It is just Week Three of the 2024 college football season and already a lot has happened. It seems like a good time to have a seat on the couch, maybe with some friends (young and old), and talk about the hot topics of the college football season so far. Maybe I'll tell a few jokes along the way.
We have already seen a few crazy upsets. "Are you telling mr that Florida State lost to Georgia Tech in Ireland and then lost at home to Boston College?" and "Notre Dame lost to Northern Illinois as a 30-point favorite?"
There are a few potentially surprising conference contenders. "Could USC actually win the Big Ten? Is Tennessee a legit SEC contender? Is it possible that UNLV will make the playoffs?"
And there have been a few other teams that been disappointing. "Wow, Michigan sure looked bad against Texas. I wonder what's changed since last year?"
Well, maybe that last one is only disappointing (or surprising) to some people.
Then there is the Michigan State Spartans. The Green and White didn't even look like the same team from Week One to Week Two. The improvement, especially on offense was stark. It was enough to get Spartan fans talking:
"Can Jonathan Smith actually get this team to a bowl game?" But also: "Will they actually be healthy enough to field a team to play in a bowl game if they qualify?"
Of course, time will only tell. But I know that from where I sit things certainly look brighter than they did just a week ago. Football season is fun again in East Lansing. For the first time a while, Spartan fans have some tangible evidence that the future might be bright.
MSU Prediction
Unfortunately, fans are unlikely to learn much that is new about the Spartans in Week Three. The opponent this week is the Prairie View A&M Panther from the Football Champions Subdivision (FCS). The Spartans are currently 9-0 all time against FCS opponents.
The Panthers represent a historical black college located in the city of Prairie View, Texas with a total enrollment of around 10,000 students. For the point of view of a Big Ten school, PVAM seems to quality as a little school on the prairie.
As for the football skills of the Panthers, Bill Connelly's SP+ metric ranks them No. 95 out of 129 total schools in the FCS. If I use a little mathematical magic, I can project a point spread of 36 points and an upset probability of just 0.6%.
This week's game for the Spartans should simply be a tune up in preparation for a much more challenging gauntlet over the next six weeks. Hopefully it will provide a chance for some of the dinged-up players to rest and for some of the younger players to get some meaningful snaps.
As for my official prediction, my computer spits out a score of 40-4. But those are tricky numbers to get to on a real football field, so I will instead go with Michigan State 41, Prairie View A&M 3.
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 differentials.
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| Table 1: Summary of Big Ten action in Week Three, 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. |
The top three Big Ten teams in my most recent power rankings (Ohio State, USC, and Penn State) will all be watching games with a view from the couch this week, along with everyone's friends, the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers.
Northwestern and Nebraska also are huge favorites over FCS teams, while Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota are all at least two-touchdown favorites over Group of Five teams. My computer likes the Big Ten teams to cover in all four of the FBS-matchups.
Purdue (+12.5) and Wisconsin (+15.5) are both double digit underdogs to Notre Dame and Alabama respectively, but both the Boilermakers and the Badgers are at home and facing teams that did not look particularly good in Week Two. Both games might provide interesting viewing.
The remaining four games on the schedule all offer some intrigue. On the east coast, Maryland (-2) is a surprisingly narrow favorite at Virginia. I personally felt that the Terrapins played a solid game last week against Michigan State while Virginia barely squeaked past Wake Forest. The computers and I expect Maryland to win and cover.
On the west coast Indiana, will be the first traditional Big Ten school to go to the Pacific Time Zone to play a conference game. The Hoosiers will face UCLA in the Rose Bowl. Somehow, Indiana is a 2.5-point favorite. While my calculations agree, I did not have that on my BINGO card at the beginning of the season.
Finally, both Washington and Oregon will face their traditional in-state rivals this weekend as the Huskies host Washington State (+4), while the Ducks make the short journey to Oregon State (+14).
My computer could not view these two games more differently. It has Washington winning by three touchdowns and Oregon State pulling an upset. Either way, it will likely be something to dish about next week.
Other Notable National Action
Table 2 below summarizes the notable action in the rest of the college football scene in Week 2.
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| Table 2: Summary of other notable action in Week Three including my algorithms' projected scores. |
Big Ten contenders are not the only teams that will effectively be on the couch this week. I see only a handful of games that are likely to impact the national scene, most of which involve SEC teams.
I doubt if either LSU or South Carolina (+7.5) are legitimate SEC or playoff contenders, but the game in Columbia this week could be a fun one. Similarly, Texas A&M needs to demonstrate at Florida (+4) that the Aggies' loss to Notre Dame in Week One was not just a contest between two bad teams. My computer likes both home teams in upset wins.
In the Big 12, Arizona travels to Kansas State (-7) in a previously scheduled non-conference match-up of teams that are now in the same conference. In the preseason I thought both teams would compete for the conference crown. Although the results will not impact the Big 12 standings, they will provide a view on which team is a contender and which is a pretender.
The biggest game to keep an eye on for Michigan State fans this week is Boston College at Missouri (-15.5). The Eagle are off to a surprisingly good start in 2024 and will play host to the Spartans next weekend. Boston College's performance against a top ten Missouri team on the road will significantly affect our view of the Spartans' chances to potentially start the season 4-0.
The remaining five games on my radar this week all involve Group of Five teams with opportunities to score resume-building, non-conference wins.
Last week I thought Appalachian State was going to push or even beat Clemson to stake a claim on a potential playoff spot. Instead, the Mountaineers got blown out by 46 points. This week, App State (-3) is still favored at East Carolina, but the computers like the Pirates in an upset.
Texas State was instead the Sun Belt team who turned heads last week with a 39-point win over presumed American Athletic Conference (AAC) contender Texas San Antonio. This week the Bobcats (+3) have a shot at an even more impressive resume builder at Arizona State.
Currently, UNLV out of the Mountain West sit at the top of my Group of Five leaderboard. The Rebels can cement their presence their if they can get an upset win at Kansas (-8).
I currently do not see a clear path for a team out of the AAC to earn the playoff spot from the Group of Five teams. That said, Memphis (+5) and Tulane (+14.5) both have opportunities at Florida State and at Oklahoma, respectively. My computer sees both of those games being much closer than the spreads suggest.
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 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.
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| Figure 2: Comparison of the projected final margins of victory based on ESPN's FPI to the opening Vegas lines for Week Three. |
A brief explanation of how to read these figures can be found in Week One'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.
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| Table 3: Summary of upset picks for Week Three. |
As a point of order, I should mention that for this week's picks, I made a tweak of sorts to my model. I historically do not track or consider the results of games between FBS and FCS teams. Previously, I simply did not have a way to do it, but I few years ago I worked out a scheme using SP+ rankings to approximate a power ranking for each FCS opponent.
For last week's official picks, I decided to ignore the FCS data, and the results were not good. In fact, they were downright bad. But when I looked at the hypothetical picks using the FCS data, the results were much better.
So, this week I am turning on the FCS-FBS game results for good. As Table 3 shows, my algorithm seems a bit frisky with six total upset picks, including some big ones: Oregon State over Oregon, South Carolina over LSU, and Florida over Texas A&M. The FPI agrees with two of my picks and adds in Pittsburgh upsetting West Virginia.
A simple simulation of the week's games suggests that a total of 11.2 plus-or-minus 2.8 upsets out of 52 games 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
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| Table 4: Picks against the opening spread for Week Three. The picks are listed in order of confidence score. |
My computer suggests a total of 13 bets against the spread while my analysis of the FPI data supplies four additional recommendations. Some notable picks are for East Carolina (+3) to cover against Appalachian State, Washington (-4) to cover against Washington State, Alabama (-15.5) to cover against Wisconsin, Purdue (+12.5) to cover against Notre Dame, and Illinois (-18) to cover against Central Michigan.
Finally, Table 5 below summarizes my computer's recommended point total bets for the week.
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| Table 5: Recommended total points bets (over/under) for Week Three. Note the picks labeled as "locks" are at a higher level of confidence. |
The inclusion of the FCS data does not impact the point total bets. That said, my view on the accuracy of these recommendations is still in flux. My computer does provide 21 total suggestions, three of which meet the criteria of highest confidence "locks," but the actual performance is still up for debate.
That is all the advice I have for you this week. Until next time, I hope that you enjoy some spirited conversation on the couch as you enjoy the week's action. I will be back early next week to give my view on everything that went down and what it all means.
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