National Championship proposition betting

It's no surprise that USC, Oklahoma, Texas and Florida are four of the heaviest favorites to win the BCS Championship according to Vegas and various online sports books. Betting on any of those four teams doesn't allow for much of an edge, but there is one team out there that I believe is flying under the radar.

Penn State at +3000. The line was as high as +5000 (50-to-1) on BookMaker earlier this summer, but I think it's still a good value at 30-to-1 odds. The Nittany Lions play eight home games this season, and, despite returning just five offensive starters and four defensive starters, are still some handicapper's No. 1 surprise team.

Penn State likely needs an undefeated season to appear in the BCS Championship, but let's look a little closer at their schedule:

vs. Akron - 97% win

vs. Syracuse - 94% win

vs. Temple - 95% win

vs. (20) Iowa - 78% win

@ Illinois - 57% win

vs. Eastern Illinois - 97% winv

vs. Minnesota - 83% winv

@ Michigan - 75% win

@ Northwestern - 78% win

vs. (9) Ohio State - 50% winv

vs. Indiana - 85% win

@ (24) Michigan State - 55% win

These are rough estimates, but if you add them all up, you've got 9.44 wins, and around a 4.2 percent chance of going undefeated, if everything shakes out in their favor. If USC falters with a freshman quarterback, perhaps McCoy (Texas) and Bradford (Oklahoma) and Tebow (Florida) miss a game with an injury or stumble unexpectedly, Penn State could find themselves in the hunt for the National Championship.