Vegas Spread Index

The Vegas Spread Index ranks teams by estimating who the odds makers would favor from top to bottom. Each team’s VSI indicates by how many points that team would be favored against an average opponent.

Year: 2009 | 2008 |

Week: Pre-season | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |

Vegas Spread Index- Week 1 Favorites of the odds makers
#	Team	Spread
1	Florida	27.5
2	Oklahoma	25
3	Texas	23.5
4	Southern Cal	21
5	Oklahoma St.	18
6	California	17.5
7	Alabama	17.5
8	Notre Dame	17
9	LSU	16.5
10	Mississippi	16
11	Nebraska	14.5
12	Penn St.	14
13	Georgia	14
14	Ohio St.	13.5
15	Oregon St.	11
16	Texas Tech	11
17	Virginia Tech	10.5
18	Georgia Tech	10
19	South Florida	10
20	TCU	9.5
21	Florida St.	9.5
22	Miami	9
23	Michigan St.	9
24	Tennessee	8.5
25	Boise St.	8.5
26	North Carolina	8.5
27	Cincinnati	8.5
28	Michigan	8.5
29	Missouri	8.5
30	Illinois	8
31	Auburn	7.5
32	Kansas	7.5
33	Arizona	7.5
34	BYU	7.5
35	Arizona St.	7
36	Arkansas	7
37	Oregon	6.5
38	Iowa	6.5
39	Baylor	6.5
40	Clemson	6
41	Texas A&M	5.5
42	South Carolina	5.5
43	N.C. State	5
44	West Virginia	5
45	Utah	4.5
46	Wisconsin	4.5
47	Wake Forest	4.5
48	Boston College	4
49	Houston	3.5
50	Troy	3
51	Pittsburgh	3
52	Northwestern	3
53	Rutgers	2.5
54	Kentucky	2
55	Nevada	1.5
56	Virginia	1
57	Purdue	1
58	Tulsa	1
59	East Carolina	0.5
60	Southern Miss.	0.5
61	Colorado	0
62	UCLA	0
63	Kansas St.	-0.5
64	Air Force	-0.5
65	UNLV	-0.5
66	Vanderbilt	-1
67	Bowling Green	-1.5
68	Navy	-2
69	Minnesota	-2
70	Fresno St.	-2
71	UAB	-2
72	Stanford	-2
73	Washington	-2.5
74	Louisville	-2.5
75	Duke	-2.5
76	Connecticut	-2.5
77	Cent. Michigan	-4
78	Mississippi St	-4
79	Maryland	-4
80	W. Michigan	-4.5
81	Louisiana Tech	-4.5
82	Colorado St.	-4.5
83	Hawaii	-5
84	UTEP	-6
85	N. Illinois	-6.5
86	Iowa St.	-6.5
87	Temple	-7.5
88	Rice	-8
89	Memphis	-8
90	Toledo	-8.5
91	Arkansas St.	-9
92	La.-Lafayette	-9.5
93	Buffalo	-9.5
94	Marshall	-9.5
95	Ohio	-10
96	UCF	-10
97	Wyoming	-10.5
98	Kent St.	-10.5
99	Ball St.	-10.5
100	Middle Tenn. St.	-10.5
101	Akron	-11
102	New Mexico	-11
103	Syracuse	-11
104	Fla. Atlantic	-11
105	Army	-12.5
106	Utah St.	-12.5
107	Indiana	-13
108	Florida Intl	-14
109	San Jose St.	-14.5
110	E. Michigan	-15.5
111	San Diego St.	-15.5
112	La.-Monroe	-16.5
113	SMU	-17.5
114	North Texas	-18
115	Tulane	-18
116	Miami (Ohio)	-19.5
117	Idaho	-23.5
118	W. Ky	-24
119	Washington St.	-24.5
120	New Mexico St.	-27.5

Computing the Vegas Spread Index

The primary inputs for calculating the Vegas Spread Index are the weekly Las Vegas lines which reflect the collective wisdom of the odds makers and every fan who votes with their wallet.

In theory, a team’s VSI should be simple and straight forward to compute with the help of the transitive property of mathematics. For example if Florida is 10 points better than Tennessee and Tennessee is 7 points better than Kentucky, then Florida is 17 points better than Kentucky.

Play this computation out for 50+ college football games a week over 15 weeks (or literally thousands of games for college basketball season) and, voila! you have honed in on the strength of every team.

In practice however, examining every game, outcome, and spread reveals some surprising complexities that must be resolved to maintain accurate numbers. These variations include:

• Adjusting for home field advantage - which is nowhere near as straightforward as it sounds
• Balancing if point spread differences are more a reflection of the strength of the favorite team or the weakness of the underdog
• Maintaining the integrity of a quantitative formula while striving to reflect a myriad of external and human factors including injuries, rivalry games, coaching changes, rematches, postponements, etc