It’s Bowl Season in the 2025 college football season, and we already had a few bowl games over the weekend. More are coming this week, and we’ll also have live college football odds for the first round of the playoffs (CFP), which starts Friday.
For the college football odds bowl games, let’s preview the two closest playoff matchups with the early lines.
NCAAF Bowl Odds At-a-Glance
For this week’s college football odds, we are dialed in to what should be the most competitive first-round playoff games, including No. 9 Alabama taking on No. 8 Oklahoma and No. 10 Miami facing No. 7 Texas A&M.
Let’s start with Friday night’s playoff opener in Norman.
Alabama Crimson Tide vs. Oklahoma Sooners (+1.5)
Friday, December 19, 2025 – 08:00 PM ET
This SEC rematch is perhaps the most controversial first-round playoff game this year since many didn’t think the Alabama Crimson Tide deserved to stay in the playoffs, let alone No. 9 in the seedings, after losing badly in a 28-7 defeat to Georgia in the SEC Championship Game.
It’s the third loss for the Crimson Tide, and now they’ll have to make up for their previous loss, a 23-21 home loss to Oklahoma on November 15.
That was a signature win for the Sooners (10-2), who get home-field advantage for this one. They’ll need every bit of it as their 23-21 upset was not exactly on solid foundation for a blueprint to follow in this game. That day, the Sooners had an 87-yard interception return touchdown and they were outgained 406 to 212 in yards. But they won the turnover battle 3-0.
However, it’s telling that Alabama opened as a 1.5-point road favorite here and that the total has already moved from an opening line of 41.5 points to 40.5 points.
The Sooners have fallen off offensively behind quarterback John Mateer, who was an early Heisman favorite before injury. The Oklahoma offense has not produced more than 17 points in 3 straight games, and Mateer hasn’t had a true quality start since October.
Defense is going to have to save the day for Oklahoma here, but Alabama usually has a competent passing offense behind quarterback Ty Simpson, who was also a Heisman candidate before his season fell apart late. He hasn’t led the Crimson Tide to 30 points in any of their 6 road or neutral games this season, but you frankly don’t need 30 points to beat Oklahoma right now.
You just need to protect the ball and not give up points with turnovers, something he failed to do last time out. But Simpson threw for 326 yards in that Oklahoma game to make up for the lack of rushing success Alabama had (33 carries for 80 yards).
The days of Nick Saban are over in Alabama, but this team has a decent shot to rebound from the first Oklahoma loss and put on a much better showing here to prove they do belong in this tournament even with a 10-3 record.
Make sure you are following the line movement at this odds widget as there are some varying odds as of Monday morning, including Alabama as a 1.5-point underdog at some sportsbooks and a 1-point favorite at others:
Miami Hurricanes vs. Texas A&M Aggies (-3.5)
Saturday, December 20, 2025 – 12:00 PM ET
This Saturday’s matchup is a fresh one in 2025 between the ACC’s Miami Hurricanes (10-2) and the SEC’s Texas A&M Aggies (11-1).
The Aggies were denied a perfect season by Texas in their last game, though quarterback Marcel Reed has had a good year. He just had his worst game of 2025 against Texas’ strong defense.
The Hurricanes are No. 6 in the nation in scoring defense, never allowing more than 26 points in any game this season. Their offense is led by Georgia transfer Carson Beck, who’s had a nice year, but he has a reputation for throwing picks in big spots like the Louisville loss where he had 4 interceptions and 2 picks in the SMU overtime loss.
The Aggies are not as good defensively, but have shown they can win shootouts like the 41-40 win over Notre Dame. They also had a 30-3 comeback win over South Carolina.
The Aggies opened as a 3.5-point favorite with a total of 51.5 points. But the Aggies are only 5-7 ATS while Miami is 7-5 ATS with an average margin of victory of 20.3 points. It’ll likely come down to which quarterback can control his turnover impulse better in a big game.
You can follow this week’s college football odds for this important matchup in the odds widget:
Bet NCAAF Bowl Week Now!
We’ve covered the NCAAF bowl odds for some of the best CFP matchups in the first round this weekend.
Our most anticipated game is on Friday to see if Alabama can silence the critics and beat Oklahoma in Norman to avenge last month’s loss. We also recommend Saturday’s closest matchup between Miami and Texas A&M.
Timing is critical for having success in sports betting. By creating accounts with multiple top-rated sportsbooks, you will get competitive odds for matchups like those above, or other college football game picks this week.
You should download the free-to-use OddsTrader app to help you with price shopping and finding the best places to place your NCAAF picks during the playoffs and bowl season.
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*The line and/or odds referenced in this article might have changed since the content was published. For the latest information on line movements, visit OddsTrader’s free betting odds tool.
