UCLA's 2023 College Football Playoff National Championship Futures Odds Released
The 2021 college football season has officially come to a close, and anticipation for the 2022 campaign has already begun.
BetOnline released its first futures odds for the 2023 College Football Playoff National Championship on Tuesday, and UCLA football opened at +10000. That ties the Bruins for 32nd in the country alongside South Carolina, Tennessee and Louisiana.
UCLA boasts the fourth-best odds in the Pac-12, with Oregon, USC and Utah in a six-way tie for ninth in the nation at +3300.
Alabama is the narrow favorite over Georgia, boasting +300 odds compared to the Bulldogs' +350. Ohio State, Clemson and Texas A&M are the only other teams with odds better than +2000.
UCLA's lone national championship came back in 1954, and it split that title with Ohio State.
Since the turn of the century, every school that has won it all already had an undisputed, unanimous national title to its name.
Georgia snapped its 40-year championship drought Monday night against Alabama, preventing the Crimson Tide from winning their seventh championship in 13 years. The last 20 national championships have been split between Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Clemson, Ohio State, Florida State, Florida, Texas and USC.
Adopting the four-team College Football Playoff model in 2014 has narrowed things even further, with 25 of the 32 total slots being filled by Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Georgia and Notre Dame.
Even with the relatively small circle of contenders in recent decades, though, there could be openings for fresh blood coming down the pipeline.
For one, Cincinnati became the first Group of Five team to make the College Football Playoff this season, even if they lost in the semifinals. Talks of expanding the Playoff to eight or 12 teams may have stalled in recent days, but Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff is a publicly strong proponent of widening the field and there could be changes in place by 2025.
If UCLA were to make the College Football Playoff this coming season, they would become just the third Pac-12 program to do so. Of course, that is a tall task even with quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson coming back, considering coach Chip Kelly still is not extended and the fact that the Bruins boast an 18-25 record since he arrived in Westwood anyways.
UCLA has not played in a bowl since 2017, since their trip to the 2021 Holiday Bowl was canceled due to COVID-19. The program does not have a single postseason win since 2014, and winning a championship in 2023 would require a near-perfect regular season followed by two postseason wins in a 10-day span.
The 2023 College Football Playoffs National Championship Game is scheduled to be played Jan. 9 at SoFi Stadium. The new venue is located 13 miles from UCLA's campus, which is half as far as the 26 mile trip to the Rose Bowl.
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