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