Against All Odds, 2025 Week Eight: The Pursuit of Happiness
I know that in my life and am I glad that I have the liberty to pursue the knowledge that sports analytics offer. What can I say? It's make me happy.
If I am being completely honest, I am confused by many of the things that I have read and seen about Michigan State Football over the past few weeks.
There is no denying that the results on the field have been frustrating and disappointing so far this season. But the sad truth is that the results are also not that surprising. In case you have forgotten, allow me to refresh your memory about some of the details from my preseason analysis back in August.
The experts in Las Vegas set the Spartans' regular win total over/under at 5.5 wins. My simulation of the full season gave a value of 5.26 win. Additional calculations revealed that Michigan State had a 43% chance to reach a bowl game.
The odds for a 3-9 record or worse were 21%. The odds for a 4-8 record or worse were 38%. After seven games, the expected win total was 3.66 wins.
These calculations tacitly assumed that the Spartans would have neutral luck both on the field and with injuries. It can be argued that a few teams on the Michigan State schedule including Boston College, UCLA, and Penn State are a lot worse than expected. That's true.
But a peak at the current Michigan State injury report and a look at the current turnover margin (-3) suggests that the Spartans are overall on the negative side of the luck calculation.
When all this information is taken together, is the current 3-4 record for the Spartans actually a surprise?
As the saying goes, happiness is the difference between reality and expectation. The current reality is not great, but neither were the expectations. Back in the summer, everyone said that this season could be a struggle and that just making a bowl game would be progress. We all hoped and believe that Michigan State could overachieve. So far, that has not happened.
I am not saying that Spartan fans shouldn't be at liberty to feel disappointed, frustrated, or even angry. I am also not saying that Spartan fans should accept or embrace mediocrity. What I am saying is that Spartan fans need to accept reality and chill out just a little bit.
The reality is that Michigan State remains in the depths of a program rebuild. The program lost traction at the end of the Mark Dantonio era, and Mel Tucker effectively drove the program into the ditch. It is taking the tow truck longer than planned to arrive. Sometimes, patience is required. That's just life.
Furthermore, there are certainly a lot of fans with a right to be a lot sadder than Michigan State fans. Would it be better to be a fan of Penn State or Clemson right now? Those teams were supposed to compete for a national title instead of just fighting for a low-level bowl game.
How about teams like Florida, South Carolina, and Kansas State? Those teams started the season in the top 20. As of today, none of those teams are likely to reach the postseason. Would Spartan fans like to trade places with Wisconsin? The Badgers have scored a total of 20 points in their last four games combined.
For me, the current level of angst that I sense the Spartan fanbase is an overreaction. The danger of overreaction is that it can often make a bad situation even worse.
The modern college sports landscape has turned into a throw money-at-the-problem, instant-gratification pursuit of sports happiness. But having a winning football program is not an inalienable right and there is no magic wand to create one. It takes time to chase that dream. More often than we would like to admit, luck and other external factors play a key role in winning or losing. Programs that make impulsive decisions often wind up chasing their own tails.
If Michigan State were to fire part or all of the current coaching staff mid-season, as some talking heads are suggesting, would the Spartans be better or worse off in five years? Maybe Michigan State would roll a Yahtzee on the next coaching staff and become a top five team like Indiana. Sure. That's mathematically possible.
But as someone who is pretty good at math, I don't like those odds.
Week Eight Betting Results
Let's now shift focus to my pursuit of betting domination as written 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 the Week One edition of Against All Odds.
Figure 1: Results of Week Eight showing the actual point differentials relative to the opening spread.
A total of 12 teams overachieved by beating the spread by more than 14 points. This list includes Oregon, North Texas, Oklahoma, Northwestern, Central Florida, and Boise State. The only team to fail to cover the spread by 14 points, yet win, was Virginia.
A total of 17 teams were saddened by an upset loss in Week Eight. This is the most upsets of any week so far this season, but this value is very much in line with my prediction of 16.4 late last week. Table 1 below summarizes those upsets and compares them to the picks made last week.
Table 1: Upsets in Week Eight based on the opening Vegas line compared to the upset projections from last week.
The biggest upset of the week was UAB's upset of Memphis (-21). Other notable upsets in Week eight include Stanford over Florida State (-17.5), Louisville over Miami (-13), SMU over Clemson (-10.5), Arizona State over Texas Tech (-10), Minnesota over Nebraska (-5), BYU over Utah (-3), Missouri over Auburn (-2.5), and Georgia Tech over Duke (-2.5).
My algorithm met expectations this week, so I am fairly happy with it. My computer went 4-5 (44%) which brings the year to-date-performance to 26-35 (42.6%).
ESPN's FPI went 5-1 (83%) for the week. Someone in Bristol, Conn., is likely ecstatic about these numbers. But the year-to-date performance went up to just 16-25 (39%) which is still below expectations.
Table 2 below gives the results of the computers' picks against the opening spread.
Table 2: Results of the highlighted picks against the spread for Week Eight.
My algorithm was perfectly average this week, going 3-3 (50%) on its recommendations. This brings the year-to-date performance to 25-22 (53%). My analysis of the FPI data resulted in just one recommended pick against the spread, which was incorrect. ESPN's metric thus slips to 20-15 (57%) for the year.
Considering all 59 games this weekend, my computer went a joyous 33-26 (56%) against the opening spread, bringing the year-to-date total to 199-212 (48%). The FPI did not do as well, going 26-33 (44%) against the spread. This brings the year-to-date performance down to 195-216 (47%).
Table 3 below gives the results of the point total bets for Week Eight.
Table 3: Results of the recommended point total bets ("over/under") for Week Eight.
The point total bets continue to be a sad disappointment. This week the lock picks went 3-4 (43%) which brings the year-to-date performance to 15-18 (46%).
The full set of recommended bets went 3-6 (33%) this weekend, bringing the overall performance for the year to 67-75 (47%).
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 in the table and mentioned below refer to my computer's power rankings and not any of the national polls.
