Who are the Favorites to Win the 2026-27 CFP National Championship?

Indiana went 3-9 in 2023. Their third straight losing season. They owned the most losses in the history of Division I football — 715 of them, accumulated across 126 seasons of stubborn, grinding, often heartbreaking irrelevance. Two years later, they went 16-0 before dismantling both Alabama and Oregon in the playoffs and finally beating Miami 27-21 in the CFP National Championship game, ensuring that their Cinderella story had the perfect finale.

Fernando Mendoza won the Heisman. Curt Cignetti became a legend overnight. And every assumption the sport had about ceilings, pecking orders, and who gets to compete for a title got thrown directly into the trash. Now, a new season dawns, and after the Hoosiers’ exploits as +10000 outsiders last season, everyone in the country thinks that they can become champions.

But that’s what the programs think. What about the bookies? Who do they think will end the upcoming 2026-27 season as National Champions? Here are the betting favorites.

Start with what happened in January. Notre Dame went 10-2 last season and built a résumé that looked relatively solid, but clearly not watertight. The CFP committee looked at the head-to-head loss to Miami and decided that was enough to hand the Hurricanes the seventh and final at-large spot in the postseason. Marcus Freeman’s program would then opt out of bowl season entirely — a decision that was equal parts frustration and defiance — and spent the winter stewing in it.

That bitterness either becomes fuel, or it becomes an excuse. The history of college football is littered with teams that turned snubs into ammunition, and it’s equally full of programs that talked about revenge in August and collapsed by November. In 2026, online betting sites clearly think that for Notre Dame, the response will be the former, rather than the latter.

The early 2026 college football lines at Bovada currently make the Fighting Irish a +700 joint-favorite to win the Natty next season. Much of that is down to the portal additions along the defensive line — Keon Keeley, Tionne Gray, and Francis Brewu — which give Freeman a pass rush that could legitimately alter games. As well as that, the receiver room absorbed Ohio State transfers Mylan Graham and Quincy Porter, layered on top of retained contributors Jordan Faison, Jaden Greathouse, and Micah Gilbert. The infrastructure is real.

ESPN’s Rece Davis has already predicted Notre Dame wins the title outright. And at the center of everything is CJ Carr — Lloyd Carr’s grandson, 2,741 yards and 24 touchdowns as a freshman starter in 2025, named by Bill Connelly as the top returning Power Four quarterback in the country. He isn’t a scrambler or a gadget piece. He’s a pocket operator with accuracy, a strong arm, and the decision-making speed to make an elite offensive line look even better. His projected sophomore leap is what this entire upcoming Notre Dame season is built around.

Ohio State Buckeyes (+700)

Ohio State came into the 2025 Cotton Bowl ranked second in the country. They were supposed to be the team everyone feared. They fell behind 14-0 before half, never recovered, and lost 24-14 to a Miami team seeded eight spots below them in one of college football’s all-time great postseason stunners. Julian Sayin went 22-of-35 for 287 yards with two interceptions and spent most of the night running for his life. The Canes had delivered a statement about exactly what happens when the Buckeyes meet real pressure in January.

Ryan Day’s program has since faced a mass exodus of stars. Bryson Rodgers transferred to USF. CJ Hicks followed. Bryce West landed at Wisconsin. Jelani Thurman is gone. NFL Draft picks stripped both sides of the ball. What’s left is Brandon Inniss at receiver and Earl Little Jr. in the secondary — genuine players, genuine anchors — and a recruiting machine that can reload because the NIL infrastructure and the Ohio State brand still attract blue-chip talent at a volume very few programs can match.

But reloading isn’t the problem. Performing under playoff pressure is. Day has built elite rosters. He’s won conference titles. He won a national championship in 2025. And he’s also now delivered a stunning upset loss when it counted most. As the +700 joint- favorite alongside Notre Dame, the market believes Day can fix it. The question is whether another collection of talented players is enough, or whether there’s something structural that needs to change first.

Indiana Hoosiers (+750)

Don’t romanticize this. What Indiana did was historically seismic — 16-0, 121-46 combined in three CFP games, scoring 40.3 points per game while surrendering just 15.3 — but Cignetti doesn’t get to run it back with the same team. Mendoza is gone. Omar Cooper Jr. is gone. The two most consequential offensive players from the title run walked out the door and became NFL first-rounders, while Josh Hoover — a transfer from TCU — is now supposed to step into a Heisman winner’s shoes and keep an entire program’s momentum intact.

That’s the whole challenge. Not the schedule. Not the recruiting rankings. Hoover. Everything else — Nick Marsh from Michigan State replenishing the receiver corps, Preston Zachman from Wisconsin bolstering the secondary, a portal profile that now reflects a championship-level brand — all of it means nothing if the quarterback position becomes a liability. The hangover season is a real phenomenon in college football. Indiana now knows what it feels like to be the hunted.