National Championship

 Bet the National Championship Exacta
By T.O. Whenham

Do you figure that you're a college football guru? Pretty sure you know who will be playing for the championship in January? If you're right, you could get paid a pretty penny for your genius at Pinnacle Sportsbook. The book has unveiled their 2007 National Championship Game Exacta wagers, promising huge payoffs if you can choose not only who is going to win the National Championship, but who they are going to beat in the new National Championship Game on Jan. 8 in Arizona.

There are 12 different teams you can choose from - Auburn, Florida, Florida State, LSU, Miami, Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Southern Cal, Texas and West Virginia. If none of those teams strike your fancy you can choose The Field to win or finish second (or both if you want). Here's a look at some of the more interesting combinations:

The longest odds: The bookmakers don't seem convinced that LSU will beat Auburn in the big game. That combination is at +113,769, so a successful $100 bet would net you a lavish Italian sports car. It's a terrible bet, however. One team is guaranteed a loss when the two teams meet on Sept. 16, and then one of them would have to get to the big game without playing in the conference championship game. Not going to happen, in other words. Interestingly, Auburn beating LSU only pays +80,121, so you don't get rewarded nearly as well for that loser bet.

The shortest odds: People don't have a ton of faith in the choice of teams that are offered. The shortest odds on the board, at +1341, are for the field versus the field. That means that a lot of teams expected to do well would have to stumble badly and other teams would have to rise up from almost nowhere. This hardly seems fair - if I correctly picked Michigan State over TCU in the final, I would want a heck of a lot more than 13/1 for my efforts. The field factors into the second shortest odds, too - Ohio State over The Field pays +1408.