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 11 Favorites of the odds makers
#	Team	Spread
1	Texas	30
2	Florida	24
3	Oklahoma	23.5
4	Alabama	22
5	TCU	21.5
6	Oregon	18
7	Boise St.	17.5
8	Ohio St.	17
9	Virginia Tech	16.5
10	Georgia Tech	16.5
11	Mississippi	15.5
12	LSU	14.5
13	Nebraska	14.5
14	Penn St.	14
15	Clemson	14
16	Texas Tech	14
17	Stanford	13.5
18	Arkansas	12.5
19	Cincinnati	12.5
20	Oklahoma St.	12.5
21	Southern Cal	11.5
22	Oregon St.	11.5
23	Miami	11
24	Georgia	10
25	Tennessee	9.5
26	Wisconsin	9.5
27	Missouri	9.5
28	Pittsburgh	9.5
29	California	9
30	BYU	9
31	Arizona	9
32	Auburn	8.5
33	Michigan St.	8
34	Nevada	8
35	Iowa	7.5
36	West Virginia	7.5
37	Florida St.	7
38	Boston College	7
39	North Carolina	6.5
40	Houston	6.5
41	South Carolina	6.5
42	Notre Dame	6.5
43	Kansas	5
44	Mississippi St	4.5
45	Kentucky	4
46	Wake Forest	4
47	Rutgers	4
48	Cent. Michigan	3.5
49	Utah	3.5
50	Connecticut	3
51	Texas A&M	2.5
52	Air Force	2
53	Fresno St.	2
54	Purdue	2
55	UCLA	2
56	East Carolina	1.5
57	Southern Miss.	1.5
58	Michigan	1.5
59	South Florida	1.5
60	Kansas St.	1
61	Minnesota	0.5
62	Arizona St.	0.5
63	Troy	-0.5
64	Navy	-0.5
65	Iowa St.	-0.5
66	Illinois	-1
67	Northwestern	-1
68	Temple	-1
69	Colorado	-1
70	N.C. State	-1.5
71	Baylor	-2
72	UCF	-2
73	Washington	-2.5
74	Middle Tenn. St.	-3
75	Tulsa	-3
76	Virginia	-3.5
77	Vanderbilt	-4.5
78	Indiana	-4.5
79	N. Illinois	-4.5
80	UAB	-5
81	Duke	-5.5
82	Louisiana Tech	-5.5
83	Marshall	-5.5
84	SMU	-6.5
85	Syracuse	-7
86	Ohio	-7.5
87	Louisville	-7.5
88	Bowling Green	-8
89	Maryland	-8.5
90	UTEP	-9.5
91	Utah St.	-9.5
92	La.-Monroe	-10
93	W. Michigan	-10.5
94	Kent St.	-10.5
95	Arkansas St.	-11
96	San Diego St.	-11.5
97	Buffalo	-11.5
98	Colorado St.	-11.5
99	Idaho	-12
100	Toledo	-13
101	Wyoming	-13
102	Hawaii	-13
103	UNLV	-13
104	Fla. Atlantic	-14
105	Memphis	-14
106	La.-Lafayette	-16
107	Ball St.	-16
108	Army	-16.5
109	Florida Intl	-16.5
110	Miami (Ohio)	-17
111	Akron	-17.5
112	North Texas	-17.5
113	Tulane	-18.5
114	New Mexico	-19
115	San Jose St.	-19
116	Rice	-19.5
117	Washington St.	-24
118	W. Ky	-24.5
119	New Mexico St.	-25
120	E. Michigan	-29.5

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