An Early Look at MSU's Football Schedule

I have seen a lot of internet chatter recently this week about the over/under for MSU this year, including information that ESPN's FPI predicted MSU to win 8.8 games, which is higher than any over/under line that I have seen (usually 7.5 or 8). I have started to take a look at this and I have some quick thoughts. In brief, my math matches the FPI pretty well.

I usually dog the FPI a bit, but I think ESPN has refined their model a bit and the performance has improved substantially. My only real complaint these days is that the FPI is very conservative with respect to the Vegas Line. Basically, the FPI spits out data that mirror's what Vegas says. But, this is a pretty powerful predictive tool, because you can project several games into the future and extract some good statistics.

As I have blogged about previously, I have my own (admittedly very simple) algorithm that also tends to spit out a fairly accurate point spread for any given college football game. I am in the process of plugging the schedules of all 130 teams into my spreadsheet and doing some other analysis on the full season. In a few weeks I will likely be ready for my annual season preview. But, the Big Ten data is in and I can start to make some comments about the conference race.

Long story short: my math gives the estimated number of MSU wins to be 9.00 with a 90% chance of finishing with at least 8 wins. It agrees pretty well with the FPI and suggests taking the "over" on MSU.

But, this comes with a long list of caveats. First, it assumes that MSU's (and all other team's) preseason rankings are correct. Phil Steele has MSU at #14 is his Power Poll (the one that actually projects the relative strength of teams, independent of their schedule). The FPI agrees and has MSU #14. Althlon says 16, Lindy's says 20, and the S&P+ model is the least optimistic at 23. I usually take a combination of all those rankings for all 130 teams to get a "consensus" ranking of 16. If MSU really is the 16th best team in the country, then I think the numbers above will be borne out. That is what the math says, based on MSU's schedule.

The problem is that, historically speaking, preseason football rankings are not that accurate. A few years ago I estimated that the average deviation between post- and pre-season rankings is 20 slots. I have a way to adjust my probabilities for this uncertainty, but that analysis is a few weeks away. But, in the mean time, we can take a look at MSU's schedule to see why the expected win total is so high, with the assumption that MSU actually is the 16th best team in the country and is as strong as a historically average 16th team.

If I do that, I can estimate the point spread and victory probability for every game on MSU's schedule. My preliminary table is shown here:



Again, if the preseason rankings are correct, MSU is going to be facing a lot of bad teams, mostly at home. I project MSU to have over a 95% chance to win their 5 easiest games, and over a 90% chance to win their 6th hardest game (home vs. Indiana). Only one of those games ins on the road and that is against Rutgers, who projects to be the worst team MSU will face all year. Based on this data, MSU has a 83% chance of winning all 6 of those game.

Now, you could argue that these spreads seem high, and I don't disagree. The initial line I see for the Tulsa game is closer to 21 points than 37. But, then again, the ASU line (~14) seems in line with what I have seen. If nothing else, my numbers are so close to the FPI that I think the spreads I am projecting must be similar to ESPN's numbers.

In any event, the next 2 hardest games on the schedule (vs. ASU and at NW) pose a bigger challenge, obviously. But, MSU is currently projected to be a 14- and 7-point favorite. The math suggests a 60% chance the MSU wins both games. Combined with the previous results and MSU has a 50-50 shot to win all 8 of their easiest 8 games with an expected win total of 7.4. In other words, as long as MSU is as good as the experts think, wining all 8 of those games is fairly likely and 7 seems like a gimme.

All this does not even consider the toughest 4 games on the docket. MSU is currently projected to have anywhere from a 30% to 60% chance to win those toughest four contests: vs. Penn State, @ Wisconsin, @ Ohio State, and @ Michigan. If these odds hold up, the math suggests that MSU would be expected to win between 1 and 2 of those games (1.6 is the expected value). More specifically, MSU would have an 89% chance of winning at least 1 of those games, a 54% of winning at least 2, and an 18% chance of winning 3 or more. The odds of going 0-fer on the four toughest games is only 11%.

So, you can hopefully see why the math says MSU has a 90% chance to win 8 or more games. Basically, at least 7 wins in the bottom 8 are very likely, and it is very unlikely for MSU to drop all 4 of its toughest games. Again, this assumes MSU is a Top 20 team. But, even if MSU is a bit weaker than expected, there seems to be more margin for error in the schedule due to the fact that MSU is playing so many weak teams at home this year.

So far, I have mostly been focusing on the reasons why this analysis might be too optimistic. But, there is another side to this coin. What happens if MSU stays healthy and actually is a little better than expected? Also, what happens if one or more of MSU's opponents are weaker then expected, especially at the top? Penn State, Wisconsin, Ohio State and Michigan all have question marks. It would not shock me at all if 2-3 of those teams take a major step back this year. Also, what happens if MSU just flat out gets a few good bounces? What is the ceiling? 10 wins? 11? More? It is not that hard to imagine, honestly. I am not saying it will happen, but the path is not that hard to see.

I am planning on posting a lot more analysis as the season approaches. But, on first blush, I think that guarded optimism for MSU this year is warranted.