Let us not forget where we started. Back in the summer, the expectations for the Michigan State Spartan football team were limited. My annual summer analysis of the 2021 season suggested that MSU was only likely to win four or five games total.
The odds of winning eight games or more was only eight percent and the odds of getting to a record of 9-3 or better was right around three percent. So-called experts picked MSU to finish last in the Big Ten East. The Green and White were marginalized.
Former Michigan State Head Coach Mark Dantonio used to say that football is "a game of inches." Through the first eight games of the season Coach Mel Tucker's team had managed to find those inches. The Spartans came from behind in games against Miami, Nebraska, Rutgers, Indiana, and Michigan.
MSU was far from perfect in the first two-thirds of the season. They bend-but-don't break pass defense gave up lots of yards, but managed to keep teams out of the end zone more times than not. Things looked bleak in the games against Nebraska and Michigan, but the Green and White always managed to find the winning plays in winning time. That is what good teams do.
But, the margin of error for this team is small.
If a team in ranked outside of the top 50 at the beginning of the season, there is usually a reason. Coach Tucker and his staff did an excellent job in assembling the talent and preparing the schemes to maximize the output of this team so far based on the tools that they have to work with.
The influx of marginalized talent out of the transfer portal was a master stroke which enabled the Spartans to be in a position to claim a New Year's Six Bowl berth in Coach Tucker second season. But it is not like the Spartans have a dozen four stars to roll off of the bench.
So far this year, the Spartans have been reasonable healthy and reasonably lucky. The last several games have included several 50-50 plays and calls, most of which have gone MSU's way. The Spartan's have also made their own luck by simply making plays.
But football is a fickle game. Sometimes that oblong ball simply bounces the wrong way. By the time a team reaches November in Big Ten country, bumps and bruises tend to accumulate. On Saturday afternoon in West Lafayette, the Spartans' number finally came up.
MSU's starting line up is good. But, when players like kicker Matt Coghlin, left tackle Jarrett Horst, and wide receiver Jalen Nailor are injured, the margin of error shrinks. When other players like defensive tackle Simeon Barrow get ejected and players like cornerbacks Chuck Brantley, Marqui Lowery, Ronald Williams, and Chester Kimbrough are out of less than 100 percent, that margin shrinks even more.
In situations like this, the remaining Spartans essentially needed to be close to perfect. There can be no dropped passes, misplaced throws, or fumbles. The defense needs to get stops on third downs, especially in the red zone. Those things simply did not happen.
A big part of that was that Purdue was simply the better team on Saturday. They were the team that made the plays when it mattered. Sometimes that's just the way the cookie crumbles.
Now, all the Green and White can do is to try to move forward. At 8-1, there is still a lot to play for. MSU still controls its own destiny, both in the Big Ten East, the New Year's Six, and even the College Football Playoffs. Everything is still on the table.
Week Ten Results
As is my weekly tradition, Figure 1 below shows the results of all 59 games involving two FBS teams in Week 10.
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| Figure 1: Results of Week 10 showing the actual point differentials relative to the opening spread. |
The teams that overachieved notably versus the opening spread this week include Wisconsin, Utah, East Carolina, Old Dominion, North Texas, Oklahoma State, and Iowa State. As for the teams that had more marginal performances and underachieved, that list includes Alabama, Cincinnati, and Ball State.
As for the upsets relative to the opening lines in Week 10, those are summarize below in Table 1.
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| Table 1: Upsets based on the opening Vegas line compared to the upset projections from Week 10. |
In total, there were 17 upsets relative to the opening Vegas spreads, which is a bit high but is just over one standard deviation from the mean of 13 upsets that my simulation predicted. While MSU was the highest ranked team bitten by the upset bug, the Spartans were no where near the top of the board this week. Florida, Minnesota, Cal, and Oregon State all lost as double-digit favorites.
My algorithm only got two upset picks correct out of seven total (29 percent) which brings the year-to-date performance down to 35 percent. The FPI did much better, going three-for-four (75 percent) and is sitting at a marginally better 37 percent hit rate for the year.
Table 2 below gives the results of the computers' picks against the spread (ATS) for Week 10.
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| Table 2: Results of the highlighted picks versus the spread in Week 10. |
My computer was right at .500 for the week, bringing the year-to-date performance to just under 62 percent. For the first time in six week, the FPI was above water and actually knocked it out of the park by getting four picks out of five correct (80 percent). But, this strong performance just got the FPI up to 50-50 for the year. Overall, the computers combined have been correct just under 55 percent of the time this year.
Overall, my computer was just a game over .500 for the week at 30-29. The FPI did better at 35-24 (50 percent) for Week 10. Both computer are still under .500 for the year, however. My machine is now at 256-277 (48 percent) while the FPI is marginally better at 258-275 (48.4 percent).
Updated Big Ten Odds and Expected Wins
Following the results of Week 10, I have re-run the full-season Monte Carlo simulation using the updated power rankings, including the current uncertainty in those rankings, in order to update the season odds for each team. Table 3 below gives the update for the Big Ten conference.
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| Table 3: Updated Big Ten rankings, expected wins, strengths of schedule and season odds. |
Despite the Spartans' upset loss, MSU is still very much in the thick of the Big Ten East race. Overall, Ohio State has a full game lead and thus the edge in the odds (at 47 percent). Michigan (31 percent) is close behind, with the Spartans (22 percent) just a few percentage points back.
In the Big Ten West, there is now a four-way tie for first place between Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Purdue who are all 4-2. Don't be fooled however, as this is now very much the Badgers' race to lose. My math give Wisconsin a 69 percent chance to return to Indianapolis.
Wisconsin holds the head-to-head tiebreaker against Iowa and Purdue and has only lost to Michigan and Penn State out of the East. Minnesota (13 percent) still controls their own destiny, but the Gophers will need to survive road tests at Iowa and Indiana and (most importantly) then beat Wisconsin in Minneapolis in the final weekend of the season. Meanwhile, the Badger only need to beat Northwestern and Nebraska in Madison.
Somehow, the Badgers also jumped all the way up to No. 2 in my national power ranking this week. While this strains the bounds of logic, it does suggest that the Badgers are playing quite a bit better than they were in their back-to-back losses to Notre Dame and Michigan. I don't believe that they are "top 10" good, but they are perhaps better than we think.
The updated Big Ten win distribution matrix is shown below in Table 4.
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| Table 4: Updated Big Ten win distribution matrix after Week 10. |
Michigan State's expected win total dropped a bit to 9.68. More exactly, the Spartans' odds to run the table are now at 16 percent and the odds to get to at least 10 wins are at 57 percent. Exactly nine wins has odds of 38 percent while losing out has only a five percent chance.
A closer look at MSU's remaining schedule
With only three games remaining, I will forgo my usual bar chart figure and simply give the projected spread and win probabilities for the Spartan's three remaining games as a bulleted list:
- Maryland at MSU (-19.0) => 92 percent odds to win
- MSU (+8.0) at Ohio State => 29 percent
- Penn State at MSU (+1) => 48 percent
Basically, there is one likely win, one likely loss, and a toss up.
The actual line for next weekend's game with Maryland opened with MSU as a 14-point favorite, which corresponds to an 84 percent chance that MSU gets to 9-1.
With three games remaining, there are still eight possible scenarios for MSU. One scenario where MSU is winless, one scenario is undefeated, three scenarios where MSU finishes 9-3, and three scenarios where MSU finishes at 10-2.
But, only three of those scenarios has a probability over about five percent. One of those low probability scenarios is the situation where MSU loses out and finished at 8-4. In that scenario, it is hard to judge how far MSU would fall in the bowl pecking order, but an invite to the Las Vegas or Music City Bowl would seem likely.
Based on the numbers above, the two most likely scenarios involve MSU beating Maryland, but losing to Ohio State. The results of the Penn State game will decide if MSU finishes at either 9-3 or 10-2.
If the Spartans do finish at 9-3, a New Year's Six Bowl berth would be possible, but unlikely. But, MSU would likely wind up playing in either the Citrus Bowl or the Outback Bowl it that scenario, depending on how Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan fare against each other is their remaining contests.
But, if MSU is able to beat Penn State and get to 10-2, a berth in the New Year's Six is very likely. If Ohio State wins out and makes the College Football Playoffs, then it mainly comes down to if Michigan beats Penn State next weekend. If Michigan and Michigan State both finish at 10-2, it will come down to their relative position in the final playoff poll as to which team will go to Pasadena.
I would love to tell you that the head-to-head win over Michigan would convince the committee to send the Spartans back to the Rose Bowl. I personally do not think that is how that decision would go down.
The decision will partially hinge on how each team performance against Penn State and Ohio State. But, the fact of the matter is that the Wolverines have not been to Pasadena in a while, their fans travel, and they are likely to drop a lot of cash in southern California if they are chosen. In a perfect world, those factors would be marginal at best. We do not, however, live in a perfect world.
In this scenario, MSU would likely fall to either the Peach or Fiesta Bowl which is pretty nice consolation prize.
Of course, there is also the roughly 15 percent chance that the Spartans beat Ohio State and win out. In this scenario, the Spartans will return to Indianapolis. A win there would place them once again in the College Football Playoffs. A loss would also result in a Peach or Fiesta Bowl berth (as the Big Ten West Champion would be sent to the Rose Bowl).
National Overview
Finally, let's take a quick look around the country at the rest of the action. I am going to take a slightly different approach this week, leaning more heavily on visuals than on text. Table 5 shows the division, conference, and season odds for all of the remaining realistic contenders in the rest of the FBS.
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| Table 5: Updated rankings, expected wins, strengths of schedule and season odds for the remaining FBS contenders.. |
Despite Wake Forest's loss to North Carolina, the race in both ACC Divisions is status quo, primarily because the Wake / UNC game was a special non-conference game which did not impact the conference standings. As a result, Wake Forest and Pitt still hold the edge in odds with NC State, Virginia, and Miami all still handing around.
In Big 12 action, Oklahoma State and Iowa State had impressive wins over West Virginia and Texas and hold down the top two spots in the conference in my calculations. Oklahoma remains in first place in the standing, but third place in my odds calculation. Baylor dropped to fourth following an upset loss to TCU.
In the Pac-12 this weekend, Oregon effectively eliminated Washington in the North, and Oregon State did themselves no favors by being upset by Colorado. This leaves Washington State as the only real threat to the Ducks. In the South, Utah has the division all but locked up, but they pounded Stanford last week, just for good measure.
In SEC action, Texas A&M's defeat of Auburn means that the Aggies are only real team with a shot to prevent the Alabama / Georgia showdown in the SEC Championship Game. A&M will likely need Auburn to upset Alabama in order for this disruption to occur.
In Group of Five action, there were no upsets among the contenders, so the New Years' Six leaderboard is largely unchanged. The slot is still Cincinnati's to lose (47 percent) with UTSA (31 percent) or Houston (11 percent) most likely to steal the bid if the Bearcats falter.
As for the College Football Playoffs, my current top 15 leaderboard list the top four teams as Georgia, Oklahoma State, Notre Dame, and Michigan, with the Spartans currently down at No. 10. That said, I think that my strength of record calculation is currently giving a more reasonable estimation of the real standings. Table 6 below give the results of this calculation.
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| Table 6: Strength of record calculation, based on my power rankings and strength of schedules |
MSU is currently No. 6 in strength of record, just ahead of Michigan. The most notable aspect of both my playoff odds and the strengths of record is that my machine is giving more respect to Oklahoma State and Notre Dame than the human are right now. We will see if that trend continues.
Against all odds, I have reached the end for this week. Until next time, enjoy, and Go State, beat the Terrapins!
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