teams, with Kansas State and Iowa State having 150-1 odds, along with Texas Tech at 175-1 and Baylor and Kansas at 200-1, followed by BYU at 250-1.
Here are the odds from Circa Sports, via Brett McMurphy on X.
We know the Big 12’s strength is in its parity, and any team can win on a given Saturday. This will make for another exciting regular season and clearly shows that predicting the Big 12 Conference will be the hardest task of any college football analysis this offseason. Heck, Arizona State was picked to finish last in the Big 12 in 2024, and we all know how that worked out.
But it does beg the question as to whether or not the league can develop a couple of programs who are legitimate College Football Playoff national title contenders on a yearly basis.
We know the Big 12 is all but guaranteed to have one team in the Playoff, but then winning multiple games, potentially as many as four in a row, against elite competition is going to be very difficult.
It will take 3-5 years to figure out if those programs can develop over time, and we’ll get another good idea this fall as to who might be able to be one of those teams.
National Championship Odds
Meantime, when you look around the country, the Ohio State Buckeyes lead the way with +500 odds to win the 2026 National Championship.
The rest of the teams in the Top 10 include Texas, Georgia, Oregon, Penn State, Alabama, Notre Dame, Clemson, Tennessee and LSU.
The Clemson Tigers are the top team outside of the Big Ten or SEC with +2000 odds to win the 2026 National Championship. After Clemson, it’s the Miami Hurricanes at +2500.
The 2025 season is set to begin on Saturday, Aug. 23 in Week 0. Week 1, when most teams begin, will be the following week. The Week 0 slate is highlighted by a Big 12 match up between Iowa State and Kansas State in Dublin, Ireland. Also, Kansas will take on Fresno State in Week 0.
