Tonight the College Football Playoff comes to an end as Ohio State faces Notre Dame in the National Championship. Let’s examine where smart money is leaning using our VSiN CFB Betting Splits, which are updated every 5-minutes and come directly from DraftKings and Circa Sports.
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7:30 p.m. ET: Ohio State (-8.5, 45.5) vs Notre Dame
This National Championship game will be played at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, home of the Atlanta Falcons. Ohio State (13-2) is the 8-seed and just held off Texas 28-14 in the semifinals, covering as 6.5-point neutral site favorites. Meanwhile, Notre Dame (14-1) is the 7-seed and just edged Penn State 27-24 in the semifinals, winning outright as 1.5-point neutral site dogs.
This line opened with Ohio State listed as a 9.5-point neutral site favorite. The public is conflicted when it comes to taking the points or laying them, as Ohio State is receiving 52% of spread bets at DraftKings while Notre Dame is taking in 55% of spread bets at Circa. However, despite this even ticket count we’ve seen Ohio State fall from -9.5 to -8.5. In a vacuum, a line shouldn’t move at all if the tickets are even because, theoretically, the action is balanced and the oddsmakers have no reason to adjust the price. So, based on the 50/50 line move we can infer that pro money has sided with Notre Dame plus the points.
It will be important to monitor how this line moves between now and kickoff, as gameday bets are especially notable because that’s when the limits are raised and the biggest bets come in. If we see this line tick down toward 8, that will indicate some late smart money breaking toward the Irish and the points. However, if we see it rise up toward 9, that will signal late action breaking toward the chalk favorite Buckeyes.
Notre Dame has correlative betting value as a touchdown-plus dog in a relatively low total game (45.5), with the fewer amount of expected points making it harder for the bigger favorite to cover. Notre Dame also enjoys a one-day rest advantage, having last played on January 9th while Ohio State last played on January 10th. Dogs with a line move in their favor in the National Championship game (like the Irish +9.5 to +8.5 tonight), have gone 4-1 ATS since 2015.
We’ve seen some respected money hit the under as well, dropping the line down from as high as 46.5 to 45.5. Some shops are even creeping down toward 45. At DraftKings, the under is taking in 31% of bets and 49% of dollars. At Circa, the under is receiving 38% of bets and 54% of dollars. Both books are showing a sharp contrarian “low bets, higher dollars” bet split in favor of a lower scoring game. These are the top two defenses in College Football, as Ohio State is only giving up 12.2 PPG and Notre Dame is only allowing 14.3 PPG.
