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 2 Favorites of the odds makers
#	Team	Spread
1	Florida	33.5
2	Oklahoma	25
3	Texas	24
4	Southern Cal	22
5	California	17.5
6	Alabama	16
7	Mississippi	16
8	Texas Tech	15.5
9	Notre Dame	15
10	Oklahoma St.	14.5
11	Penn St.	13.5
12	LSU	13.5
13	Boise St.	13
14	TCU	13
15	Nebraska	13
16	Ohio St.	12.5
17	Georgia	11
18	Virginia Tech	11
19	Missouri	10.5
20	Kansas	10.5
21	Michigan	10.5
22	Oregon St.	9.5
23	Florida St.	9.5
24	Georgia Tech	9
25	Miami	9
26	Auburn	9
27	BYU	9
28	Cincinnati	8.5
29	South Carolina	8
30	Illinois	8
31	Oregon	7.5
32	Arizona	7.5
33	Iowa	7.5
34	Clemson	7.5
35	Arizona St.	7
36	Houston	7
37	Tulsa	7
38	Arkansas	7
39	Tennessee	6.5
40	North Carolina	6.5
41	Michigan St.	6.5
42	South Florida	6.5
43	Baylor	6.5
44	Boston College	6.5
45	Texas A&M	5.5
46	Pittsburgh	5.5
47	West Virginia	5.5
48	N.C. State	5
49	Wisconsin	3.5
50	Utah	3
51	Rutgers	2.5
52	Vanderbilt	2.5
53	Kentucky	2
54	UCLA	2
55	Wake Forest	1.5
56	Nevada	1.5
57	UNLV	1
58	Northwestern	1
59	Southern Miss.	0.5
60	Stanford	0.5
61	Navy	0
62	East Carolina	0
63	Purdue	0
64	Fresno St.	-0.5
65	Connecticut	-0.5
66	Minnesota	-0.5
67	Kansas St.	-1
68	Cent. Michigan	-1.5
69	Air Force	-1.5
70	Virginia	-2
71	Louisville	-2.5
72	Colorado	-3
73	Troy	-3
74	Bowling Green	-4
75	Duke	-4
76	Maryland	-4
77	Washington	-4.5
78	Colorado St.	-4.5
79	Toledo	-5.5
80	Mississippi St	-5.5
81	N. Illinois	-6.5
82	Louisiana Tech	-6.5
83	UAB	-7
84	Arkansas St.	-7
85	Temple	-7.5
86	Iowa St.	-7.5
87	W. Michigan	-8
88	UTEP	-8.5
89	La.-Lafayette	-9
90	Middle Tenn. St.	-9
91	Indiana	-9
92	Memphis	-9.5
93	Marshall	-10
94	UCF	-10.5
95	Ball St.	-10.5
96	Syracuse	-10.5
97	Army	-11
98	Wyoming	-11
99	Akron	-11
100	Fla. Atlantic	-11
101	Ohio	-11.5
102	Buffalo	-11.5
103	Hawaii	-12
104	Rice	-12.5
105	SMU	-12.5
106	Utah St.	-12.5
107	San Jose St.	-13
108	Florida Intl	-13
109	Kent St.	-13
110	E. Michigan	-13.5
111	San Diego St.	-15.5
112	La.-Monroe	-16.5
113	North Texas	-16.5
114	New Mexico	-17
115	Washington St.	-17.5
116	Tulane	-19.5
117	W. Ky	-20.5
118	Idaho	-21.5
119	Miami (Ohio)	-24
120	New Mexico St.	-27.5

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