In part one of this year's math-based preseason analysis of the college football season, we took a look back at the 2023 season. Through that analysis, we learned about the historical accuracy of preseason polls (plus-or-minus 25 positions) and regular season win totals (plus-or-minus 2.1 wins). We also explored the impact of changes in ability, schedule, and luck.
Now it is now time to shift focus to the 2024 season. Over the years I have developed and refined a way to simulate the entire college football season using schedule information and preseason rankings as the only inputs. I will soon go through the full details of what I learned from this exercise.
For today, I will focus exclusively on what it says about the Michigan State Spartans. We will take a close look at the Spartans' schedule from three different points of view.
Schedule Overview
The best place to start this analysis is with the simulation's inputs. Figure 1 below summarizes the preseason rankings (which correlate to team strengths) for Michigan State and the Spartans' opponents.
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| Figure 1: Summary of the teams on the Michigan State football schedule in 2024, sorted by average preseason rankings. |
The bars give the preseason rankings for each team from five publications: Phil Steele, Athlon Sports, Lindy's Sports, ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI), and Bill Connelly's SP+. The final labeled bar in each cluster is the consensus average of the five rankings. This is the number that I use to set the power rankings for my full-season simulations.
The Spartans' preseason rankings vary Lindys is the most optimistic, ranking Michigan State as the No. 51 team in the nation, while SP+ has the Spartans down at No. 82. Athlon (No. 58), the FPI (No. 68), and Phil Steele (No. 72) are somewhere in-between. As a result, I have assigned Michigan State with a consensus ranking of No. 66.
As for the Spartans' opponents, Michigan State draws three teams in Ohio State (No. 2), Oregon (No. 3) and Michigan (No. 8) who are consensus top 10 teams. These games will all obviously be challenging.
The next tier of the Spartans' schedule include three teams that are projected to be a bit better than Michigan State in 2024. The Iowa Hawkeyes are projected as a borderline top 25 team. After Iowa comes Rutgers and Maryland. The Scarlet Knights and the Terrapins enter the season ranked in the mid to upper 40s across the board.
The next tier of opponents for Michigan State includes four teams with a very similar ranking to the Spartans: Boston College, Illinois, Purdue, and Indiana. All four teams enter the season ranked within eight slots of Michigan State.
Finally, Michigan State opens the season with Florida Atlantic. The consensus ranking for the Owls is No. 102 out of 134 teams. The Spartans also host one FCS team, Prairie View A&M which finished last season at 6-6 and is certainly the weakest team on Michigan State's 2024 schedule.
Projected Point Spreads
Figure 1 provides a qualitative look at the schedule for Michigan State this fall. Figure 2 below provides the projected point spreads and the odds for the Spartans to win each of the 12 regular season games in 2024.
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Figure 2 contains two sets of odds. The striped, blue bars are the odds generated using the uncorrected preseason rankings. I use the preseason rankings to project preseason power rankings, point spreads, and win probabilities for any potential match-up.
The solid green bars are the odds derived from the 250,000-cycle Monte Carlo simulation of the full season with the uncertainty of the preseason rankings taken into account. Each simulation cycle is a series of digital dice throws to determine the winner of every game based on those modified probabilities.
Note that the point spreads derived from the simulation (shown on each bar) are in close agreement with the early point spreads for Michigan State's games against Florida Atlantic (+11.5) and at Michigan (-22)
Based on Figure 2, it is fair to divide the Spartans' schedule into three equal sections. In the first four games, Michigan State is likely to be big favorites at home against Florida Atlantic (+10) and Prairie View A&M (+32) and a slight to solid underdog on the road at Maryland (-8.5) and at Boston College (-4).
Based on the victory probabilities shown on the y-axis of Figure 2, the expected number of wins in that span is 2.4. In other words, the Spartans are likely to beat FAU and Prairie View, but they will need to overachieve and/or get a bit lucky in order to go 3-1 or better in the first four weeks of the season.
In the middle third of the schedule, the Spartans will face three preseason top 10 teams, two of which will be on the road. Michigan State projects to be a big underdog against Ohio State (-17.5), at Oregon (-22.5), and at Michigan (-21). The Spartans also get to host borderline top 25 Iowa (-9), albeit after a bye week.
The odds suggest that the Spartans are only expected to win 0.50 games in that stretch. Just going 1-3, most likely with a win over the Hawkeyes, would be very positive.
But once Michigan State enters the final third of the season, the schedule eases up. In this final stretch the Spartans host Indiana (+3), Purdue (+1), and Rutgers (-2) and only have one road game at Illinois (-6). The Spartans current project to be favored against the two schools from the Hoosier state and to be a slight underdog to the Scarlet Knights and Illini.
That said, the Spartans expected win total in the home stretch is only 1.9 wins. Essentially all four games are toss ups and a record of 1-3 in that stretch is slightly more likely than 3-1.
Win Distribution
Figure 2 shows the odds that Michigan State will win or lose each of the 12 games on the schedule. But what does this tell us about total wins and losses? There are over 4,000 different ways for the season to play out for the Spartans. Michigan State could win anywhere from zero to all 12 games. Figure 3 gives the odds for each of those 13 potential outcomes.
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| Figure 3: Win distributions for the 2024 Michigan State Spartans calculated in two ways: a) using the preseason rankings as is and b) using the results of the 250,000 cycle Monte Carlo simulation which accounts for the uncertainty of the preseason rankings. |
Similar to Figure 2, the results in Figure 3 are calculated using two different methods.
At a first glance, the two sets of data tell the same story. The Spartans will most likely win around five games which is exactly where the oddsmakers in Las Vegas have set the win total over/under line for Michigan State. The money lines suggest that a value just under five wins is more likely. My simulations give an overall expected win total of 4.85. The math checks out.
According to the striped bar bars in Figure 3, there is a 94% chance that Michigan State will win somewhere between three and seven games. Every other college football preseason analysis that attempts to make this type of calculation yields a similar result.
But this result is not statistically accurate.
If Michigan State truly is the No. 66 best team in the country, and if the Spartans' 12 opponents are also exactly as good as the preseason experts believe, then the estimated point spreads in Figure 2 and the distribution shown in Figure 3 in the striped blue bars are both correct.
But I already explained in part one of this series that the preseason rankings vary on average by 25 positions. The data shown in the green bars shows the more accurate data after the preseason uncertainty is taken into account.
For Michigan State (and for every other team) this means that a wider range of possible season outcomes are likely. It is still true that the Spartans will most likely win between three and seven games. But, the real odds are closer to 77% than 94%.
There are two ways to look at this. From a glass half empty point of view, there is a chance that Michigan State is actually worse that the experts currently believe. My simulation suggests that there is a 27% chance of a final record no better than 3-9. Those are double the odds compared to the scenario where the preseason rankings are accurate.
Based on Figure 2, it is easy to see how these dark futures could happen. The Spartans are still likely to win two of the first three games on the schedule. But if Michigan State drops the two games at Maryland and Boston College and then gets wiped out in the mid-season gauntlet, it is very possible that the Spartans enter November sitting at 2-6 with four toss-ups left on the schedule. Just winning two of those four remaining games could be challenging, especially considering the likely mindset of the team in this scenario.
Glass Half Full
But for Michigan State fans, it is more fun to think about the more optimistic potential scenarios.
In Jonathan Smith's first year, the main goal is to get to at least 6-6 overall and to qualify for a bowl game in order to show that the program is headed in a positive direction. My simulation gives Michigan State a 36% chance to achieve this goal.
Looking back at Figure 2, the Spartans' most likely path to six wins is first to win the four games on the schedule where they are projected to by favored (the home games against Florida Atlantic, Prairie View A&M, Indiana, and Purdue). Michigan State would need to beat Rutgers at home in the season finale, and then pick up one other win on the road or possibly at home against Iowa on October 19.
The game that stands out to me as the most critical is the road game at Boston College on September 21. Michigan State should be at least 2-1 going into that game while the Eagles will very likely be 1-2 with two double digit road loses at Florida State and Missouri.
The line on the game will be very close to a toss-up. If the Spartans win, there will be momentum headed into the middle third of the schedule. If the Spartans lose and drop to 2-2, the odds of a bowl game will go down dramatically.
On a more positive note, there are also scenarios that are even more optimistic. My simulation predicts that there is a 10% chance the Michigan State wins at least eight regular season games. In these scenarios, the Spartans are almost certainly better than the experts currently predict and some of the Spartans' opponents may be a bit worse.
Based on Figure 2, we can imagine a stronger version of the Spartans being safely favored in at least five games. In addition, the home game against Iowa and the road games at Maryland, Boston College, and Illinois would start to look at least like toss ups. If the Spartans can play more like a top 25 team, the expected win total improves to just below eight games (7.87).
What what about even more optimistic scenarios? The data in Figure 3 gives Michigan State a 1.3% chance to win at least 10 games.
How could this come to pass? The Spartans would very likely need to beat all nine teams on the schedule not named Ohio State, Oregon, or Michigan. Then, Michigan State would need to steal at least one win in that group of top 10 opponents.
It is always possible to steal a win against a team like Michigan if the Spartans simply rise up and play a near perfect game (i.e. luck prevails). It is also possible that one of those three teams is significantly weaker than expected (i.e. schedule variance prevails). Or, maybe the Spartans have a season like 2021 where they are a lot better than expected (i.e. raw ability variance prevails).
Just for fun, my simulation also provides the odds for the Spartans overachieve enough to secure some postseason success. The odds for Michigan State to reach the Big Ten Championship Game are 1-in-200. The odds to win the Big Ten are just 1-in-780.
But, with the expanded 12-team college football playoff, the Spartans' odds to make the playoff are actually better than the odds to return to the Big Ten Championship Game. I calculate the playoff odds at just under 1% or 1-in-107. I can even give you the odds that the Green and White make it all the way and win a National Title. Those odds are 1-in-11,700.
In other words, yes, I am saying there's a chance.
That said, it is 18 times more likely (1-in-650 odds) that the Spartans finish 0-12 than that they hoist the National Championship trophy in late January of 2025.
We have now explored Michigan State's schedule in detail, but what does this mean for the overall Big Ten race? Where are the Spartans most likely to finish? That will be the topic of the next installment of this series. Stay tuned.
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Dr. Green and White's (@paulfanson) preseason analysis continues with a deep dive into Michigan State's schedule. Find out MSU's odds to make a bowl, win eight games, and even make the playoffs. Check it out, for subscribers only.
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