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 16 Favorites of the odds makers
#	Team	Spread
1	Alabama	28.5
2	Florida	27
3	Texas	22
4	TCU	21.5
5	Oklahoma	20.5
6	Virginia Tech	18.5
7	Boise St.	17.5
8	Oregon	17.5
9	Nebraska	17
10	Ohio St.	16
11	LSU	15.5
12	Penn St.	15.5
13	Texas Tech	15
14	Georgia	14.5
15	Mississippi	14.5
16	Arkansas	13.5
17	BYU	12
18	Stanford	11.5
19	Georgia Tech	11.5
20	Clemson	11
21	Cincinnati	11
22	Southern Cal	11
23	Miami	11
24	Tennessee	10
25	Iowa	9.5
26	Wisconsin	9.5
27	Oregon St.	9
28	Oklahoma St.	9
29	Pittsburgh	9
30	Auburn	8.5
31	Arizona	8
32	North Carolina	7.5
33	South Carolina	7
34	Connecticut	7
35	East Carolina	7
36	Air Force	6.5
37	Mississippi St	6.5
38	Michigan St.	6
39	Kansas	6
40	Rutgers	6
41	California	5.5
42	Utah	5.5
43	Notre Dame	5.5
44	Florida St.	5
45	Cent. Michigan	5
46	Houston	5
47	West Virginia	5
48	Kentucky	4.5
49	Texas A&M	4
50	Missouri	4
51	Wake Forest	4
52	Washington	3.5
53	Navy	3.5
54	South Florida	3.5
55	Purdue	3
56	Boston College	3
57	UCLA	2
58	Michigan	2
59	Troy	2
60	Northwestern	1.5
61	Arizona St.	1
62	Kansas St.	1
63	Colorado	1
64	Nevada	1
65	Southern Miss.	0.5
66	SMU	0
67	Middle Tenn. St.	0
68	Minnesota	0
69	N.C. State	-0.5
70	Louisiana Tech	-0.5
71	Iowa St.	-1
72	UCF	-1
73	Illinois	-1.5
74	Baylor	-2
75	Virginia	-3
76	Fresno St.	-3
77	Temple	-3.5
78	Vanderbilt	-4
79	Tulsa	-4.5
80	Duke	-4.5
81	Maryland	-5
82	Indiana	-5.5
83	UTEP	-5.5
84	UAB	-6
85	Syracuse	-7
86	N. Illinois	-7
87	Buffalo	-7
88	Ohio	-7.5
89	Louisville	-7.5
90	Marshall	-9
91	Wyoming	-9.5
92	Idaho	-9.5
93	Bowling Green	-10
94	Utah St.	-10.5
95	La.-Monroe	-11
96	W. Michigan	-12
97	Hawaii	-12.5
98	UNLV	-12.5
99	Colorado St.	-13
100	Kent St.	-13
101	Toledo	-14
102	Arkansas St.	-14
103	San Diego St.	-15
104	La.-Lafayette	-15
105	Memphis	-15
106	Fla. Atlantic	-15.5
107	Ball St.	-16
108	Army	-16.5
109	North Texas	-17
110	Akron	-17.5
111	Florida Intl	-18.5
112	New Mexico	-18.5
113	Miami (Ohio)	-20.5
114	Tulane	-21
115	Rice	-21.5
116	W. Ky	-23.5
117	San Jose St.	-23.5
118	Washington St.	-24.5
119	New Mexico St.	-24.5
120	E. Michigan	-28

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