2023 Week 9 Recap: The Walking Dead

Imagine, if you will, a hypothetical fan of the Michigan State Spartans. Let's call him Rick. Maybe Rick works in law enforcement, but that doesn't matter for this story.

Rick was hanging out at home with a few of his buddies on the afternoon of Saturday, September 9. They watched the Spartans demolish the Richmond Spiders by 31 points. Michigan State was 2-0. Things were looking good. Rick was optimistic about the 2023 season and about the direction of the program.

Once the game was over, Rick decided that it was time to have another brewsky, so he walked into his kitchen towards his fridge. But on the way there, his foot slipped on a melted ice cube on the floor, he bonked his head on the corner of the kitchen island, and he slipped into a coma.

Rick woke up Sunday morning.

Imagine trying to explain to Rick what has transpired in East Lansing over the past seven weeks. "Mel Tucker did what? The Spartans haven't beaten anyone? Noah Kim threw how many interceptions? State lost to Michigan by how much? The board of trustees did what? Some fans want to hire who?"

It would be a lot for anyone to handle. It would likely feel like waking up in the middle of some post-apocalyptic horror show. Unfortunately, all of it is only too real.

After this weekend's lifeless loss to the Minnesota Golden Gophers, the Spartans can now also officially be classified among the living dead, just in time for Halloween. They are technically still walking around, but there is little, or nothing left to play for.

Interim head coach Harlon Barnett says that his team is still "contending for Spartan pride." The Spartans can still beat Nebraska and Indiana. Probably. Those two wins would at least get Michigan State to a record of 4-8, which would surpass the record of 3-9 in 2016. That would be at least something.

At this point it is important to look towards the future. On the football side of things that means getting meaningful snaps for a lot of the young players and trying to hold onto as much talent as possible for the next regime. On the administration side of things that means aggressively executing the coaching search to secure the right set of brains to lead the team going forward.

As for Rick, there is one more thing that has happened over the last seven weeks that might lift his spirits. Just wait until he hears about what has been going on down in Ann Arbor.

Week Nine Betting Results

Now it is time to refocus our brains on the results of last week's bad betting advice, starting with the overview summary of the action shown below in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Results of Week Nine showing the actual point differentials relative to the opening spread.

A total of 14 teams overachieved relative to the opening spread including Southern Methodist, Notre Dame, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Boise State, Louisville, and Nebraska. A total of three teams won but failed to beat the spread by more than 14 points: Washington, Miami, and James Madison.

An additional 15 teams were pulled underneath the red vertical line of Figure 1 to join the ranks of the "unwinners." Those 15 teams are summarized below in Table 1 in comparison to the week's upset predictions.

Table 1: Upsets in Week Nine based on the opening Vegas line compared to the upset projections from last week.

Week Nine did see a few more upsets than the expected number of 13.1, but only three of the 15 upsets were in games where the opening spread was over 10 points. The most notable upsets this week were Northwestern over Maryland (-13.5), Georgia Tech over North Carolina (-11.5), North Carolina State over Clemson (-10.5), Kansas over Oklahoma (-10), and Arizona over Oregon State (-4.5).

The silicon brains of the computers had a solid week on the upset front. My computer went 4-3 (57%) to bring the year-to-date performance up to 21-26 (45%), which is well above my target of 40%. The FPI went 3-3 (50%) to bring its totals for the year up to 13-24 (35%).

Table 2 below gives the results of the computers' suggested picks against the opening spread.

Table 2: Results of the highlighted picks versus the opening spread in Week Nine.

Both computers did very well in this area in Week Nine. My machine was 3-1 (75%) against the spread while my FPI-based suggestions went 6-2 (also 75%). Year-to-date, my computer is back to .500 at 18-18, but the FPI lags at 29-39 (43%).

For all Week Nine games, my computer was 32-22 (59%) against the spread and the FPI was 28-26 (52%). Year to date, my machine is now just four games below .500 (240-244) and five games ahead of the FPI (235-249).

Table 3 below gives the results of the point total bets for Week Nine.

Table 3: Results of the recommended point total bets ("over/under" bets) in Week Nine.

Much like our friend Rick, my point-total recommendations seem to have been in a coma for most of the season. The overall picks went 5-7 (42%) this week bringing the year-to-date record to just 76-84 (48%). The "locks" went 3-4 (43%) and this method (which might need some updated branding) is now 20-24 (46%) for the year.

I am hoping that the point total recommendations will return to life sometime before the end of the season.

Updated Big Ten Odds and Expected Wins

Following the results of Week Nine, I have re-run the full season Monte Carlo simulation using the updated power rankings, including the current uncertainty in those rankings, to update the season odds for each team. Table 4 below gives the update for the Big Ten conference and Table 5 shows the updated Big Ten win distribution matrix.

Note that all the rankings listed next to each team refer to my computer's power rankings and not any of the national polls and the values listed in parathesis are the odds for each team to win their division.

Table 4: Updated Big Ten rankings, expected wins, strengths of schedule and season odds following Week Nine.

Table 5: Updated Big Ten win distribution matrix after Week Nine.

In Big Ten East action, No. 2 Ohio State met expectations with a 14-point win at No. 44 Wisconsin while No. 4 Penn State just barely survived a visit from a horde of Hoosiers. No. 1 Michigan was idle, and I can only assume that they spent the weekend reviewing game film and learning some new signals, or something like that.

As things stand today, Michigan (50%) and Ohio State (44%) have extended the lead over Penn State (7%) in the race for the Big Ten East title. The winner of the Wolverines and the Buckeyes is most likely going to Indianapolis.

That said, according to my simulation, there is a 13% chance that the three teams at the top of the standings will finish the regular season in a three-way tie at 8-1. In this scenario, Ohio State still holds a slight edge in the tiebreaker (which is the final conference record of each team's West Division cross over opponents).

In Big Ten West action, No. 45 Nebraska got a big win over No. 83 Purdue and No. 84 Northwestern upset No. 35 Maryland. These results, coupled with No. 53 Minnesota's win over No. 91 Michigan State resulted in a four-way tie in the west standings with Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Minnesota all at 3-2, with Northwestern just one game back.

My calculations give idle No. 41 Iowa (30%) the best odds to advance to Indianapolis. However, Wisconsin (26%), Nebraska (21%), and Minnesota (20%) are all very much still alive.

Remaining Schedule for Michigan State

The data above in Table 5 paints a dark picture about the remainder of the Spartans' season. My computer has Michigan State as the No. 91 team in the FBS (out of 133 teams) which is dead last in the Big Ten. The expected win total is down to 2.80.

I feel mathematically compelled to mention that Michigan State finishes with a 6-6 record in exactly 16 of the 50,000 simulations of the remaining season (0.032%). There is also a 1.5% chance that the Spartans can win five games. If that were to happen, Michigan State would qualify for a bowl game with a 5-7 record about 40% of the time.

That leaves the odds for Michigan State to make a bowl at 0.6%. Cool.

Figure 2 below shows the updated odds and projected point spreads for all four of Michigan State's remaining games.

Figure 2: Updated odds and spread projections for Michigan State's remaining games, following Week Eight and based on a 50,000 cycle Monte Carlo simulation. The odds calculated last week, and the preseason odds are shown as a reference.

Nebraska and Indiana both had strong showings in Week Nine and as a result, my computer's confidence that the Spartans can win another game this year is fading. My computer projects that Michigan State will be the underdog against both the Corn Huskers and the Hoosiers.

The actual line for next week's game with Nebraska on Senior Day opened with MSU +3. That is a bit better than my computer's projection of +6. There is still about a 60% chance that Michigan State can win at least one more game this year. Based on where we are, that is the closest thing to optimism that I can provide.

National Overview

Let's close things out with a review of the action from Week Nine including my updated College Football Playoff Leaderboard as shown in Table 6.

Table 6: College Football Playoffs leaderboard following the results of Week Nine. The table includes each contender's odds to win their conference, make the playoffs, and win the national title. The table also gives each team's current power ranking, strength of record (SOR), and strength of schedule (SoS).

No. 1 Michigan (63%) and No. 2 Ohio State (62%) are sitting at the top of my current College Football Playoff Leaderboard. While my algorithm suggests that more than one Big Ten team will finish in the top four, I suspect that only the Big Ten Champion will make it, especially if Michigan* is sitting at 11-1 with a relatively weak strength of schedule and an NCAA investigation looming.

No. 10 Florida State (56%) checks in with the third best odds to make the playoffs after a 25-point win over Wake Forest. My calculations give the Seminoles a 99% chance to make the ACC Championship Game.

Both No. 22 Duke and No. 29 North Carolina lost this weekend to No. 16 Louisville and No. 63 Georgia Tech and now neither team is likely to finish in the top two of the ACC. Louisville (77%) is the most likely opponent for Florida State with No. 65 Virginia Tech (8%) logging the current third-best odds.

No. 6 Oregon scored a huge win at No. 28 Utah this week which propelled the Ducks in to fourth place (43% odds) on my playoff leaderboard. My computer now has Oregon (74%) and No. 13 Washington (74%) in a dead heat for the top two spots in the Pac-12. The Huskies are still undefeated, but they have looked less than impressive over the last two weeks, including this week's nine-point win at No. 98 Stanford.

No. 25 USC (22%) has the third best current odds to make the Pac-12 Championship game, but the Trojans barely got past No. 56 California this week. No. 15 Oregon State (13%) was less fortunate in their road trip to No. 23 Arizona.

Idle No. 7 Alabama (31%) continues to hang around just outside of top four of my playoff leaderboard. Meanwhile, No. 12 Georgia (23%) moved up to the No. 7 spot by virtue of beating No. 58 Florida by 23 points. The Crimson Tide and Bulldogs still both have the best odds to win the SEC West (75%) and East (66%) respectively. No. 18 Tennessee (14%) was able to stay in the conversation by beating No. 57 Kentucky.

The conference that lost the most ground in the playoff race this weekend is the Big 12. No. 9 Oklahoma was on cruise control headed for a possible playoff bid until No. 30 Kansas tripped them up. My computer dropped the Sooners to ninth place (20%) in playoff odds, just behind No. 5 Texas (23%) in eighth place.

Texas, No. 3 Kansas State and No. 33 Oklahoma State all easily covered this week. These results, coupled with Oklahoma's loss has made the Big 12 race much more interesting. My computer still gives Oklahoma (69%) the best odds to make the Championship Game. But Kansas State (49%) has edged ahead of Texas (47%) with Oklahoma State (23%) once again in contention.

The updated Group of Five leaderboard is shown below in Table 7.

Table 7: Week Nine Leaderboard for the Group of Five representative in the New Year's Six.

No. 24 Air Force (41.3%) and No. 49 Liberty (36%) both won this week to stay at the top of the Leaderboard as the only eligible undefeated teams in the Group of Five. If either team runs the table and wins their conference championship game, they will certainly claim the New Year's Six Bid.

If both teams falter, six other teams have over a 1% chance to rise to the top of the chart: Tulane (7%), Toledo (5%), Fresno State (5%), Troy (2%), and Southern Methodist (2%). All six teams won this weekend.

Against all odds, I survived until the end today. Check back in later in the week for yet another installment of bad betting advice.