Against All Odds 2025, Week One: Fine Wine
Now that the college football, vintage 2025 has been uncorked and we have seen the action, it's time to swirl, sniff, sip, and savor the results in order to reflect on what we learned about Michigan State and the broader college football landscape.
The beginning of a new college football season is like opening an unfamiliar bottle of fine wine. One is never quite sure what to expect.
Sure, you can take a pretty good guess as to what it might taste like. The brand, the age, the style, and the writing on the bottle gives an indication of what to expect. One might even be able to find some online reviews to give a sense of how good the particular bottle might be.
Week One provided the first sip of the 2025 college football season. It is a time to get an initial impression of what is to come from the full bottle.
For the Michigan State Spartans, the initial taste was a pleasant one. The first half was a bit sweet as the Green and White found the endzone three times in the first four drives. The offense was not as spicy as expected and there was definitely an earthy character as the Spartans put up 130 yards rushing in the first 30 minutes. The defense was bold, giving up just 89 yards and three first downs.
But the finish on Friday night left a bit to be desired. It left Spartan fans with a slightly bitter and acidic aftertaste as the offense failed to score any points at all in the second half. Furthermore, the Spartans gave up a pick-six interception and failed to recover an on-side kick in the final three minutes of the game. But we also must admit that the finish had more than just a few notes of vanilla.
At the end of the day, Michigan State got the job done in Game One. The offence moved the ball well, and they did not need to rely exclusively on quarterback Aidan Chiles and wide receiver Nick Marsh to do it. A few bright notes appeared on the offense, specifically sophomore running back Makhi Frazier (103 yards on 14 carries) and senior transfer wide receiver Omari Kelly (75 yards on five catches).
The Spartan defense was a bright spot all night. The Western Michigan offense did not score a point and the Broncos never even crossed the Michigan State 20-yard line. The defense registered four sacks, eight quarterback hurries, and 11 tackles for loss.
On balance, the first sip of the 2025 Michigan State season left a positive impression. Time will tell what will happen as the bottle opens up and is allowed to breathe. Other, more pleasant notes may emerge. The Spartans will be just fine.
As for some of the improvements to Spartan Stadium, I cannot say if the concessions now sells wine or not. I never made it to the front of the line. But that is a topic to whine about another time.
Week One Betting Results
For those who are unfamiliar with the way I structure this series, here is a quick primer. Every week during the college football season I will present my computer's recommended wagers in my Bad Betting Advice column. Following the week's action, I will provide an update on the weekend's result along with some comments on the action across the country.
One figure that I prepare is a comparison of the outcome of each game relative to the opening point spread. That result for Week One of 2025 is shown below in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Results of 2025 Week One showing the actual point differentials relative to the opening spread.
Each data point represents one game. The position of the data point either above or below the solid diagonal line reveals whether the favored team beat the opening spread or not. The farther a data point is from the center diagonal, the bigger the deviation from the spread.
The two dotted, diagonal lines represent one standard deviation from the mean (the opening spread) which is equal to just over 14 points. In other words, in roughly one-third of all college football games, the final point differential is two touchdowns away from the opening spread. Favored teams whose data points fall outside of the dotted line either overachieved or underachieved by a significant margin (over one standard deviation).
A total of nine teams enjoyed the sweet aroma by ending up in the overachiever category in Week One due to beating the spread by more than 14 points: USC, Ole Miss, Virginia, Utah, Arizona, Fresno State, Maryland, Purdue, and Appalachian State.
There are two favored teams that endured that skunky feeling by failing to beat the spread by at least 14 points yet still won: Michigan and Wake Forest.
I should also mention that in both the over and underachieving category, the underdog may just be a lot worse or a lot better than expected. Over the course of the season, it will become clear if this sentiment is real or simply sour grapes.
The data points that appear below the solid red line in Figure 1 represent favored teams which lost in upset fashion. Table 1 below summarizes those eight games and compares these results to the upset picks made last week.
Table 1: Upsets in 2025 Week One based on the opening Vegas line compared to the upset projections from last week.
Week One saw four upsets where the opening line was at least 9.5 points. The most notable of these upsets are Florida State's upset of Alabama, and South Florida's take down of Boise State.
My algorithm went a solid 3-2 (60%) for upset picks while the FPI experienced more bitter tannins in route to a 2-5 (29%) record.
There was a total of nine upsets in the games involving two FBS teams, which is consistent with my weekly simulation's prediction of 9.6 upsets. In addition, Army and Middle Tennessee State both took upset losses to FCS opponents.
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 2025, Week One.
My computer decided not to sample any bets against the spread in Week One, but my analysis of the FPI data resulted in a heavy pour of 10 upset picks. ESPN's metric went 5-5 (50%) on these picks. The FPI was 0-1 in Week Zero, bringing the year-to-date total to 5-6 (45.5%).
Overall, my picks went just 15-29 (34%) against the spread, bringing the year-to-date total to 17-31 (35%). The FPI has a much stronger week, going 23-21 (52.3%) which brings the year-to-date total to 25-23 (51.2%).
Table 3 below gives the results of the point total bets for Week One.
Table 3: Results of the recommended point total bets ("over/under") for 2025, Week One.
My computer's "lock" picks got off to a great start with a record of 4-1 (80%) in Week One. However, the locks were 0-2 in Week Zero which drops to year-to-date tally to 4-3 (57%).
The larger set of recommended point total bets did not fare as well. Those picks went just 10-14 (42%) bringing the year-to-year record to 10-18 (36%).
Updated Big Ten Odds and Expected Wins
Following the results of Week One, 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 any of the national polls.
