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 0 Favorites of the odds makers
#	Team	Spread
1	Florida	27.5
2	Texas	23.5
3	Oklahoma	22.5
4	Southern Cal	19.5
5	Oklahoma St.	16.5
6	Mississippi	16.5
7	Georgia	15.5
8	Virginia Tech	15
9	Penn St.	14
10	LSU	14
11	Ohio St.	13.5
12	Alabama	13
13	Notre Dame	13
14	California	12
15	Oregon St.	11
16	Texas Tech	11
17	Nebraska	11
18	Boise St.	10.5
19	Georgia Tech	10
20	South Florida	10
21	Clemson	9.5
22	TCU	9.5
23	Florida St.	9.5
24	BYU	9.5
25	Illinois	9.5
26	Arizona	9.5
27	Michigan St.	9
28	Miami	8.5
29	North Carolina	8.5
30	Kansas	7.5
31	Rutgers	7.5
32	Michigan	7.5
33	Arizona St.	7
34	Auburn	7
35	Tulsa	7
36	South Carolina	7
37	Arkansas	7
38	Iowa	6.5
39	Missouri	6.5
40	Tennessee	6
41	Baylor	5.5
42	Nevada	5.5
43	Wake Forest	5.5
44	West Virginia	5
45	Oregon	5
46	Purdue	4.5
47	Wisconsin	4
48	Boston College	4
49	Utah	4
50	Houston	3.5
51	N.C. State	3.5
52	UCLA	3.5
53	Cincinnati	3.5
54	Troy	3.5
55	Pittsburgh	3
56	Colorado	3
57	Northwestern	3
58	Rice	2
59	Maryland	1.5
60	Virginia	1
61	Ball St.	0.5
62	East Carolina	0.5
63	Southern Miss.	0.5
64	Washington	0.5
65	Kansas St.	-0.5
66	Air Force	-0.5
67	UNLV	-0.5
68	Kentucky	-0.5
69	Vanderbilt	-1
70	Connecticut	-1.5
71	Minnesota	-2
72	Bowling Green	-2
73	Navy	-2
74	Fresno St.	-2
75	Texas A&M	-2.5
76	Louisville	-2.5
77	Duke	-2.5
78	New Mexico	-3.5
79	W. Michigan	-3.5
80	Stanford	-4
81	Louisiana Tech	-4
82	Mississippi St	-4
83	Hawaii	-5
84	Cent. Michigan	-6
85	N. Illinois	-6
86	Iowa St.	-6.5
87	Buffalo	-7
88	Colorado St.	-7.5
89	Temple	-7.5
90	Fla. Atlantic	-7.5
91	Memphis	-8
92	UTEP	-8.5
93	Arkansas St.	-9
94	La.-Lafayette	-9.5
95	Marshall	-9.5
96	UCF	-10
97	Wyoming	-10.5
98	Kent St.	-10.5
99	Akron	-11
100	Ohio	-11
101	Syracuse	-11.5
102	Toledo	-11.5
103	Utah St.	-11.5
104	UAB	-11.5
105	Army	-12.5
106	Indiana	-13
107	San Jose St.	-13
108	Middle Tenn. St.	-14
109	Florida Intl	-14
110	E. Michigan	-15
111	La.-Monroe	-16
112	Miami (Ohio)	-16.5
113	SMU	-17.5
114	San Diego St.	-19
115	W. Ky	-21.5
116	Washington St.	-22.5
117	New Mexico St.	-23
118	Tulane	-24
119	Idaho	-28
120	North Texas	-29

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