Odds Are It's Alabama Again for the BCS Championship

Larry Burton (Panama City Beach, Fl) Last year the University of Alabama opened its campaign at 20-to-one odds. This year they the favorite to repeat. Nick Saban has finally won over any remaining skeptics in Las Vegas. This year they are a two-and-a-half-to-one favorite.

Apparently, the six bye weeks in the SEC schedule, the shuffling of players on defense, and yet another offensive line makes no difference as odds makers not only see the Crimson Tide as favorites, but big favorites.

Second place goes to Ohio State who plays in the softer Big 10. They come in at six-and-a- half-to-one odds, three times higher than Alabama. They are also picking it to come down to Alabama and Ohio State for all the marbles in the BCS game.

These odds come from early posing Bodog.com. The rest of the top 15 are:

Boise State 12-1
Oregon 12-1
Texas 14-1
Nebraska 15-1
Southern Cal 15-1
Florida 16-1
Virginia Tech 17-1
Oklahoma 18-1
TCU 18-1
Iowa 20-1
LSU 25-1
Miami 25-1
Penn State 25-1

The great majority last year felt the BCS Championship Game would come down to the SEC winner vs. the Big 12 winner, and that was the case. This year, almost all feel it will be the SEC winner vs. the Big Ten winner.

With Michigan on life support, that means that it could come down Alabama, Florida, or LSU playing Ohio State, Iowa, or Penn State.

Last year many felt Alabama's biggest obstacle would be Florida. This year the biggest obstacle is apathy.

The Crimson Tide certainly have the players and coaching to repeat, but do they have the heart and drive to continue to work as hard week in and week out to do what is necessary to maintain this level? Few teams have proven they have.

Following the Rose Bowl last year, Ohio State's brash quarterback Terrelle Pryor said, "We just showed the world that we are a great team and that next year is our year." It's that kind of hunger, that kind of redemptive fever that a team can build on.

For Alabama's motivation last year, it was the previous year's loss to Florida and the Sugar Bowl meltdown. "We knew we were a better team than we showed against Florida and Utah last year," said now graduated linebacker Cory Reamer, "We let the Florida game slip through our fingers and just imploded against Utah. Our whole focus this year has been FINISH."

With a brutal SEC schedule to go through and yet another tough out-of-conference game with Penn State early in the season, they must have some sort of special motivation to get them going and keep them going.

In the much publicised debate, Alabama is playing six of its SEC opponents after they have had an extra week off to prepare especially for them. That makes the tough SEC schedule just that much harder.

As for the rest of the SEC, here are what the odds makers have come up with:

Alabama 7-2
Florida 16-1
LSU 25-1
Arkansas 30-1
Georgia 30-1
Auburn 50-1
Tennessee 75-1
Ole Miss 90-1
South Carolina 100-1

(Kentucky, Mississippi State, and Vanderbilt don't have lines posted)

So how does history look back at compare with the preseason picks?

We already know that Alabama was a twenty to one pick last year and had an initial ranking of seventh, and in the previous year Florida started out as the leader and finished in that position.

Three times in the previous years of the BCS has the initial No. 1 team gone on to win the national championship (Florida State in 1999, USC in 2004, and Florida 2008) Here are the other years:

YEAR	BCS CHAMPION	INITIAL BCS RANK
2007	LSU	4
2006	Florida	6
2005	Texas	2
2004	USC	1
2003	LSU	12
2002	Ohio State	6
2001	Miami	4
2000	Oklahoma	2
1999	Florida State	1
1998	Tennessee	3

Can Alabama make it as the fourth team to go from wire to winner? It's a long season. Stay tuned.

To go back and look at how the Vegas odds makers did last year, you can check out my last year's article: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/302232-how-close-did-vegas-get-this-spring-picking-top-college-football-teams.