It's Fall. It's 2019, and Spartans Fans, we are Back on Line. After the long, dark summer of All Around bad Tiger's baseball, the dawning of another season of MSU football seems Heaven Sent. The season is so close that I can almost Taste It, and for some reason, I still have the Strange Desire to continue to write about it. For the past several years, I have been providing a weekly preview and summary of each weekend's action, and this year I will give it yet another go.
As for MSU, the key question on everyone's mind is the offense, and the Communication from the staff has not been doled out In Excess. Honestly, I have no idea where we are right now. The Men and Women of Spartan Nation have a lot of Questions. Will MSU really run tempo? How fast of tempo? All the time, or just in spots? Will there really be a lot more RPOs? Who will be the featured running back? Is the new system really fully implemented, or was there Not Enough Time since the Spring? Will it look better as the season goes on? And, finally, is and will MSU stay reasonably healthy? (If you happen upon a Wishing Well in the next week, I suggest putting in a good word for Lewerke's shoulder.)
So many questions...
Fortunately, we will start to get the answers to those Questions starting Friday night against Tulsa. I don't think that will all get answered, but we will have a much better idea of what the offense is going to look like and if it is any more potent than what we saw at the end of last year. It almost has to be, by default, right? The training camp rumors all suggest the offense is a New Sensation, but I think any reasonable Spartan fan is reserving judgement until we see some competent offense with our own eyes.
Now, I am not here to provide x's and o's on the Golden Hurricane, which I just found out actually is an entry in the Urban Dictionary. Don't look it up; you don't want to know.... (See, I told you didn't want to know...) I am a numbers guy, and the numbers paint a pretty rosy picture of what we might see. My algorithm, based solely on the preseason magazines and historical correlations, suggests MSU will easily cover 20-point opening spread and win by a whopping 37 points. I project a 45-10 or so win for MSU. While this does Mystify me, that is roughly what we would expect of a Top 15ish playing at home against a team ranked right around 100. At the very least, the opening Vegas line suggests that MSU has only a 7.8% chance of getting upset.
The other side of this coin is that if MSU doesn't at least cover, this is an early indicator that MSU might not be quite as good as we might hope. (sigh.....)
National Overview
For the those that my not be familiar with my style, I always try to post a comparison of my spreadsheet's picks for the week relative to the opening Vegas line. My tradition is to present this data in a single plot that compares all of my machine picks to the actually opening lines. That plot for Week 1 is shown below.
As you can see, my algorithm does a fairly good job in prediction the Vegas spread, which some notably differences. Each week there is usually a handful of games where my prediction is significantly above or below the Vegas line. This year, after reviewing my picks over the past 4-5 years, I concluded that if my picks differ from Vegas by more than 12 points, more likely than not, my pick is correct against the spread. The dashed lines on the figure are at 12 points.
For reasons that are still a bit perplexing, my spreadsheet tends to trend towards the favored team covering. As such, the only data points that are outside of the main window this week are all on the high side. This week, my algorithm likes the following teams to cover:
MSU (-20) to cover vs. Tulsa
Iowa (-21.5) to cover vs. Miami (OH)
Texas (-18) to cover vs. LA Tech
Tennessee (-25.5) to cover vs. Georgia State
Texas A&M (-33.5) to cover vs. Texas State
Michigan (-30) to cover vs. Middle Tennessee State
The figure above also shows one other notable category, and that is the section on the left side of the vertical red line. The games listed in this section of ones where my spreadsheet disagrees with the final result of the game, i.e. my straight-up upset picks. This week, I only have two: Florida International over Tulane and Virginia over Pitt, but those games are both essentially toss-ups.
I also find it amusing to compare my methods to ESPN's FPI model. To be honest, the FPI does tend to perform a little better than my model overall. But, we tend to predict different things, and if nothing else, my model tends to make bolder picks, some of which turn out to be true. The biggest weakness of the FPI, in my observation, is it basically just replicates the Vegas line in most cases. This week the FPI actually has three upset picks, which along with my two are summarize in the table below:
With that taken care of, let's take a quick spin around the country to see what action is on the menu for this weekend.
Big Ten
In general, the Big Ten as a conference is taking it pretty easy in Week 1. Three teams (Maryland, Minnesota, and Penn State) are facing FCS foes, while five other teams (Iowa, Michigan, MSU, Nebraska, and Ohio State) are 20+ point favorites. There really is only one notable game on tap, and that is Northwestern's road trip to the Bay Area to face Stanford (-7). Northwestern is essentially the first real test that MSU will face in a few weeks, so the results of this game will be interesting to track. A Wildcat upset could mean that MSU's road schedule is even tougher than we thought. (Or, maybe it just means that Stanford sucks.... It's Week 1, so who knows...)
As for the other five Big Ten teams, Week 1 is essentially just an exercise is avoiding an embarrassing loss. Those games, in increasing order of potential embarrassment are Ball State at Indiana (-16.5), Akron at Illinois (-15.5), UMass at Rutgers (-10), Wisconsin (-9.5) at South Florida, and Purdue (-6.5) at Nevada. My math suggests that there is only a 29% chance that those 5 teams all win. Purdue and Wisconsin, I am looking at you two. What You Need to do is not mess this up for everyone.
SEC
Much like the Big Ten (and the rest of the country) most of the action down South in Week 1 is not so interesting. I count five non-conference games with a spread over 20, and one conference game Georgia (-20) at Vanderbilt in the same range. Perhaps the Commodores should consider Sunbelt membership? In the category of games that could get interesting are Missouri (-15.5) at Wyoming, Toledo at Kentucky (-13.5), and North Carolina at South Carolina (-7.5). Might we see an upset in one of those three games? Believe it or not, the odds are 50-50.
But, the headliners for the SEC week are the two marquee non-conference match-ups. One was played in Week 0, and that one went very much to script. Florida beat Miami, but the Canes covered. The other game is even bigger and is likely the game of the weekend: Auburn (-2.5) vs. Oregon in Dallas. By all measures, this game should be close. My model still likes Auburn, but only by a point. While the game should be entertaining, the problem is that my simulations also predict that the outcome of the game will not really impact the national picture, as both Auburn and Oregon have very challenging conference schedules. I don't currently project either team to win their Division. So, while the winner (and the winner's conference) will be an early boost, by November, this game might look pretty irrelevant.
In a final note of comedy, Ole Miss for some reason agreed to play a road game at Memphis. The Rebels are a 7.5-point dog, and my algorithm thinks Memphis will cover. Ouch!
ACC
While the Big Ten and SEC are basically just going through warm up drills this week, the ACC decided to hit the ground running. Week 1 features four conference games, including Georgia Tech at Clemson (-33), Notre Dame (ACC-lite) at Louisville (-20), Virginia Tech (-2.5) at BC, and Virginia at Pitt (-1). The UVA/Pitt game is of particular interest, as the line is tight and UVA is a dark-horse in the Coastal Division. An early win wound give a boost to their candidacy. On the flip side, our old friend Pat could use the win to boost his candidacy to stay employed for next 12 months.
But the non-con slate has some interesting match-ups as well. As mentioned above Miami has already lost to Florida, UNC gets to host South Carolina (-7.5), and Nick Saban (-30) has plans to exorcise the Duke Blue Devils Inside Bryant-Denny Stadium in SEC cross-over contests. Even Utah State at Wake Forest (-2.5) looks to be competitive.
But, the most interesting remaining contest looks to be Florida State's (-3.5) clash with Boise State in Jacksonville. Both teams certainly have a lot to play for, as FSU is trying to claw their way back into the relevance in the ACC and Boise State is looking to play in the Cotton Bowl this December as the Group of Five representative to the NY6. All together, it looks like a fun weekend on the East Coast.
Big 12
As interesting as the slate seems in the ACC, the schedule of games on the Great Plains this weekend is... not as interesting. Only three of the ten teams are playing Division 1 foes and those games are: Oklahoma State (-16.5) at Oregon State, Louisiana Tech at Texas (-18), and Houston at Oklahoma (-26.5). When your conference's most potentially interesting and competitive game is at Oregon State... yikes!
Try harder next time, guys.
Pac 12
I will conclude this week's review of the Power Five with the only conference to have already suffered an embarrassing loss this year, after a whole 2 games: the Pac 12! The schedule is a bit of a mixed bag out West in Week 1. Cal and Washington both scheduled FBS opponents, and Washington State is a big favorite (-34) vs. New Mexico State. Some of the other interesting match-ups [Oregon vs. Auburn (-2.5), Northwestern at Stanford (-7.5), Oklahoma State (-16.5) at Oregon State] have already been covered, but there are a few more worth noting.
For MSU fans, it would be wise to keep an eye on future opponent Arizona State as they play host to Kent State (+25.5). The Sun Devils are big favorites, but their performance will give us some hints as to what to expect in 2 weeks Inside Spartan Stadium. In other news, Colorado (-10.5), USC (-10.5), and Utah (-7) all have potentially interesting games vs. Colorado State, vs. Fresno State, and at BYU respectively. All three of those games have spreads closer than the Arizona at Hawaii spread (-12) and that one did not go well for the conference. The odds suggest only a 41% chance that the Pac 12 gets a sweep in those three contests.
There is actually one more game of note involving a Pac 12 school this week, and that is UCLA at Cincinnati (-4), but has has a lot more relevance for:
The Group of Five
In current NY6 format, I am always interested in the slot that is reserved for the best team from the Group of Five. In the preseason, there are several leading candidates, mostly from the AAC and the Mountain West. Even starting from Week 1, teams are starting to build their resumes in order to claim this slot.
The Group of Five contenders can be broken into several groups this week. Some of the teams are playing FCS or very low level FBS teams, so we are unlikely to get a good read on them until at least next weeks. Those teams include UCF, Temple, Marshall, Ohio, Western Michigan, San Diego State, and Appalachian State.
Then, there are the potential contenders that have tough draws in Week 1, including Florida Atlantic (at Ohio State, -24), Louisiana Tech (at Texas, -18), Toledo (at Kentucky, -13.5), Frenso State (at USC, -12), and South Florida (vs. Wisconsin, -9.5). One or two of those teams might win this weekend, and that would certainly put them into the thick of the chase.
But, then there are the group of games where the Group of Five team has a legitimate chance to make some real noise. These games have been discussed already and they include Ole Miss at Memphis (-7.5), Boise St. vs. Florida State (-3.5), and Utah State at Wake Forest (-2.5).
But, the Group of Five game of the week, as far as I am concerned is UCLA's trip to Cincinnati (-4). In the preseason, I picked the Bearcats to play in the Cotton Bowl, and for my pick to come true, they are going to need to get the "W." Incidentally, this is also a game where the FPI actually picks UCLA to win. If nothing else, it will serve as a nice little tune up for the Bearcats before they make the drive up I-71 next weekend to face the Buckeyes.
That is all for this week. Stay tuned for early next week for a review of the weekend's action. Until then, enjoy, and Go State, Beat Tulsa!
As for MSU, the key question on everyone's mind is the offense, and the Communication from the staff has not been doled out In Excess. Honestly, I have no idea where we are right now. The Men and Women of Spartan Nation have a lot of Questions. Will MSU really run tempo? How fast of tempo? All the time, or just in spots? Will there really be a lot more RPOs? Who will be the featured running back? Is the new system really fully implemented, or was there Not Enough Time since the Spring? Will it look better as the season goes on? And, finally, is and will MSU stay reasonably healthy? (If you happen upon a Wishing Well in the next week, I suggest putting in a good word for Lewerke's shoulder.)
So many questions...
Fortunately, we will start to get the answers to those Questions starting Friday night against Tulsa. I don't think that will all get answered, but we will have a much better idea of what the offense is going to look like and if it is any more potent than what we saw at the end of last year. It almost has to be, by default, right? The training camp rumors all suggest the offense is a New Sensation, but I think any reasonable Spartan fan is reserving judgement until we see some competent offense with our own eyes.
Now, I am not here to provide x's and o's on the Golden Hurricane, which I just found out actually is an entry in the Urban Dictionary. Don't look it up; you don't want to know.... (See, I told you didn't want to know...) I am a numbers guy, and the numbers paint a pretty rosy picture of what we might see. My algorithm, based solely on the preseason magazines and historical correlations, suggests MSU will easily cover 20-point opening spread and win by a whopping 37 points. I project a 45-10 or so win for MSU. While this does Mystify me, that is roughly what we would expect of a Top 15ish playing at home against a team ranked right around 100. At the very least, the opening Vegas line suggests that MSU has only a 7.8% chance of getting upset.
The other side of this coin is that if MSU doesn't at least cover, this is an early indicator that MSU might not be quite as good as we might hope. (sigh.....)
National Overview
For the those that my not be familiar with my style, I always try to post a comparison of my spreadsheet's picks for the week relative to the opening Vegas line. My tradition is to present this data in a single plot that compares all of my machine picks to the actually opening lines. That plot for Week 1 is shown below.
As you can see, my algorithm does a fairly good job in prediction the Vegas spread, which some notably differences. Each week there is usually a handful of games where my prediction is significantly above or below the Vegas line. This year, after reviewing my picks over the past 4-5 years, I concluded that if my picks differ from Vegas by more than 12 points, more likely than not, my pick is correct against the spread. The dashed lines on the figure are at 12 points.
For reasons that are still a bit perplexing, my spreadsheet tends to trend towards the favored team covering. As such, the only data points that are outside of the main window this week are all on the high side. This week, my algorithm likes the following teams to cover:
The figure above also shows one other notable category, and that is the section on the left side of the vertical red line. The games listed in this section of ones where my spreadsheet disagrees with the final result of the game, i.e. my straight-up upset picks. This week, I only have two: Florida International over Tulane and Virginia over Pitt, but those games are both essentially toss-ups.
I also find it amusing to compare my methods to ESPN's FPI model. To be honest, the FPI does tend to perform a little better than my model overall. But, we tend to predict different things, and if nothing else, my model tends to make bolder picks, some of which turn out to be true. The biggest weakness of the FPI, in my observation, is it basically just replicates the Vegas line in most cases. This week the FPI actually has three upset picks, which along with my two are summarize in the table below:
Finally, based on the full set of Vegas lines, I can actually perform a series of Monte Carlo simulations on the week's slate of games. (Basically, this is a very large number of weighted coin flips). This simulation tells me that we should expect to see 8.25 ± 2.4 straight-up upsets in Week 0 plus Week 1. We already have one, as Hawaii took out Arizona last Saturday night.
With that taken care of, let's take a quick spin around the country to see what action is on the menu for this weekend.
Big Ten
In general, the Big Ten as a conference is taking it pretty easy in Week 1. Three teams (Maryland, Minnesota, and Penn State) are facing FCS foes, while five other teams (Iowa, Michigan, MSU, Nebraska, and Ohio State) are 20+ point favorites. There really is only one notable game on tap, and that is Northwestern's road trip to the Bay Area to face Stanford (-7). Northwestern is essentially the first real test that MSU will face in a few weeks, so the results of this game will be interesting to track. A Wildcat upset could mean that MSU's road schedule is even tougher than we thought. (Or, maybe it just means that Stanford sucks.... It's Week 1, so who knows...)
As for the other five Big Ten teams, Week 1 is essentially just an exercise is avoiding an embarrassing loss. Those games, in increasing order of potential embarrassment are Ball State at Indiana (-16.5), Akron at Illinois (-15.5), UMass at Rutgers (-10), Wisconsin (-9.5) at South Florida, and Purdue (-6.5) at Nevada. My math suggests that there is only a 29% chance that those 5 teams all win. Purdue and Wisconsin, I am looking at you two. What You Need to do is not mess this up for everyone.
SEC
Much like the Big Ten (and the rest of the country) most of the action down South in Week 1 is not so interesting. I count five non-conference games with a spread over 20, and one conference game Georgia (-20) at Vanderbilt in the same range. Perhaps the Commodores should consider Sunbelt membership? In the category of games that could get interesting are Missouri (-15.5) at Wyoming, Toledo at Kentucky (-13.5), and North Carolina at South Carolina (-7.5). Might we see an upset in one of those three games? Believe it or not, the odds are 50-50.
But, the headliners for the SEC week are the two marquee non-conference match-ups. One was played in Week 0, and that one went very much to script. Florida beat Miami, but the Canes covered. The other game is even bigger and is likely the game of the weekend: Auburn (-2.5) vs. Oregon in Dallas. By all measures, this game should be close. My model still likes Auburn, but only by a point. While the game should be entertaining, the problem is that my simulations also predict that the outcome of the game will not really impact the national picture, as both Auburn and Oregon have very challenging conference schedules. I don't currently project either team to win their Division. So, while the winner (and the winner's conference) will be an early boost, by November, this game might look pretty irrelevant.
In a final note of comedy, Ole Miss for some reason agreed to play a road game at Memphis. The Rebels are a 7.5-point dog, and my algorithm thinks Memphis will cover. Ouch!
ACC
While the Big Ten and SEC are basically just going through warm up drills this week, the ACC decided to hit the ground running. Week 1 features four conference games, including Georgia Tech at Clemson (-33), Notre Dame (ACC-lite) at Louisville (-20), Virginia Tech (-2.5) at BC, and Virginia at Pitt (-1). The UVA/Pitt game is of particular interest, as the line is tight and UVA is a dark-horse in the Coastal Division. An early win wound give a boost to their candidacy. On the flip side, our old friend Pat could use the win to boost his candidacy to stay employed for next 12 months.
But the non-con slate has some interesting match-ups as well. As mentioned above Miami has already lost to Florida, UNC gets to host South Carolina (-7.5), and Nick Saban (-30) has plans to exorcise the Duke Blue Devils Inside Bryant-Denny Stadium in SEC cross-over contests. Even Utah State at Wake Forest (-2.5) looks to be competitive.
But, the most interesting remaining contest looks to be Florida State's (-3.5) clash with Boise State in Jacksonville. Both teams certainly have a lot to play for, as FSU is trying to claw their way back into the relevance in the ACC and Boise State is looking to play in the Cotton Bowl this December as the Group of Five representative to the NY6. All together, it looks like a fun weekend on the East Coast.
Big 12
As interesting as the slate seems in the ACC, the schedule of games on the Great Plains this weekend is... not as interesting. Only three of the ten teams are playing Division 1 foes and those games are: Oklahoma State (-16.5) at Oregon State, Louisiana Tech at Texas (-18), and Houston at Oklahoma (-26.5). When your conference's most potentially interesting and competitive game is at Oregon State... yikes!
Try harder next time, guys.
Pac 12
I will conclude this week's review of the Power Five with the only conference to have already suffered an embarrassing loss this year, after a whole 2 games: the Pac 12! The schedule is a bit of a mixed bag out West in Week 1. Cal and Washington both scheduled FBS opponents, and Washington State is a big favorite (-34) vs. New Mexico State. Some of the other interesting match-ups [Oregon vs. Auburn (-2.5), Northwestern at Stanford (-7.5), Oklahoma State (-16.5) at Oregon State] have already been covered, but there are a few more worth noting.
For MSU fans, it would be wise to keep an eye on future opponent Arizona State as they play host to Kent State (+25.5). The Sun Devils are big favorites, but their performance will give us some hints as to what to expect in 2 weeks Inside Spartan Stadium. In other news, Colorado (-10.5), USC (-10.5), and Utah (-7) all have potentially interesting games vs. Colorado State, vs. Fresno State, and at BYU respectively. All three of those games have spreads closer than the Arizona at Hawaii spread (-12) and that one did not go well for the conference. The odds suggest only a 41% chance that the Pac 12 gets a sweep in those three contests.
There is actually one more game of note involving a Pac 12 school this week, and that is UCLA at Cincinnati (-4), but has has a lot more relevance for:
The Group of Five
In current NY6 format, I am always interested in the slot that is reserved for the best team from the Group of Five. In the preseason, there are several leading candidates, mostly from the AAC and the Mountain West. Even starting from Week 1, teams are starting to build their resumes in order to claim this slot.
The Group of Five contenders can be broken into several groups this week. Some of the teams are playing FCS or very low level FBS teams, so we are unlikely to get a good read on them until at least next weeks. Those teams include UCF, Temple, Marshall, Ohio, Western Michigan, San Diego State, and Appalachian State.
Then, there are the potential contenders that have tough draws in Week 1, including Florida Atlantic (at Ohio State, -24), Louisiana Tech (at Texas, -18), Toledo (at Kentucky, -13.5), Frenso State (at USC, -12), and South Florida (vs. Wisconsin, -9.5). One or two of those teams might win this weekend, and that would certainly put them into the thick of the chase.
But, then there are the group of games where the Group of Five team has a legitimate chance to make some real noise. These games have been discussed already and they include Ole Miss at Memphis (-7.5), Boise St. vs. Florida State (-3.5), and Utah State at Wake Forest (-2.5).
But, the Group of Five game of the week, as far as I am concerned is UCLA's trip to Cincinnati (-4). In the preseason, I picked the Bearcats to play in the Cotton Bowl, and for my pick to come true, they are going to need to get the "W." Incidentally, this is also a game where the FPI actually picks UCLA to win. If nothing else, it will serve as a nice little tune up for the Bearcats before they make the drive up I-71 next weekend to face the Buckeyes.
That is all for this week. Stay tuned for early next week for a review of the weekend's action. Until then, enjoy, and Go State, Beat Tulsa!
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