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 3 Favorites of the odds makers
#	Team	Spread
1	Florida	31.5
2	Texas	26.5
3	Oklahoma	26.5
4	Alabama	18.5
5	Southern Cal	17.5
6	California	17
7	Mississippi	16
8	Ohio St.	16
9	Penn St.	16
10	Oklahoma St.	14.5
11	LSU	14.5
12	Kansas	14
13	Notre Dame	13.5
14	TCU	13
15	Texas Tech	13
16	Boise St.	12.5
17	Virginia Tech	12.5
18	Cincinnati	12
19	Nebraska	11
20	Miami	11
21	Georgia	11
22	Missouri	10.5
23	Florida St.	10
24	Clemson	10
25	Auburn	9.5
26	Michigan	9.5
27	Tennessee	9
28	Iowa	8.5
29	BYU	8.5
30	Michigan St.	8
31	Illinois	8
32	South Carolina	7.5
33	Arkansas	7
34	Georgia Tech	7
35	Houston	7
36	South Florida	6.5
37	North Carolina	6.5
38	Oregon	6.5
39	Arizona	6
40	Oregon St.	6
41	Pittsburgh	6
42	Tulsa	5.5
43	UCLA	5
44	N.C. State	5
45	Arizona St.	5
46	Baylor	4.5
47	West Virginia	4.5
48	Utah	4.5
49	Kentucky	4
50	Texas A&M	4
51	Boston College	3.5
52	Southern Miss.	3.5
53	Wisconsin	3.5
54	Stanford	2
55	Air Force	1.5
56	Wake Forest	1.5
57	Connecticut	1
58	Rutgers	0.5
59	East Carolina	0.5
60	Minnesota	0
61	Fresno St.	0
62	Washington	0
63	Navy	0
64	Nevada	-0.5
65	Purdue	-0.5
66	Vanderbilt	-1
67	Cent. Michigan	-1.5
68	Mississippi St	-2
69	Troy	-2.5
70	Northwestern	-3
71	Colorado St.	-3
72	Colorado	-3
73	Kansas St.	-4
74	UNLV	-4
75	Louisville	-4.5
76	Virginia	-5
77	Bowling Green	-5
78	Maryland	-5.5
79	Iowa St.	-5.5
80	N. Illinois	-5.5
81	Louisiana Tech	-6.5
82	Syracuse	-7
83	Hawaii	-7
84	Arkansas St.	-7
85	UAB	-7.5
86	Duke	-7.5
87	Middle Tenn. St.	-8
88	Indiana	-8
89	Army	-8
90	UTEP	-8.5
91	Toledo	-8.5
92	W. Michigan	-9
93	Marshall	-9
94	Memphis	-9.5
95	La.-Lafayette	-10
96	Temple	-10
97	UCF	-10
98	Fla. Atlantic	-10.5
99	Wyoming	-10.5
100	Utah St.	-11
101	Florida Intl	-11
102	Ohio	-11.5
103	SMU	-12
104	Buffalo	-12
105	Akron	-12
106	Rice	-12.5
107	E. Michigan	-12.5
108	Ball St.	-13
109	La.-Monroe	-14
110	San Jose St.	-14.5
111	Kent St.	-15
112	San Diego St.	-17.5
113	Washington St.	-18
114	North Texas	-18.5
115	Tulane	-19.5
116	Idaho	-20
117	New Mexico	-20
118	W. Ky	-20.5
119	Miami (Ohio)	-23
120	New Mexico St.	-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