We recently looked at early odds for the four major conferences in college football, the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and SEC, to get an idea of which teams were favored to win those conferences in 2025.
But during the process of looking at the favorites in each respective conference, we couldn’t help but make an observation about the upcoming 2025 season, based on the odds, which were courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook.
That observation? According to the odds, it’s easy to see which conference the oddsmakers think will be the most competitive among the four major college football conferences, and it’s not even close.
The Big 12 Conference is expected to be the most competitive Power 4 conference in college football in 2025.
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Why the Big 12 is college football’s most competitive conference
Why?
For starters, just take a look at odds for the last team in each conference. For the Big 12, that’s Arizona, which is at +6500 to win the conference in 2025. In the ACC, Wake Forest and Stanford are both at +35000 to win that conference, while the last teams in the Big Ten odds (Purdue and Northwestern) and the last team in the SEC odds (Mississippi State) are at +50000.
Seven ACC teams have +6500 odds or below to win their conference title, while eight Big Ten teams are at +10000 or below. Five teams in the SEC are at +6500 or below.
The ACC, Big Ten and SEC also have bigger favorites than the Big 12, with Clemson (+270), Miami (+310), SMU (+440) and Louisville (+500) all with shorter odds than Arizona State (+550) and Kansas State (+550), the Big 12 favorites.
Ohio State (+170), Oregon (+230) and Penn State (+380) in the Big Ten and Texas (+210) and Georgia (+390) in the SEC are also bigger favorites than the Big 12 odds leaders.
The Big 12 has six teams with odds better than +1000 to win its conference title in 2025, while the ACC, Big Ten and SEC each have four.
Last season, Arizona State won the Big 12 after being picked last in the preseason media poll and being near the bottom of the conference odds.
Could something like that happen again in the Big 12 in 2025? You just never know what might happen in what appears to be the deepest, most-competitive Power 4 college football conference from top to bottom.
Complete Big 12, Big Ten, SEC, ACC college football odds for 2025
Big 12 football championship odds 2025: Arizona State, Kansas State conference favorites
Big Ten football championship odds 2025: Ohio State, Oregon conference favorites
SEC football championship odds 2025: Texas, Georgia, Alabama, conference favorites
ACC football championship odds 2025: Clemson, Miami, SMU, Louisville conference favorites
Reach Jeremy Cluff at jeremy.cluff@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter @Jeremy_Cluff.
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