Coming into Week Eight, the fans of both of the in-state Big Ten schools were saying the same things about the bye week. Both teams were coming off at least one loss, and both teams had hope, faith, or the wish that the extra week of rest would provide the cure to want was ailing them.
Wolverine fans were hoping that Jack Tuttle was going to be the answer at quarterback, the running game would continue to be explosive, and that the defense would keep them in every game.
Spartan fans were hoping that Aidan Chiles would be able to cut down on mistakes, that the run game would start to get some traction, and that the defense would look better again a team not ranked in the top three.
One fan base had their wishes granted on Saturday. The other watched their dreams disintegrate in front of them.
In both cases, all of the signs have been there for a while, for those who have been paying close enough attention. The Wolverines have looked shaky for weeks, relying on big plays, bad calls, and a bit of luck to scrape past teams like USC and Minnesota. The Maize and Blue are just a few plays away from a 2-5 record.
Meanwhile, the Spartans have shown signs of being close to a breakout. Chiles' talent is obvious. The run game showed periodic promise, and the defense has overachieved all year. The Spartans played a surprising good first 28 minutes against Ohio State. But they followed it up with three bad halves in a row against the Buckeyes and at Oregon.
After a little bit of rest and a return to Spartan Stadium, those pieces finally came together on Saturday night against a very solid Iowa team. The final score was not even that indicative of Michigan State's surprising dominance against the Hawkeyes. Michigan State had over twice as many first downs, twice the time of possession, almost 200 more yards of offense, and outside of one play, completely shut down Iowa's running attack.
Now, the Spartans' focus will turn entirely to that team down the road. The teams and the programs suddenly seem to be headed in completely different directions. The tables have once again turned. The Spartans are now the team who are looking to bolster their postseason position. The Wolverines are now the team fighting just to stay over .500.
At the official open to Rivalry Week, I wish that I could tell the Spartan faithful that a win over the Wolverines is in the bag, but we know that in this rivalry anything can happen. But if on Saturday night the two teams play anything like they did last weekend, the biggest wish on the minds Spartan fans will almost certainly come true.
Week Eight Bad Betting Results
Let's now check in on the picks that I made in last week's Bad Betting Advice article, starting with the overview summary shown below in Figure 1. More information about how to read this figure can be found in Week One's edition of Against All Odds.
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Figure 1: Results of Week Eight showing the actual point differentials relative to the opening spread.
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In Week Eight, seven teams overachieved by beating the spread by more than 14 points including Indiana, Navy, Southern Methodist, Florida, Kansas, Kansas State, and LSU. In contrast, Vanderbilt was the only team that failed to cover by more than 14 points and yet still won.
A total of 16 teams had their upset wishes granted, which was once again in agreement with my simulation's forecast of 16.7 upsets. Table 1 below summarizes those upsets and compares them to the picks made last week.
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| Table 1: Upsets in Week Eight based on the opening Vegas line compared to the upset projections from last week |
The biggest upset on the board was New Mexico State's win over Louisiana Tech (-10.5). Other notable upset winners other than the Spartans' win over Iowa (-5.5) were Georgia Southern over James Madison (-9) Maryland over USC (-8), UCLA over Rutgers (-7), TCU over Utah (-7), Georgia over Texas (-3.5), and Tennessee over Alabama (-1.5).
My computer went 4-5 (44%) for upset picks this week, bringing the year-to-date performance to 25-35 (41.7%). The FPI wishes it did as well, but it only went 1-4 (20%) bringing its year-to-date record to 16-18 (47%).
Table 2 below gives the results of the computers' picks against the opening spread.
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Table 2: Results of the highlighted picks against the spread for Week Eight.
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My computer had a tougher time against the spread. It went 1-6 (14%) in suggested bets and 24-35 (41%) overall. This brings the year-to-date performances to 26-23 (53%) and 212-192 (52.5%), respectively.
My curated set of FPI picks went 0-1 (0%) while the full set of FPI picks went 30-29 (51%). This brings the year-to-date performance for the FPI to 17-16 (51.5%) and 211-193 (52.2%), respectively.
Table 3 below gives the results of the point total bets for Week Eight.
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Table 3: Results of the recommended point total bets ("over/under") for Week Eight.
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While I wish the performance of my point total was a little better, it could be worse. My lock picks went 1-1 (50%) while the full collection of suggested bets went 3-4 (43%). This brings the year-to-date totals to 14-15 (48%) for the locks and 81-56 (59%) for the suggested bets.
Updated Big Ten Odds and Expected Wins
Following the results of Week Eight, I have re-run the full season Monte Carlo simulation using the updated power rankings, including the current uncertainty in those rankings, to update the season odds for each team. Table 4 below gives the update for the Big Ten conference and Table 5 shows the updated Big Ten win distribution matrix.
Note that all the rankings listed next to each team refer to my computer's power rankings and not the national polls.
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| Table 4: Updated Big Ten rankings, expected wins, strengths of schedule and season odds following Week Eight. |
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Table 5: Updated Big Ten win distribution matrix after Week Eight.
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With both No. 1 Ohio State and No. 10 Penn State on a bye week, there was not a lot of changes at the top of my Big Ten leaderboard. No. 6 Oregon (69%) was able to surge ahead of the Buckeyes (58%) for the best odds to make the Big Ten Championship Game after shutting out No. 103 Purdue.
No. 11 Indiana also make a big move. The undefeated Hoosiers (27.6%) annihilated No. 29 Nebraska and as a result edged ahead of the idle Nittany Lions.
The only other Big Ten team with better than a 10% chance to reach Indianapolis is No. 16 Wisconsin (11%). The Badgers crushed No. 76 Northwestern and are now on track to win eight games.
It should also be noted that the Spartans' win over No. 19 Iowa (1.3%) essentially knocked the Hawkeyes out of contention for a Big Ten title.
In other Big Ten action, No. 41 Illinois (3.3%) dashed the hopes of No. 49 Michigan (0.19%), but the Illini are still a long shot to make the Big Ten Championship game.
No. 43 Maryland snapped a two-game losing streak against No. 15 USC, while No. 74 UCLA picked up its first ever Big Ten win on the road at No. 69 Rutgers. Just getting to bowl eligibility will be a challenge for all four of those teams.
Remaining Schedule for Michigan State
As expected, the season prospects for the Spartans look a lot brighter following the upset, homecoming win over Iowa.
Michigan State has risen to No. 44 in my power rankings. As shown in Table 4, my simulation currently gives Michigan State a 0.31% chance to make the Big Ten Championship Game, a 1-in-2,300 chance to win the Big Ten, a 1.3% chance to make the playoffs, and a 1-in-14,000 chance to win the National Championship.
The Spartans' expected win total is up to 6.64 while the odds to qualify for a bowl are now 84%. Those bowl odds are as high as they have been all year.
Figure 3 below gives my computer's updated projections for the point spreads and victory odds for the Spartans' remaining seven games. As a reference, the projected odds from my preseason calculations and the values from last week are also shown in Figure 3.
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| Figure 2: Updated odds and spread projections for Michigan State's remaining games, following Week Eight and based on a 80,000 cycle Monte Carlo simulation. The odds calculated last week are shown as a reference |
When the dust settled on Saturday night, three of Michigan State's upcoming games now look easier, while the remaining two games still look challenging.
Indiana continues to exceed expectations, and the Spartans home game against the Hoosiers (-9.5) projects to be the toughest game left on the schedule. The road game at Illinois (-4.5) is also going to be a challenge. The two teams both had good weekends, but so did Michigan State. These effects essentially cancel out.
By contrast, Purdue was shut out this weekend while Rutgers took a bad upset loss to UCLA. The forecasted spread for the final two games continue to move in Michigan State's favor. With Saturday's win over Iowa, the Spartans just need to beat those two teams to qualify for a bowl game.
That only leaves next week's game against the Michigan Wolverines. For the past several week's my forecasted spread for that game has hovered around eight or nine points. After the events of last weekend, my computer now has Michigan only favored by two points in their own stadium.
My computer would currently have Michigan State favored to beat the Wolverines on a neutral field. This is quite a shift from the projected 24.5-point spread in this match-up projected back in August. During the summer, a win over Michigan seemed like an almost impossible thing to wish for. Now, the teams don't seem so far apart at all.
The actual spread appears to have opened with the Wolverines favored by 6.5-points. Naturally, we will have a lot more to talk about this contest in the week to come.
National Overview
Before we end things, let's take a look at the full college football landscape and check in on the action that is most likely to impact the postseason hopes and dreams of the various FBS schools. Table 6 below is my updated college football playoff leaderboard following Week Eight.
The teams are listed in order of my projected odds for each team to make the playoffs. I have also included my power ranking, strength of record, strengths of schedule, conference championship odds, and national title odds, all based on the most recent results of my full-season simulation.
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Table 6: College Football playoff leaderboard following the action of Week Eight.
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The SEC race had some wild mood swings this past weekend. Three of the seven games ended in an upset, including No. 5 Georgia beating No. 2 Texas in Austin, and No. 9 Tennessee beating No. 4 Alabama at home.
As a result only No. 21 Texas A&M (which beat No. 59 Mississippi State) and No. 14 LSU (which beat No. 50 Arkansas) are undefeated in conference play. The race is a bit mixed up compared to the last few weeks.
My SEC leaderboard currently gives LSU (41.3%) and Texas (40.9%) the best odds to make it to the SEC Championship Game. Texas A&M (30.4%), Georgia (28.9%), and Tennessee (25.4%) are just behind the two favorites, and Alabama (14.5%) still with a shot.
Ironically, despite the fact the Georgia is currently not favored to make the SEC Championship Game, the Bulldogs have the best current odds to make the playoffs (85%) due in large part to the currently second-best strength of resume.
In Big 12 action, the top two teams on my leaderboard won, but both failed to cover. No. 7 Iowa State (75%) and No. 24 BYU (64.5%) both have a commanding lead in odds to make the Big 12 Championship game, but No. 17 Kansas State (25%) and No. 23 Colorado (23%) both made strides. The Wildcats covered easily at No. 52 West Virginia while the Buffalos upset No. 85 Arizona on the road.
In the ACC, No. 12 Miami (89%) stayed undefeated, thanks to a win at No. 20 Louisville (3%). As a result, the Hurricanes have a commanding lead on my ACC leaderboard while the Cardinals are now likely out of contention.
The race for the second spot in the ACC Championship Game is wide open. No. 31 SMU (39%) held onto the top spot thanks to a big win at Stanford. No. 18 Virginia Tech (26.5%) and No. 34 Clemson (24%) also saw the odds increase thanks to wins over No. 42 Boston College and No. 58 Virginia.
Finally, Table 7 gives an update on the most likely teams to also qualify for a spot in the playoffs from the Group of Five.
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Table 7: Group of Five Leaderboard following the action of Week Eight.
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The most significant result in the Group of Five world was No. 39 James Madison's upset loss at No. 55 Georgia Southern. As a result, the top four slots on my Group of Five leader board are held by members of the Mountain West and the American Athletic Conference (AAC).
No. 30 Boise State seems to have benefited from some positive movement on the strength of schedule front. Despite the fact that the Broncos (33%) took the week off, they moved up five places in my power rankings and moved into first place on my Group of Five leaderboard. Fellow Mountain West member No. 45 UNLV (10.7%) now checks in in fourth place thanks to a win over No. 75 Oregon State.
In the AAC, undefeated No. 37 Army (20%) and undefeated No. 47 Navy (13%) have moved into the top two spots on the conference leaderboard as well as into second and third place in the chance for a playoff berth.
I calculate a 39% chance that we could have the bizarre situation where Army and Navy face off for the AAC Title and then play again the next weekend (and after Selection Sunday) in the traditional, non-conference, Army/Navy game. One of those two teams could then realistically play the weekend after that as the No. 12 seed in the playoffs. The most likely AAC scenario is that Army will face the winner of the Tulane at Navy contest scheduled for Nov. 16 for the ACC crown
Against all odds, we've made it to the end. I trust that it made all of your college-football-analysis-based wishes come true. I will be back in a few days for another installment of Bad Betting Advice. Stay tuned.
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Both MSU and the school down the road had high hopes that the bye week would be the cure for their problems. Only one team had their wish granted.
Click below to check in on last week's betting advice and all the other Big Ten and national action.
Not long ago, a bowl bid and a win over UofM both seemed like a wish for an impossible thing. Now, a bowl bid is within MSU's grasp and the two in-state schools do not seem so far apart. Check out more thoughts on this and my recap of the results and data from Week Eight:
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What a difference a week can make! It is really nice when you have a feeling that you perhaps understand the college football landscape a bit more clearly than others may. I had a gut feeling that the Spartans were poised for a breakout performance. I had a feeling that the extra week of rest, playing at home, and not having to play a team ranked in the top five would be helpful.
But I don't think that anyone was really prepared for how good MSU looked at Saturday night. Iowa is a solid team with a very good defense. MSU outgained them by almost 200 yards, never punted, and only had one turnover.
Even though the Spartans had to settle for seven field goal attempts, they still won by double-digits. Just two months into the Jonathan Smith era, the Spartans are already on the brink of fielding a very competitive Big Ten team.
With the win over Iowa, with Purdue terrible and with Rutgers fading fast, as we will see, the odds for a bowl game had gone up dramatically. The next few weeks will still be tough, but six wins, at least, is now very attainable.
And then there is the Michigan Wolverines. Boy, it is sure a shame was has happened to their season. Based on the reactions on social media, the Maize and Blue faithful have moved into the next phase of grieving and are close to accepting the fact that they just aren't very good... and maybe, just maybe, that little cheating scheme that they used was perhaps a bit more effective than they want to believe.
Nah...who am I kidding? They will never accept that. Honest self-reflection just isn't in their nature.
But we have all week to talk about that.
In the meantime, please enjoy this week's edition of Against All Odds.
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