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David Purdum, ESPN Staff Writer
The betting interest on Deion Sanders’ Colorado Buffaloes early last season was extraordinary, bookmakers say, and it seems to be happening again.
College football kicks into high gear this week with a slate featuring openers between perennial powers such as Georgia-Clemson, Notre Dame-Texas A&M and LSU-USC. But to start the week, the game that has attracted the most betting interest at DraftKings was North Dakota State-Colorado.
The Buffaloes, entering their second season under Sanders, are big long shots again, listed at 200-1 to win the national championship at ESPN BET, but they remain popular with the betting public. BetMGM reported that entering the season it would lose more money on Colorado winning the national championship than any other team, except Ohio State. A $10,000 bet on the Buffaloes, at 25-1, to win the Big 12 in their first year in the conference is among the notable early action on Colorado at BetMGM.
Still, bookmakers say the early betting on the Buffaloes this season, while elevated, isn’t at the same level as last season. Steve Mikkelson, who has been in the bookmaking industry since 1987, said he had never seen the betting public fall in love with a college football long shot like it did with the Buffaloes early last season.
“It shocked me, to be honest,” Mikkelson told ESPN.
The hysteria lasted the first four weeks of last season, producing NFL-sized betting handles and golden opportunities for professional bettors. Colorado opened with an upset of TCU as 21-point underdogs, a game that resulted in one the biggest losses of the season for sportsbooks.
“Every week, they were our biggest liability,” Cameron Drucker, senior trader for BetMGM, said. “It’s the first that’s happened in a while, where one team was so publicly bet every single week.”
Colorado followed it up with a win over Nebraska in a game that attracted more money from bettors than a lot of NFL Week 1 contests, a rarity according to bookmakers.
“We didn’t get that nervous, but once they beat Nebraska, then it was like, ‘Woah, hold it a second,'” said Mikkelson, who oversees the odds for BetMonarch sportsbooks, which operate in Colorado.
The Buffaloes’ run would come to a crashing halt two weeks later. After a dramatic overtime win against Colorado State, the Buffaloes headed to No. 10 Oregon at 3-0 and with overwhelming support from the betting public. So much money was bet on Colorado to beat the Ducks straight-up as a 21-point underdog that some sportsbooks began offering discounts to bettors willing to back the Ducks.
Oregon won 42-6.
The Buffaloes return a more-seasoned roster this season, highlighted by quarterback Shedeur Sanders and two-way star Travis Hunter. Sanders and Hunter, at 30-1 and 50-1 respectively, are among the most-heavily bet players to win the Heisman Trophy at some sportsbooks.
“It’s tough to say if they’ll be as big as last year, but it’s at least trending to [Colorado] being one of our biggest liabilities so far,” Tucker said.
Colorado is a 9.5-point favorite over North Dakota State in its opener Thursday (8 p.m., ESPN).