Michigan won the 2023 national championship with a dominant performance against Washington on Monday night. The Wolverines are long shots to repeat. That's according to the odds that were posted by bookmakers not long after the confetti fell on the Wolverines in Houston.
Michigan is losing several players to the NFL draft, including quarterback J.J. McCarthy. Coach Jim Harbaugh may be headed back to NFL (the Falcons should already be on the phone with his agent). This was the third consecutive College Football Playoff appearance for the Wolverines. They finally broke through, but they aren't getting the benefit of doubt about their ability to reload.
That trust is reserved for Georgia, as far as the oddsmakers are concerned.
Quarterback Stetson Bennett and a second wave of defenders left for the NFL after the Bulldogs won the 2022 national title. They still were the preseason favorites to win it all in 2023. Georgia didn't make the CFP field this season, but the experts who put money where their mouth is believe the machine isn't slowing down.
The Bulldogs are 4 1/2-1 to win it all. You can guess who's right behind them in the pecking order. Alabama is 6-1 and Ohio State is 8-1. New SEC member Texas is 9-1. Michigan is 10-1. New Big Ten member Oregon is 11-1.
It's easy to understand why the Bulldogs are college football's chalk for 2024. Start with past performance. The Bulldogs are 42-2 over the past three seasons with two national championships. They narrowly missed getting to the CFP this season. That won't happen again with one loss because the playoff field is expanding from four to 12 next season.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart doesn't have to worry about the most important position on the roster. Carson Beck was among the best quarterbacks in college football for 2023. He might top the list in 2024. If Beck should regress or sustain a serious injury, then Jayden Maiava is an experienced second option. He announced Monday that he's transferring to Athens from UNLV.
The Bulldogs will be title contenders again. I'm sure lots of Georgia's supporters watched the CFP games and believed their team would have bested Michigan and Washington. Maybe so, but the Bulldogs couldn't beat Bama. That brings me to the first reason to doubt whether Georgia can win the 2024 national championship.
Alabama is on Georgia's schedule for 2024. The Bulldogs play at Tuscaloosa in September. They must go to Austin to play Texas in October, and they are at Ole Miss in November. Those are three road games against teams that that figure to be ranked in the preseason top 10, if not the top five. Georgia also faces Clemson at Mercedes-Benz Stadium and Tennessee at home.