2024, Week 2 Preview: Incline

We are just one short week into the college football season and although there is still a ton of uncertainty, a few things are becoming more clear.

For example, a few things look better than expected just a few days ago. Some items that come to mind include Michigan State's defense, Penn State, USC, Notre Dame, Miami, Alabama, Georgia, and Texas. 

On the other side of the coin, there are a few other items that perhaps underachieved in Week One. The Michigan State offense, Wisconsin, UCLA, Florida State, Clemson, South Carolina, and Virginia Tech all fall into this category.

Unfortunately for the Michigan State Spartans, several future opponents fell into the "better than expected" category. Six of the Spartans' Big Ten opponents won in Week One by a combined score of 259-21. The other three Big Ten opponents are currently ranked in the top 10. 

Oh, and did you see that Michigan State's Week Four opponent, Boston College, went into Tallahassee and beat Florida State by 15 points on Monday night?

In the preseason, I had the Spartans' schedule ranked the No. 29 most difficult in the country. After the action in Week One, that ranking is up to No. 18.

Neat.

We all knew in the off season that just making a bowl game in Jonathan Smith's first season as coach might be an uphill climb. But just seven days in it feels like the ascent just got steeper. Someone snuck into the gym late one night and bumped the incline up a few degrees on the treadmill.

Oh, and did you see the news about how Michigan State lost three key contributors in the game against Florida Atlantic to significant injuries? Wide receiver Alante Brown and defensive backs Khalil Majeed and Dillon Tatum are all expected to be out until at least November, if not the full season.

Add a few more degrees to the incline. Cool.

It that were not enough, Michigan State opens Big Ten play this weekend with a road game against Maryland. The Terrapins hammered UConn by a score of 50-7 last weekend. Maryland also happens to have a track record over the past decade or so of playing their best football in the month of September.

Tick the incline up just a little bit more. Freaking fantastic.

Based on this current state of affairs Michigan State fans may be inclined to feel a bit depressed. But don't be discouraged. Spartans never back down from a challenge. As the old saying goes, teams make the most improvement between Week One and Week Two. 

Last week the Spartan offense had key errors on the two longest possessions of the second half. If Aidan Chiles doesn't throw an interception at the five-yard line and if Brian Lindgren calls literally any other play on fourth and one, Michigan State could have feasibly led 30-10 if not 30-3 midway through the fourth quarter of last week's game.

If the Spartans can tighten up those errors and generally gel a bit more as a unit offensively, the offense could suddenly look a lot better. If that happens, the challenges surrounding both the game this weekend and the season as a whole will not seem so steep. I am inclined to believe that it can happen.

MSU Prediction

Saturday marks the 15th meeting between the Spartans and Terrapins. The two schools played five times between 1944 and 1950 and have played each other in each of the last nine seasons since Maryland joined the Big Ten in 2014. 

The Spartans dominated the series in the beginning, winning 10 of the first 12 match-ups including 6-of-7 from 2014 to 2021 and covering the spread in all but two of the wins. But the Terrapins have won the last two games against the Spartans by double digits and have covered the spread both times.

This week Michigan State opened as an 8.5-point underdog at Maryland. Historically, this gives the Spartans a 27% chance to pull the upset win. The over/under for the game is set at 44.5 points.

While it is possible that the Spartans can show major improvement on road against Maryland, especially on offense, it is yet to be determined if they actually will. While my heart wants to believe, I always leave it to my cold, heartless, and unbiased computer to make my actual predictions.

Last week's performance has made my laptop a bit of a skeptic. My official prediction has the Spartans only mustering as many points as they scored in Week One. I have Maryland beating Michigan State by a score of 26-16.

Based on this score, my computer also favors the under. This way also be a smart bet based on history. The match-up has hit the under in eight of the last nine games. I see no reason yet for that to change this year.

Big Ten Overview

Table 1 below gives a full summary of the action in the Big Ten in Week Two, including my projected scores, the opening point spread, and the computers' projected point differential. 

Table 1: Summary of Big Ten action in Week Two, including my algorithms' projected scores. The teams shaded in green are projected to cover by my algorithm. The teams shaded red are projected to cover by the FPI.

Purdue and UCLA both had the inclination to take an early bye week, but the other 16 Big Ten teams are all in action. Michigan State and Maryland play the only Big Ten conference game in Week Two.

Indiana (-38, projected), Minnesota (-18), and Wisconsin (-15.5) all face FCS opponents. All three teams should make it out with a win, but the Badger's might get tested by South Dakota and it would not surprise me if Rhode Island gave the Golden Gophers a game for a while. 

The projected spread in both games is less than 20 points, and based on SP+, South Dakota is better than the Western Michigan squad that gave Wisconsin problems in Week One.

Ohio State (-38.5), Penn State (-33), Rutgers (-23.5), and Washington (-23.5) are all big favorites over MAC opponents, while USC (-27) plays Utah State and Oregon (-18) draws Boise State. The Ducks struggled to beat FCS foe Idaho last week while Boise State is gunning to add a resume building non-conference win to bolster a potential playoff spot. I will keep an eye on that score on Saturday night.

The remaining five Big Ten schools have what should be competitive home games against other Power Four teams. Nebraska (-6.5) hosts Colorado, Northwestern (-2.5) hosts Duke, Iowa (-3) hosts Iowa State, and Illinois (+5) hosts Kansas.

While the Big Ten teams are favored in three of those four games, I am inclined to say that a 2-2 record is the most likely result.

The biggest game of the weekend nationally takes place in Ann Arbor as Michigan (+5.5) hosts Texas in an early showdown of top 10 teams with playoff aspirations. The winner will get a boost in the polls and in confidence, but the stakes are clearly higher for the Wolverines.

Fair or not, Michigan's performance against Texas in the post Stalions/Harbaugh era will either be an indictment or a validation of the past three years of Wolverine football and the impact of their... creative scouting techniques.

If the Wolverines win, the sound of the chest beating emanating from the Maize and Blue faithful will be deafening. But if the Wolverines lose, further doubt and an even darker, asterisk-shape cloud will fall over the trophy case in Ann Arbor.

If Michigan can beat a Top 5 team now that both Connor Stalions and Jim Harbaugh have moved on, it would be a tremendous validation for the program. Wolverine fans would beat their collective chests, request official apologies from all rival fans and media members who ever doubted the validity of their National Title, demand the resignation and incarceration of Big Ten and NCAA officials, and proclaim the 2023 Michigan Wolverines to be the greatest collection of athletes ever assembled in any sport.

But if the Wolverines were to lose at home to Texas and especially if the game isn't close, the aftermath would be quite different. For a large portion of college football fans, the loss would provide further evidence of the effectiveness of the "impermissible scheme" deployed by the Wolverines since 2021. 

It would call into serious question the validity of the 2023 title. It would suggest not only that Michigan is a program now on the decline, but that the accomplishments and success of the program over the past three years wasn't actually real in the first place. Rival fanbases would have a field day.

In other words, no matter what happens in Ann Arbor this weekend, I am inclined to believe that it will be highly entertaining.

Other Notable National Action

Table 2 below summarizes the notable action in the rest of the college football scene in Week 2. 

Table 2: Summary of other notable action in Week Two, including my algorithms' projected scores. Teams shaded red are predicted to cover by ESPN's metric. Teams shaded in green are predicted to cover by my algorithm (or by both metrics).

Outside of the showdown in Ann Arbor, the national slate is fairly light in Week Two. Several conference dark horse candidates will face mild tests again other Power Four schools.

Oklahoma State (-9.5) and Kansas State (-11) will both have a chance to show that they are Big 12 contenders if they can handle Arkansas and a road game at Tulane, respectively. SMU (-11.5) will attempt to redeem themselves against BYU for the poor Week One outing and show that they can contend in the ACC.

Similarly, Kentucky (-8) and Tennessee (-6.5) will both try to show that they will at least be a speed bump on the road to the SEC title in games against South Carolina and North Carolina State, respectively.

What might be more interesting in Week Two, however, will be the action in the Group of Five. As mentioned previously, Boise State (+18) and Tulane (+11) will both have golden opportunities to score upset wins over Power Four conference contenders Oregon and Kansas State. 

Appalachian State (+17) gets a similar shot at glory at Clemson this weekend. While the challenge is no where near as steep, Memphis (-16) gets the chance to earn a victory over a usually solid Sun Belt contender in Troy to establish themselves as a contender in the AAC.

Picks of the Week

The sections above highlighted several potential upsets and recommended picks against the spread. Figure 1 below gives an overview summary of all of my computer's projections for the week in comparison to the opening Vegas spread. The same data generated by EPSN's Football Power Index is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 1: Comparison of the projected final margins of victory based on my algorithm to the opening Vegas lines for Week Two.

Figure 2: Comparison of the projected final margins of victory based on ESPN's FPI to the opening Vegas lines for Week Two.

A brief explanation of how to read these figures can be found in last week's Bad Betting Advice column. This week's upset picks (the games appearing to the left of the vertical red lines in both figures) are summarized below in Table 3.

Table 3: Summary of upset picks for Week Two

Together the computers are inclined to suggest a total of six upsets, the majority of which involve only Group of Five teams. In the Power Four, Texas Tech and Cincinnati are the teams on upset alert in Week Two. A simple simulation of the week's games suggest that a total of 10.6 plus-or-minus 2.6 upsets is most likely.

The games shown above in Figures 1 and 2 which fall outside of either set of dashed diagonal lines make up the set of suggested bets against the spread. Those selections are summarized below in Table 4.

Table 4: Picks against the opening spread for Week Two. The picks are listed in order of confidence score.

My computer has just two recommendations this week: Appalachian State (+17) to cover versus Clemson and Louisville (-26.5) to cover against Jacksonville State. 

My analysis of the FPI data provides an additional 12 recommendations, including Western Michigan (+38.5) to cover against Ohio State, Tulane (+11) to cover against Kansas State, Tennessee (-6.5) to cover against North Carolina State, and Arkansas (+9.5) to cover against Oklahoma State.

Finally, Table 5 below summarizes my computer's recommended point total bets for the week.

Table 5: Recommended total points bets (over/under) for Week Two. Note that the picks labeled as "locks" are at a higher level of confidence.

The data in Week Two is weird due to the very limited information that college football fans have in general. My method to make point total bets has also struggled recently and the result is a huge number of suggestions. I would decline the invitation to take this data seriously and I would instead consider Table 5 to be a reference at best and for entertainment value only until more data is available.

That is all the advice I have for you this week. Until next time, sit back, recline, and enjoy the games.

Social Media Copy

Everyone knew that the Spartans would have an uphill climb in 2024, but just one week into the season, the path seems even more steep. Hopefully this week's betting advice from Dr. Green and White (@paulfanson) is more level-headed.