Ahead of Selection Day, the markets and the rankings tell two different stories in CFB - ESPN

The betting markets are telling a different story than the rankings

Before we go further, let me make this clear: This is not my conference championship betting analysis. Those breakdowns are coming later this week. This is about something much simpler and, honestly, more revealing.

What the betting odds think the playoff will be versus what the rankings want us to believe.

The College Football Playoff committee put out a bracket that looks chaotic and unpredictable on the surface: 12 teams, five automatic bids, seven at-larges, a live BYU grenade sitting at No. 11 and a two-loss Notre Dame team positioned like it has leverage.

Add the betting odds into the equation, along with conference spreads, playoff futures and money lines, and an entirely different picture forms. The markets aren't actually confused, as the bracket makes it seem. In fact, the betting odds are telling us which «playoff debates» are real and which ones exist purely because television needs graphics.

Conference championship weekend has one hinge game, one potential chaos trigger and several matchups that matter for seeding but not for playoff structure. That's where you get the divide: The rankings suggest uncertainty, but the books see a path already forming.

Here's my betting interpretation of it all.

Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Indiana and Texas Tech could all lose and still be in. Alabama is -1800 to make the playoff. Notre Dame, by comparison, is -500 without a title game to play for. BYU is +400 and James Madison is +140.

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The odds are effectively saying that «Alabama losing the SEC championship doesn't change anything except their seed.» OK. Georgia,