This is the way the Michigan State season ends; not with a bang but a whimper.
It is certainly not the way that fans hoped or expected, but with Saturday's 41-14 loss to the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, the Spartan's 2024 football season is officially over.
In the aftermath of the loss, many Spartans fans were left with that hollow meaning and thus entered the anger and airing of grievances phase of the mourning process. Let it all out, folks. Yes, it hurts and it stinks, but this too shall pass.
We all experienced a roller coaster ride this season. But, as I look back at the last 14 weeks of college football, I come back to the old adage that rings true for me today:
Happiness is the difference between reality and expectation.
So the first thing for a fan to ask themselves is "what did you expect for the Spartans coming into this season?"
I can tell you what I thought, because I wrote about it back in August. Based on the data we had back then, Michigan State's expected win total was 4.85 and the odds to finish at 6-6 or better were just 36%. My simulation told me that the most likely single outcome for for the Spartans to finish at 5-7. That's exactly how things played out.
So while the final result of the season certain do not have me jumping for joy, they do not make me despondently sad either. The Spartans had an OK, C or C+ level season. It wasn't great, but it wasn't a disaster. If we consider where the program was 12 months ago, I will honestly take it.
The main problem is that Coach Smith and company provided an early taste of what the Spartans could, and perhaps should, look like like. Following the Week 8 win over Iowa, the Spartans were trending towards a record of 7-5 and an almost assured bowl berth (84% odds). Based on this start, fans had over-inflated expectations.
As injuries and some bad luck accumulated, the wheels came off in the final weeks of the season. Michigan State played like a top 50 bowl team in the first eight weeks of the season. In the final five weeks of the season, they played like a middle-of-the-pack MAC team.
But I am a glass-half-full kind of guy, and I think that it is important to focus on the positive. When the team was (more-or-less) healthy and rolling, the Spartans looks like a well-coached team with a solid foundation.
Michigan State looked like a team that could grow into a solid Big Ten program that could win seven to nine games every year. Michigan State looked like Iowa or Wisconsin. When a Big Ten team is rebuilding, that is the first goal.
When the Spartans get back to that level and stabilize, that is when it is time to start to cycle up as a potential Big Ten contender. That is the playbook that Mark Dantonio followed. Jonathan Smith is more than equipped to follow the same path.
He did it once already back in Corvallis, and he did it with far fewer resources and with recruiting classes ranked lower than what he now has in East Lansing. Cycling up to a solid team and then a contender is not just a dream. That is frankly what I expect to happen over the next several years, assuming that Coach Smith continues to get support from fans and the administration.
In the "misery loves company" category, I would also like to remind Spartan Nation that there are several teams which finished the season much farther below expectations than Michigan State. Just in the Big Ten there are teams like Maryland (4-8) and Wisconsin (5-7) who will also be spending the holidays at home watching the bowl games on television.
There are teams like USC (6-6) and Nebraska (6-6) who expected to contend for a Big Ten title, and there are teams like Michigan (7-5) who expected to contend for a playoff berth. Instead, those three teams are looking forward to which lower-tier bowl game they will be selected for.
Then there are teams like Oklahoma State (3-9), Utah (5-7), Kansas (5-7), and Florida State (2-10). Back in August, all four of those teams expected to win 10 games or more and also be conference champion and playoff contenders. All of their seasons came to an end on Saturday.
So, chins up Spartans fans. Things are not nearly as bad as they may seem. I still believe that the future is bright in East Lansing, even if some days the sun doesn't come out and if sometimes a little precipitation does fall.
Week 14 Bad Betting Results
Now let's check in on the picks that I made in last week's Bad Betting Advice article to see if they met expectations, 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 14 showing the actual point differentials relative to the opening spread.
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A total of 11 teams overachieved in Week 14 by beating the spread by more than 14 points including Indiana, Colorado, Arizona State, Texas Tech, Southern Methodist, Baylor, Louisville, and LSU. Mississippi and Georgia were the only schools that underachieved, yet still won.
There were a total of 17 upsets in Week 12, which was just below the expected value of 17.9 from my weekly simulation. Table 1 below summarizes those upsets and compares them to the picks made last week.
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Table 1: Upsets in Week 14 based on the opening Vegas line compared to the upset projections from last week.
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This week's biggest upset based on the opening spread was Michigan's win over Ohio State (-20.5), which qualifies as the fifth biggest upset of the regular season. Other notable upsets include Memphis over Tulane (-12.5), Syracuse over Miami (-10), South Carolina over Clemson (-3), and Minnesota over Wisconsin (-3).
My computer went 4-2 (67%) on upset picks which brings the year-to-date performance to 46-49 (48%). This is well above my expected target of 40%. The FPI went just 3-4 (43%) which brings the year-to-date total to 31-32 (49%). This performance is also well above expectations.
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 14.
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There was only one pick on the board this week, but Army just failed to cover over Texas San Antonio, which means both computers got it wrong. For the full week, my algorithm went 36-31 (54%). This brings the year-to-date performances to 30-32 (48%) for suggested bets and 378-362 (51%) overall.
The suggested bets finish the regular season a bit below expectations, while the full set of picks did OK, finishing one percentage point and 16 games over .500.
My FPI-based suggested bets finish the regular season solidly above expectations at 23-17 (57%). The full set of FPI picks went 34-33 (51%) this week. This brings the overall year-to-date performance for the FPI to 385-355 (52%), seven games better than my algorithm.
Table 3 below gives the results of the point total bets for Week 12.
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| Table 3: Results of the recommended point total bets ("over/under") for Week 14. |
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My point total bets finished the regular season on the whole a bit better than expected. The two locks went 1-1 (50%), while the full set of recommended picks went 2-4 (33%). This brings the year-to-date totals to 25-23 (52%) for the locks and 98-73 (57%) for the suggested bets.
Updated Big Ten Post-Season Outlook
Michigan's upset of Ohio State knocked the Buckeyes out of the Big Ten Championship Game and allowed Penn State to get the opportunity to face the Oregon Ducks for all the Big Ten marbles. The Nittany Lions cooked the Maryland Terrapins while the Ducks put down the Washington Huskies, as expected.
Indiana also managed to beat the head coach right out of the Purdue Boilermakers, and in doing so likely secured a spot in the college football playoff. At this point, Penn State and Oregon are playing for a first round bye and Ohio State and Indiana both seem safely "in."
Illinois beat in-state rivals Northwestern to move to 9-3 overall. The Fighting Illini are likely to earn a bid to the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl against an SEC team such as Mississippi.
Iowa came from behind to beat Nebraska to move to 8-4 overall. The Hawkeyes seem most likely bound for the ReliaQuest Bowl in Tampa (formerly the Outback Bowl) against an SEC team such as South Carolina.
Earlier in the week, the Big Ten seems likely to have as many as eight total teams with 6-6 records, which I expected would make bowl selection a real adventure. Instead, Michigan beat Ohio State, Minnesota beat Wisconsin, and Rutgers beat Michigan State. The final two games knocked the Badgers and Spartans out of the bowl picture.
As a result, Michigan (7-5) and Minnesota (7-5) appear to be in line for the Duke's Mayo Bowl in Charlotte and the Music City Bowl in Nashville. My guess is that Michigan goes to the Duke's Mayo Bowl against an ACC team such as Miami. That would leave the Golden Gophers to face an SEC team such as Florida in Nashville.
This leaves only Rutgers (7-5) and Nebraska (6-6) as the remaining non-west coast bowl eligible teams. The next bowl in the pecking order is the Pinstripe Bowl in New York City. Rutgers played there last year, which leads me to believe that the Corn Huskers will get the nod this year against an ACC team such as Louisville.
I project Rutgers to end up in the Rate Bowl in Phoenix against a Big 12 opponent such as TCU.
USC (6-6) and Washington (6-6) will also being going bowling in one of the games with ties to the old Pac-12. I project USC to the Las Vegas Bowl to face an SEC team such as Texas A&M and Washington to play in the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl against an ACC team such as Virginia Tech.
National Overview
I have spent a lot of time over the past 14 weeks crunching numbers, and one of my main goals was to predict which teams from each conference would square off in the respective conference championship games. After last weekend, those match-ups are now settled.
It was a fairly drama-free weekend in the SEC. Georgia clinched a spot in the SEC Championship Game last weekend, and the Bulldogs barely survived in seven overtimes against Georgia Tech this week. No matter, the Dawgs are safely in the playoffs and will face Texas for the SEC title. The Longhorns finished SEC play alone in first place thanks to a comfortable win at Texas A&M.
The only other notable outcome was South Carolina's mild upset win over Clemson. The Gamecocks finished SEC in a six-way tie for fourth place at 5-3. Four of those 5-3 teams are 9-3 overall (Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Missouri) and any of those teams could make a case for a playoff berth.
In ACC action, Miami has been dodging bullets all season, and the Hurricanes were bit again by the upset bug in their visit to Syracuse. As a result, the Hurricanes have been knocked out of the ACC Title game and their playoffs hopes are now in serious jeopardy. Instead, Clemson will face Southern Methodist (11-1) for a playoff berth.
Most of the conference drama in the final weekend was in the Big 12 where at least eight teams had a chance to make the conference title game. The four teams that started the weekend in first place all won, resulting in the four-way tie between Iowa State, Arizona State, BYU, and Colorado.
The tiebreakers result in Iowa State and Arizona State making the Big 12 Championship game. The winner will get the only playoff spot for the conference. The only question is if the Cyclones or Sun Devils will get a first-round bye. That will depend on what happens in the Group of Five.
Speak of which, Boise State beat Oregon State this weekend to finish the regular season at 11-1. In the American Athletic Conference, Tulane (9-3) was upset by Memphis. As a result, the winner of the Mountain West Championship Game between Boise State and UNLV (10-2) is likely to secure a spot in the playoffs regardless of what happens in the other four Group of Five Championship Games.
Playoff Prediction
In order to make a prediction about the final playoff bracket (which is the only bracket that matters) it is first necessary to project which team will win each conference championship game. Here is what my computer expects to happen:
--Penn State upsets Oregon to win the Big Ten
--Texas beats Georgia to win the SEC
--SMU beats Clemson to win the ACC
--Iowa State beats Arizona State to win the Big 12
--Boise State beats UNLV to win the Mountain West
In order to help generate the final bracket, I have refined my own version a college football playoff ranking, which is shown below in Table 4:
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| Table 4: The Dr. Green and White College Football Playoff Rankings at the end of the regular season |
The ranking is based on a blending of my power rankings, which as a predictive metric and my calculated strength of resume metric, which is a results-based metric.
Based on this table and the current college football playoff rankings, Penn State, Oregon, Ohio State, Texas, Georgia, Notre Dame, and Tennessee are all locks for the playoffs. I think Indiana is also very safe.
In the above scenario, SMU, Iowa State, and Boise State would also earn a bid. This leaves just one spot available for either Miami or one of the 9-3 SEC teams (Alabama, Mississippi, or South Carolina). If Clemson beats SMU in the ACC Champion Game, the Mustangs would also squarely be on the bubble.
My analysis is not as favorable towards Boise State or UNLV as the committee's current ranking. I would not have any of the Group of Five Champions ranked ahead of the Big 12 Champion. I would also take Army (if the Black Knights win the AAC) over UNLV, but that is not the direction that the committee seems to be headed.
As for the potential bubble teams, I also have SMU ranked below both Alabama and South Carolina. If the Mustangs lose to Clemson, I would take Alabama as my last team in. To me, this is the last big question that the committee needs to answer.
That all said, based on my projected conference champions above, here is my current playoff bracket:
No. 1 Texas
---No. 8 Ohio State
---No. 9 Tennessee
No. 4 Iowa State
---No. 5 Oregon
---No. 12 Alabama
No. 3 Southern Methodist
---No. 6 Georgia
---No. 11 Boise State
No. 2 Penn State
---No. 7 Notre Dame
---No. 10 Indiana
Note that I took some liberties here with the seeding that the committee says that they will not take. I gave Iowa State a bye when that is unlikely to happen and I swapped Alabama and Boise State to avoid regular season rematches. This is the bracket that teams and fans deserve, but it is unlikely the bracket that we would get, in this scenario.
Against all odds I have reached the end of the regular season. I hope that I always live up to your expectations. Michigan State's season may be over, but I will continue to provide potentially dubious financial advice and other math-based analysis on the remainder of the college football season. Stay tuned.
Social Media Copy:
The season ended in disappointment for the Spartans, but that doesn’t mean that the season was a failure. According the #math, MSU met expectations, barely. More on that here, as well as the results from the regular season finale of Dr. G&W’s Bad Betting Advice
The season ended in disappointment for the Spartans, but that doesn’t mean that the season was a failure. According the #math, MSU met expectations, barely, and happiness is the difference between reality and expectations. More on that here, as well as the results from the regular season finale Bad Betting Advice.
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