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 4 Favorites of the odds makers
#	Team	Spread
1	Florida	31
2	Texas	28
3	Oklahoma	26.5
4	Alabama	21.5
5	Ohio St.	19
6	Southern Cal	18
7	Nebraska	17
8	Boise St.	15.5
9	Oklahoma St.	14.5
10	Mississippi	14
11	Penn St.	13
12	Kansas	13
13	LSU	13
14	TCU	12.5
15	Cincinnati	12
16	Oregon	12
17	Texas Tech	12
18	Georgia	12
19	Virginia Tech	12
20	Miami	11.5
21	Auburn	11.5
22	Iowa	11.5
23	Florida St.	11
24	California	11
25	Notre Dame	11
26	Missouri	10.5
27	Clemson	10.5
28	BYU	10.5
29	South Carolina	9.5
30	Georgia Tech	8.5
31	Houston	8
32	Michigan	7.5
33	Arizona	7
34	Tennessee	7
35	Pittsburgh	6.5
36	Texas A&M	6
37	Wisconsin	6
38	Utah	5.5
39	Tulsa	5.5
40	South Florida	5.5
41	North Carolina	5.5
42	Michigan St.	5.5
43	Stanford	5.5
44	Oregon St.	5
45	UCLA	5
46	Baylor	4.5
47	Illinois	4.5
48	Kentucky	4.5
49	West Virginia	4.5
50	Southern Miss.	4.5
51	N.C. State	4.5
52	Arkansas	4.5
53	Arizona St.	3.5
54	Wake Forest	3.5
55	Purdue	2
56	Boston College	2
57	Navy	1.5
58	Minnesota	1.5
59	Rutgers	1
60	Connecticut	1
61	Cent. Michigan	0.5
62	Fresno St.	0
63	Vanderbilt	-0.5
64	Mississippi St	-0.5
65	Nevada	-0.5
66	Air Force	-1.5
67	East Carolina	-2
68	Iowa St.	-2
69	Colorado	-3
70	Washington	-3
71	Kansas St.	-4
72	Troy	-4
73	Northwestern	-4
74	Virginia	-5
75	UNLV	-5
76	Colorado St.	-5.5
77	Arkansas St.	-5.5
78	Louisville	-5.5
79	Maryland	-6
80	Indiana	-6
81	Louisiana Tech	-6.5
82	Syracuse	-7
83	Hawaii	-7
84	Duke	-7.5
85	Toledo	-7.5
86	Marshall	-7.5
87	Middle Tenn. St.	-7.5
88	UCF	-8
89	Bowling Green	-8
90	N. Illinois	-8.5
91	Temple	-8.5
92	W. Michigan	-9
93	Ohio	-9.5
94	UAB	-10
95	UTEP	-10
96	Wyoming	-10
97	Memphis	-10.5
98	Utah St.	-11
99	Army	-11.5
100	SMU	-12
101	La.-Monroe	-12
102	Florida Intl	-12
103	E. Michigan	-12.5
104	Fla. Atlantic	-12.5
105	Rice	-13
106	Buffalo	-13.5
107	San Jose St.	-14.5
108	Akron	-14.5
109	San Diego St.	-14.5
110	Ball St.	-15
111	La.-Lafayette	-15.5
112	Kent St.	-17
113	Idaho	-17
114	Washington St.	-18.5
115	North Texas	-19
116	Tulane	-19.5
117	Miami (Ohio)	-21.5
118	New Mexico	-22
119	W. Ky	-22.5
120	New Mexico St.	-26

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