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2023 Pac-12 college football futures odds: Deion Sanders' Colorado Buffaloes taking most action of any team in nation to win its conference

Bettors at BetMGM are absolutely crushing Colorado to win the Pac-12 this football season.

Matt Severance

There probably are more question marks surrounding the Colorado Buffaloes than any other Power 5 program entering the 2023 college football season, but the Buffs are sure getting a ton of buzz due to the hiring of the flamboyant Deion Sanders as head coach. He has completely overhauled the roster, so few know what to expect from Colorado this season. Yet no team in the country is taking a bigger lean at BetMGM to win its conference.

Other than a fluke 10-win season in 2016 under Mike MacIntyre, Colorado has fallen into complete irrelevance in college football – part of the reason it might leave back for the Big 12 eventually, especially with USC and UCLA leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten after this season. Colorado was 1-11 last year, with coach Karl Dorrell fired following a 0-5 start. The lone victory, over Cal, came with interim coach Mike Sanford at the helm.

Sanders had major success at FCS program Jackson State, in part becaus his force of personality allowed him to recruit like a Power 5  coach, and that's why Colorado took this big chance. One Pac-12 coach this week anonymously said it's a lose-lose because the Buffs are either going to win fast and Sanders will leave for a better job, or this entire makeover experiment will be a major bust and the school will have egg on its face when it fires Sanders after a couple of seasons.

I'd like to tell you the projected Colorado starting lineup, but so many players have both entered and left the program since Sanders arrived that it's impossible to do so. The quarterback presumably will be Deion's son Shedeur Sanders, who was stellar at Jackson State, playing well enough to win the Jerry Rice Award winner as the top FCS freshman two years ago.

Also great at Jackson State was receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter, considered the top overall prospect in the Class of 2022 by sister-site 247Sports. That Sanders got Hunter to nix his commitment to Florida State to play at Jackson State sent shockwaves around the sport, and there was never much doubt that Hunter would follow Sanders to Colorado.

Veteran college football expert Bruce Marshall previewed the 2023 Buffs this week at SportsLine, and he recommends Under 3.5 wins with four projected starters returning. Marshall seems intrigued by the offense but worried about a defense that ranked near the bottom nationally last year in both scoring (130th) and total defense (129th).

The Buffaloes are 20-point underdogs for their opener at TCU on Sept. 2. The Horned Frogs reached the College Football Playoff this past season but did lost a lot of talent, including Heisman finalist QB Max Duggan. Colorado should be favored in Week 2 at home vs. Nebraska and Week 3 vs. Colorado State ahead of the Pac-12 schedule, which includes both Oregon (in Eugene) and USC – the two league favorites, with the Trojans at +200 and Ducks at +300.

Colorado may be an underdog in every conference road game. Despite that, CU is taking a whopping 61.1% of the bets to win the Pac-12 despite the team's +10000 price, making the Buffaloes the most wagered-on team to win any conference at BetMGM. Washington at +375 is taking the most money in the Pac-12 and don't play Colorado. Divisions were eliminated in the Pac-12 last year. 

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