Dr. Green and White Sports Authority

In just a few short days, the Michigan State Spartans will be taking to the field one last time in 2021. The Green and White are traveling to Atlanta and will be squaring off against the Pittsburgh Panthers of the ACC in the Peach Bowl. The point spread opened with the Panthers favored by as many as four points in some places. In the past few weeks, that line has drifted steadily in Michigan State's favor. The Spartans are now favored by as many as three points, depending on the source.  A big reason for this shift is likely due to the opting out of several marquee players, including Pittsburgh's quarterback and Heisman Finalist Kenny Pickett as well as starting cornerback Damarri Mathis. On the Green and White side, Spartan running back and Doak Walker Award winner Kenneth Walker has also decided not to play. On balance, it seems that Vegas feels that this combination of factors favors Michigan State. All of this uncertainty on both sides of the ball makes the Peach Bowl matc...

Happy Holidays, Spartan football fans, and what a year it has been. It all started with a prediction of just a handful of wins and a potential last place finish in the Big Ten East. How it's going is a 10-win season, a victory over the Wolverines, a spot in the New Year's Six, and a newly minted top 25 recruiting class. Life is good in East Lansing. From a more national point of view, we are about to enter one of the most entertaining times on the college sports calendar: bowl season! While some would argue that there are too many bowl and that they don't matter, I would simply counter that arguing for less football to watch, as a sports fan, is foolish. I can promise that come May, many of us would be rather excited to watch Texas San Antonio face San Diego State in the Tropical Smoothie Café Frisco Bowl. To this end, today I would like to offer up a preview of what to expect over the next 20 days and 42 bowl games. Let's start with my typical comparison the Vegas line...

On Wednesday evening, Michigan State University will officially open Big Ten conference play in basketball with a road game at Minnesota. Before the Spartans tip off, I wanted to do a deep dive into the entire Big Ten schedule in order to better understand what we can expect from the Spartans and from the Big Ten race overall. The method the I use to perform this analysis is based heavily on efficiency margin data generated by Ken Pomeroy. In my opinion, "Kenpom" data is the gold standard of basketball data analytics. It correlates very well with point spreads and therefore the data can be used to generate win probabilities for any future basketball match-up. With this tool in hand, it is possible to simulate the results of the entire Big Ten regular season as well as the Big Ten Tournament. Big Ten Regular Season Odds To start this analysis, let's first take a look at how the 14 members of the Big Ten stack up according to Kenpom efficiency margin data that I pulled a fe...

This weekend, champions were crowned, champagne was uncorked, dreams were crushed, and four teams have advanced to the College Football Playoffs with a chance to win a National Championship. Eight other teams, by virtue of either a conference title or a top 10 finish, were selected to play in one of the other New Year’s Six bowls. Michigan State University was one of those teams. When the dust settled, the Spartans have been matched with the Pittsburgh Panthers in the Peach Bowl. It will mark the first time for the Spartans to appear in the New Year’s Six since the playoff appearance following the 2015 season. If someone were to have suggested back in August that the Green and White were to be in this position, it would have triggered a round of mandatory drug testing. Coach Mel Tucker, in just two years, took a team that was predicted to win just four or five games and to finish last in the Big Ten East to the New Year’s Six. That accomplishment in nothing short of incredible. The...

Michigan State University does not play football this weekend, but there are several games on the schedule that will ultimate impact the Holiday destination for the Spartans. For this week's preview of Championship Week. I would like to take a bit of a deep dive into the various scenarios that could play out this coming weekend. But first, I will start with my typical sampling of potentially dubious financial advice. Let's jump right in. Picks of the Week As usual, Figures 1 and 2 below summarize this week's projected point spreads for each game this weekend. Figure 1 shows the picks from my algorithm relative to the opening Vegas lines and Figure 2 shows the picks from ESPN's FPI. Figure 1:  Comparison of the projected final margins of victory based on my algorithm to the opening Vegas Spreads for Championship Week. Figure 2:  Comparison of the projected final margins of victory based on ESPN's FPI to the opening Vegas Spreads for Championship Week, With only 11 ga...