Guys, where are we?
Just a few short weeks ago, fans of the Michigan State Spartans were sitting up in the first class cabin, sipping a vodka and tonic, flashing back to the found memories of a 11-2 season and Peach Bowl victory, and dreaming about the glory that 2022 and beyond might bring.
Three weeks, the plane hit some turbulence somewhere over the west coast. At first we all thought that it was a couple f benign bumps, but two weeks ago the turbulence got a lot worse. This week, it seems as if the top of the airplane was ripped off and now Spartan fans seem to have landed on the beach of a dessert island. The scene is one of complete chaos.
Against Washington, the problems mostly seemed to be on defense. Against Minnesota, the defense was still bad, and the offense suddenly began to sputter. Against Maryland, special teams crashed and burned and neither the offense nor the defense played a good game. Everything seems to have gone completely sideways. It is enough to make Spartan fans to ask: "Where are we?" The answer, for now, is that Spartans seem completely lost.
Unfortunately, the path ahead is fraught with danger. Next up is a giant Scarlet and Gray smoke monster and soon after that Michigan State will pay a social call to Ann Arbor. As for the rest of the schedule, those other cannot be trusted either.
It is hard to imagine what other plot twists and turns are going to occur this season and beyond for the Spartans. There are likely to be several more casualties in the week to come. That said, I still believe that this team will provide some good moments before the season finale.
I have faith the Coach Mel Tucker has a plan and can eventually tie all these story arcs together. I wish that I could flash forward a couple of weeks or even years and tell that everything is going to be okay, but that script is not yet written. That said, as always, I remain optimistic as to the overall direction of the program. While it might not feel like it, all is not yet lost.
Week Five Results
As is my weekly tradition, Figure 1 below shows the results of all 57 games involving two FBS teams in Week Five.
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| Figure 1: Results of Week Five showing the actual point differentials relative to the opening spread. |
It was a good weekend for several west coast teams as well as the state of North Carolina. Utah, Washington State, Boise State, San Jose State, North Carolina and Duke all beat the spread by more than 14 points. In the other timeline, Penn State and Georgia were the two teams who underachieved noticeably, yet still won.
The Nittany Lions and Bulldogs were a bit lucky, however, as there was a total of 17 favorites who were feeling just as lost as the Spartans this week. Those teams are summarized below in Table 1 along with the upset picks made by both my algorithm and ESPN's FPI.
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Table 1: Upsets in Week Five based on the opening Vegas line compared to the upset projections from last week.
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Not only were there a lot of upsets in Week Five, but there were also a lot of big upsets. Fresno State and Pittsburgh both lost as 24-point favorites (to UCONN and Georgia Tech, respectively). These are the second biggest upsets of the season so far and the fifth and sixth upsets where the opening spread was at least 20 points. Historically, there are usually only around five total upset of this magnitude in any given year.
My computer actually performed fairly well on upset picks in Week Five, getting three of the seven picks correct (43 percent), including correctly predicting Tulane's win over Houston and Illinois' win at Wisconsin. This success rate is almost exactly equal to my algorithm's historical performance, and is significantly better than its performance so far in 2022 which is now at 6-20 (23 percent) overall.
The FPI went only one-for-three (33 percent) this week to bring its tally for the year to 9-13 (41 percent).
Table 2 below gives the results of last week's Bad Betting Advice against the spread (ATS).
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| Table 2: Results of the highlighted picks versus the spread in Week Five. |
My computer took a conservative approach this week, which I suppose worked out as it only got two picks incorrect this week (out of a total of two picks). The FPI did slightly better, going 3-4 (43 percent). Overall, my algorithm went 27-30 (47 percent) against the spread in Week Five while the FPI was 31-26 (54 percent).
Year-to-date, both computers are struggling almost as much as the Spartans. As shown above in Table 2, the cumulative performance for the recommended picks has a success rate of only 41 percent for the FPI and 27 percent for my algorithm. Ironically, the performance for these recommended picks is significantly worse that the overall performance considering all games (47 percent for my algorithm and 49 percent for the FPI).
Updated Big Ten Odds and Expected Wins
In the Big Ten East, it is increasingly clear that the eventual division champion will be either Ohio State, Penn State, or Michigan. In Week Five, Michigan covered the spread by a few points, Ohio State did not cover by a few points, while Penn State failed to cover by a more significant margin.
All three teams appear in the top 10 of my updated power rankings, and as the numbers shake out now, the Buckeyes (48 percent) still have the best odds to win the division with Penn State holding steady at 29 percent and Michigan currently in third place at 19 percent. The updated Big Ten odds, based on a 60,000 cycle Monte Carlo simulation of the remaining regular season is shown below in Table 3. Note that starting with these calculations, I have removed the influence of the preseason rankings completely.
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| Table 3: Updated Big Ten rankings, expected wins, strengths of schedule and season odds following Week Five. |
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Maryland is making a clear case for the fourth best team in the division with four wins already on their ledger and home games against Rutgers and Northwestern still on the schedule. As Table 4 below shows, the Terrapins have an expected win total is now at 8.05 wins with a 97 percent chance for Maryland to get to six wins and bowl eligibility. As for Rutgers, Indiana, and sadly, Michigan State, just getting to six wins to qualify for a bowl game is going to be challenging.
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| Table 4: Updated Big Ten win distribution matrix after Week Five |
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As for the Big Ten West, the results of Week Five threw the race into chaos. Coming into the week, it looked like Minnesota's race to lose with Wisconsin as the most likely challenger. But, the Gophers were upset at home by Purdue and Illinois beat the head coach right out of the Badgers in Madison. As a result, six of the seven Big Ten West teams have a 1-1 conference record with preseason favorite Wisconsin as the lone team sitting at 0-2.
My computer was high on the Illini before and it is even more high on then now. Illinois is in ranked No. 2 nationally in my current power rankings and hold a 69 percent chance of winning the Big Ten West. Purdue currently sits in second place with 16 percent odds with Minnesota (eight percent) and Iowa (six percent) still in the race.
I do not believe that Illinois is a top 10 team, but as I look at their schedule, the Big Ten West is theirs for the taking. They draw Iowa, Minnesota, and Purdue all at home. One way or another, the West title will go through Champaign.
Michigan State's remaining schedule
As shown in Table 3, the Spartan's expected win total has dropped once again to just 4.17 wins. Figure 2 gives a detailed breakdown of the projections point spreads and win probabilities for Michigan State's remaining games.
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Figure 2: Updated odds and spread projections for Michigan State's remaining games, following Week Four and based on a 60,000 cycle Monte Carlo simulation.
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Based on Table 3, Michigan State's odds to get to six wins and qualify for a bowl game have dropped to just 13 percent, which feels roughly similar to the odds of finding a polar bear on a dessert island. As we can see from Figure 2, getting four more wins out of the remaining seven games is going to be a challenge.
The Spartans still project to be favored to beat both Rutgers and Indiana, but even those games now are not gimmes. My power rankings have Indiana and Michigan State essentially even, so home field advantage is the only difference.
Wisconsin at home on Oct. 15 looks like another "must win" game for the Spartans that is close to a toss up right now. Even if the Green and White can get those three wins, they still need to find one more among a collection of three road games where they project to be at least a 17-point underdog right now or next week against Ohio State, where the Spartans have opened at +25.
Beating Ohio State seems like science fiction / fantasy at this point, but if the Spartans can get healthy and figure some things out over the bye week following the Wisconsin game, then perhaps we can imagine a win in one of those three final Big Ten road games.
The Spartan almost always play the Wolverines tough, even more so when Michigan thinks that they are going to win in blow-out fashion, which will be the case this year. Illinois might turn out to actually be the frauds that everyone except my computer believes them to be, and as long as Penn State still has James Franklin on the sideline, you know that you have a chance to win in Happy Valley.
Is it probable that Michigan State wins one of those three games? No. Is it possible? Absolutely. Don't lose faith just yet.
National Overview
Before we all completely lose focus, let's take a quick look around the country at the other action around the country in Week Five.
The race in the SEC is essentially unchanged as Georgia (77 percent) still has a commanding lead in the odds in the East and Alabama (58 percent) still leads in the West after easily getting past Arkansas. The Bulldogs struggled mightily to beat Missouri, but Kentucky (15 percent chance to win the East) lost to Ole Miss which kept the odds in the East steady.
Speaking of Ole Miss, the Rebels (27 percent odds in the West) look like the biggest threat to Bama with LSU (10 percent odds) still in the conversation after the Tigers' comeback win over Auburn.
The race in the Big 12 continues to be as volatile as a stick of dynamite from 19th-century trading ship. Three of the five conference games ended with an upset as Baylor lost to Oklahoma State, TCU destroyed Oklahoma, and Iowa State lost to Kansas. As a result, I now project Kansas State (55 percent) and Texas (42 percent) to have the best odds to advance to the Big 12 Championship game with the undefeated pair of TCU (30 percent) and Kansas (28 percent) just behind.
In the ACC, Clemson got past North Carolina State this year and now has a 57 percent chance to win the Atlantic Division. Undefeated Syracuse (26 percent) appears to be the biggest remaining threat, especially following Florida State's upset loss to Wake Forest. In the Coastal division, Pittsburgh suffered an embarrassing loss to Georgia Tech, despite being favored by 24 points. As a result, 4-1 Duke now has a 61 percent chance to win the Division.
There was only one minor upset in the Pac-12 this week as UCLA was able to protect their home field against Washington. As a result, USC (62 percent) and Utah (58 percent) are the most likely teams to meet in the Pac-12 Championship Game with Oregon (27 percent) and undefeated UCLA (24 percent) still in contention.
Finally, in Group of Five action, Cincinnati avoided the upset bid at Tulsa while Tulane was able to win in overtime at Houston. Both of these teams are sitting in the current top five of my Group of Five leaderboard. The team to watch, however, is South Alabama from the Sun Belt. The Jaguars won at Louisiana this week and now own the best odds to win the conference.
Against all odds, we have reached the end for today. Hopefully the Spartans can soon find what has been lost for the past three weeks. Until next time, enjoy, and Go State, beat the Buckeyes!
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