Bad Betting Advice, 2025 Week One: Wise Fools

Sophomore. 

Noun: A student in the second year at college or a 4-year secondary school.

Adjective: Being or associated with the second in a series.

Etymology: Perhaps from Greek sophos wise + mōros foolish. In other words, a sophomore is a "wise fool."

On Friday night, head coach Jonathan Smith will lead the Michigan State Spartans into the sophomore season of his tenure in East Lansing. Just like the first day of class for a teenager, it's a pretty big deal. The emotions will be similar for Spartan fans, as Friday night brings a combination of both excitement and anxiety as Michigan State open the season against the Western Michigan Broncos.

The first year of any new endeavor or new place can be difficult. One has to learn about the culture, the traditions, the people, and they must navigate their way around in an unfamiliar environment. The Michigan State season in 2024 at times had the vibe that the new kids on the block were just trying to find their footing.

But by the second year, things are usually a bit more stable. One usually starts to feel more settled and in control. One year older means one year wiser. One more year of experience should result in improved performance.

For Smith and his Spartans, the sophomore season oozes with potential. The roster has once again been retooled on both sides of the ball. The Spartans will be led by second-year starter Aidan Chiles at the quarterback position and rising start sophomore Nick Marsh at wide receiver. This duo has the potential to be dynamic, especially behind a deep and healthy offensive line. This pair alone is enough is reason enough to be optimistic about the future for the Green and White.

But Spartans fans know that it would be foolish to get too excited before a single snap has been played in the 2025 season. It has been three full yeas since the Green and White have enjoyed a game in the post season. The schedule this year is daunting and no matter what the score board reads late Friday night, there are many more challenges just around the bend.

Either way, 2025 is a big year for Smith, his staff, and his players. The sophomore year is often a time to set the precedent and expectation for the years to come. Will the Spartans be the jocks, the class clowns, or the burnouts? Fair or not, the result of the 2025-26 campaign will cause many to judge whether the hiring of Jonathan Smith was wise or foolish.

Michigan State Prediction

The Spartans lead the overall series with Western Michigan, 15-2. The Broncos' last win came over a century ago in 1919. Michigan State has won all 12 matchups with Western Michigan since the series restarted in 1980. In the seven contests with the Broncos this century, the Spartans have won by an average of 21 points and are 5-2 against the spread (ATS).

The Vegas line for the game opened at -17.5 for the Spartans and has increased to -21 at the time of press. The current point total line sits at 49.5 points. Based on this data, my model gives Michigan State a 89% to win the first game Jonathan Smith's sophomore campaign.

In this space, it is my tradition to always let the unbiased and cold microprocessor in my laptop make my official pick about the game outcome. As it turns out, my machine is slightly more optimistic than Vegas.

I have the Spartans favored by a few more points (22.2 to be exact) and my model expects a few more points to be scored. My official final score prediction is Michigan State 39 Western Michigan 17. In other words, my computer thinks that it is wise to take the Spartans against the spread as well as the over on points.

Big Ten Overview

Table 1 below gives a summary of the action in the Big Ten in Week One. This table summarizes my predicted score for each Big Ten game, the opening Vegas line, the line projected by both my algorithm and ESPN's FPI, my computer's project point total (which for Week One is simply the historically average number of points scored per game in college football), and my recommended picks against the spread and straight-up (more on this later).

Table 1: Summary of Big Ten action in Week One, 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.

All 18 Big Ten teams are in action this week. Three teams face FCS opponents and an additional 12 Big Ten schools are facing teams from the Group of Five conferences.

Of those 15 games against lower-level opponents, the Big Ten team if favored by at least 20 points in seven of those games and by at least 14 points in six additional games. Note that while games against FCS opponents usually do not have published betting lines, it is possible to estimate point spreads using data from systems such as Bill Connelly's SP+.

Notably, three Big Ten teams hosted MAC opponents on Thursday night and Nebraska squared off with Cincinnati (+6.5) in Kansas City. All four teams won, but none of the four covered the spread. The collection of teams from the MAC make up three of the top four teams according to the preseason rankings, so I am not shocked that those games were closer than expected.

Purdue is hosting Ball State (+16.5) and Michigan State also faces a MAC opponent tonight. We will see if the Big Ten continues to struggle against the spread against these in-state Group of Five opponents.

In other Big Ten action, UCLA finds themselves as the underdog at home against Utah (-3.5). Northwestern is an even bigger underdog on the road at Tulane (-7). 

The highlight of the weekend and perhaps the entire nonconference season is Texas at Ohio State (-3) at noon at Saturday. Both teams are legitimate national title contenders. I even projected this pair of teams to eventually meet early next year in the National Semifinals.

As for Saturday's game, both my model and ESPN's FPI have Texas covering. My computer forecasts a narrow escape by the Buckeyes while ESPN is picking Texas in a mild upset. 

Other Notable National Action

With the exception of Stanford, every FBS team is in action in Week One. A total of 47 teams will open the season with an FCS opponent, leaving 44 total games involving two FBS teams. Of those 44 games, there are only 17 contests with an opening spread under 10 points. As a result, there are only a handful of games that are likely to have an impact on the greater college football landscape.

Table 2 below gives a summary of the where the key action will be taking place across beyond the Big Ten in the full opening weekend of the college football season.

Table 2: Summary of other notable action in Week One, including my algorithms' projected scores.

The top five games in Table 2 involve SEC teams playing other Power Four opponents. While four of the five SEC teams are favored, the largest spreads are just 12.5-points meaning all five have the potential to get interesting.

Alabama (-12.5), Tennessee (-12.5), and South Carolina (-9.5) all plan to be in the conversation for an SEC Title. All three teams will likely face somewhat of a test at Florida State, versus Syracuse and versus Virginia Tech.

The other two SEC teams are playing in games that are virtual tossups. LSU travels to Clemson (-3) and the winner will earn some early-season momentum. I am more interested, however, in Auburn at Baylor (+2.5) on Friday night. My preseason analysis has Baylor as the surprise Big 12 Champion and top five seed in the playoffs. Despite being a slight home underdog, my computer likes the upset.

Another game with early playoff implications is Notre Dame at Miami (+2.5) on Sunday night. I have both teams in the playoffs, but I also have Miami as the Irish's only loss on the season. If the Hurricanes cannot pull the upset at home, Notre Dame could be on track for an undefeated regular season and the No. 1 seed in the playoffs.

In a game of less consequence, TCU travels to North Carolina (-2) in a Power Four matchup that should be highly competitive.

The final three games in Table 2 are the highlighted games in the Group of Five in addition to Northwestern at Tulane (-7) as discussed above. Louisiana has an outside chance to make a run at the Sun Belt Title and could use a win over Rice (+14.5) to get things started.

Toledo has a huge opportunity on the road at Kentucky (-9.5) to earn a Power Four upset which would launch the Rockets into the playoff conversation. Toledo is likely to be favored in the each of the next 11 games.

Boise State was the prohibitive favorite to win the Mountain West and to earn a second consecutive trip to the playoffs. However, this pick now looks a bit foolish as the Bronco got blown at a South Florida on Thursday night, 34-7. This means that the race for the Mountain West title and the race for the Group of Five bid to the playoffs are now both wide open.

Picks of the Week

Every week in this space, I plan to share the most current calculations from my computer in regards to the my projected margins of victory in every game involving two FBS teams. Over the years, I have developed a method that allow me to use the result of my calculations to make educated recommendations for upset picks, picks against the spread, and point total (over/under) picks.

So if you are asking who to bet on this weekend or in the weekends to come, I am here to help.

Figure 1 below gives an overview summary of my computer's projections for the week in comparison to the opening Vegas spread.

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

This figure contains a lot of information. Each data point represents a single game where the Vegas spread is on the x-coordinate and the margin of victory predicted by my algorithm in on the y-coordinate. At first glance it is striking how much agreement there is in the two data sets, as the points generally cluster around the solid diagonal. This line represents the situation where my algorithm perfectly agrees with the opening point spread.

Any data point that lies above the solid diagonal line represents a game were my algorithm suggests that the favored team will cover the spread, and vice versa. There is also a pair of dotted diagonal lines both above and below the solid line. 

I have tracked the performance of my algorithm over a 14 year span. In that time, I determined that when the prediction of my algorithm differs from the point spread by more the 12.2 points, my algorithm can correctly predict the team which will cover the spread a significant percentage of the time. 

The dotted lines represent this threshold. When a data point falls outside of these dotted line, my algorithm triggers a "recommended bet" for that game. Over the past eight years, this method has correctly picked the winner against the spread (ATS) 52.9% of the time (328-292). 

Figure 1 also features a vertical red line on the left side of the figure corresponding to a spread of zero. Any data point that falls to the left of that line indicates a game where my algorithm predicts an upset relative to the opening spread. Historically, my algorithm correctly predicts an upset 43.3% of the time, which is notably better than a random number generator experiment that I ran several years ago (36%).

As a comparison, I conduct the same analysis using data from ESPN's FPI. Figure 2 below is the result of this analysis for Week One.

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

My analysis of FPI data over a similar time period led to the conclusion that a deviation of only 7.25 points between the FPI and the Vegas spread is enough to trigger a recommended bet. So Figure 1 and Figure 2 can be interpreted the same way, but here the dotted lines are close to the central, solid diagonal line.

While Figures 1 and 2 give a nice visual summary of the full week, it is difficult to spot all of the recommended bets in both figure. So, I will summarize those in the table below, starting with the upset picks In Table 3.

Table 3: Summary of upset picks for Week One.

In total, the two algorithms predict a total of 10 upsets in Week One, including three of the marquee games listed above and two games involving Big Ten teams. My computer likes Baylor, Miami, and TCU in upset fashion. The FPI agrees on the Baylor and TCU selections and adds upsets by UCLA, Colorado, and Texas.

Out of 44 total games in Week One involving FBS teams, a simulation of the week predicts that 9.6 plus-or-minus 2.6 upsets are most likely overall.

Table 4 below summarizes the recommended bets ATS for Week One, based on Figures 1 and 2.

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

None of the games on the schedule triggered a recommended wager against the spread (ATS) from my computer, but my analysis of the FPI data results in 10 suggestions for Week One. They are listed in order of confidence, which is essentially the average distance in Figures 1 and 2 between the data point for the game and the central diagonal line.

Interestingly, the FPI is betting on the underdog to cover in all 10 cases. Some of the notable picks from the table include Florida Atlantic to cover +17.5 at Maryland, Ball State to cover +16.5 at Purdue, Old Dominion to cover +23.5 at Indiana, Georgia State to cover +36.5 at Mississippi, and Marshal to cover +38.5 at Georgia.

I am not sure that it is wise to take the advice in Table 4, as it looks like some sort of systematic error in ESPN's algorithm, but this is what the raw data says. We will check back on the FPI's performance early next week.

Finally, Table 5 below provides a set of recommended bets against the point totals for Week One.

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

This is only the fourth year where I have tracked over/under data and so far the results have been mixed. My computer was well over .500 for these picks in 2022, especially for my higher confidence "locks." Based on this performance, I felt that it would be wise to explore this set of bets more.

But the point picks in 2023 were well below .500, which made me feel rather foolish. Fortunately, this picks rebounded nicely last year. Over the past three years the full table of recommended point total bets have a record of 316-278 (53.2%). Over the same timeframe, the locks are 129-107 (54.7%). 

That is all the advice that I have for you this week. Until next time, enjoy the games.