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 12 Favorites of the odds makers
#	Team	Spread
1	Texas	29.5
2	Florida	26
3	TCU	22.5
4	Alabama	22
5	Oklahoma	20
6	Boise St.	19
7	Oregon	17.5
8	Texas Tech	17.5
9	Penn St.	17
10	Ohio St.	16.5
11	Virginia Tech	15.5
12	Georgia Tech	14.5
13	LSU	14.5
14	Mississippi	14.5
15	Cincinnati	14.5
16	Arkansas	14
17	Nebraska	13.5
18	Clemson	13
19	Southern Cal	12
20	Stanford	11.5
21	Oklahoma St.	11.5
22	Pittsburgh	11
23	Oregon St.	11
24	Miami	10.5
25	California	10.5
26	Georgia	10.5
27	Tennessee	10.5
28	BYU	10
29	Missouri	9.5
30	Auburn	8.5
31	Nevada	8.5
32	Iowa	8
33	Wisconsin	8
34	Houston	7.5
35	North Carolina	7.5
36	Arizona	7.5
37	South Carolina	7
38	Notre Dame	6
39	West Virginia	6
40	Utah	6
41	Florida St.	5.5
42	Texas A&M	5.5
43	Michigan St.	5.5
44	Kansas	5
45	Kentucky	4.5
46	Mississippi St	4.5
47	Connecticut	4
48	Boston College	3.5
49	Cent. Michigan	3.5
50	East Carolina	3.5
51	Purdue	3
52	Southern Miss.	3
53	Wake Forest	2.5
54	UCLA	2
55	Michigan	2
56	Air Force	1.5
57	South Florida	1.5
58	Arizona St.	1.5
59	Kansas St.	1
60	Colorado	1
61	Northwestern	1
62	Rutgers	0.5
63	UCF	0.5
64	Fresno St.	0.5
65	Minnesota	0
66	Temple	0
67	Virginia	-1
68	N.C. State	-1
69	Iowa St.	-1
70	Troy	-1
71	Navy	-1
72	Washington	-2
73	Middle Tenn. St.	-2.5
74	Illinois	-2.5
75	Tulsa	-3.5
76	Duke	-3.5
77	Baylor	-4
78	Louisiana Tech	-4
79	Vanderbilt	-4
80	N. Illinois	-4.5
81	Syracuse	-5
82	UAB	-5.5
83	Maryland	-5.5
84	Indiana	-5.5
85	Ohio	-6
86	Louisville	-6.5
87	Buffalo	-7
88	Marshall	-7
89	SMU	-7
90	Bowling Green	-8.5
91	UTEP	-9
92	La.-Monroe	-9.5
93	Utah St.	-10
94	W. Michigan	-10
95	Idaho	-12
96	Hawaii	-12
97	Colorado St.	-12.5
98	Wyoming	-13
99	UNLV	-13
100	Toledo	-13
101	Arkansas St.	-13.5
102	Kent St.	-13.5
103	San Diego St.	-14
104	La.-Lafayette	-14
105	Fla. Atlantic	-15
106	Army	-15.5
107	Memphis	-16
108	Akron	-16
109	North Texas	-17.5
110	Ball St.	-17.5
111	Rice	-18
112	New Mexico	-18.5
113	Florida Intl	-19
114	San Jose St.	-19.5
115	Miami (Ohio)	-20.5
116	Tulane	-21.5
117	Washington St.	-24
118	W. Ky	-24.5
119	New Mexico St.	-27
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