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 6 Favorites of the odds makers
#	Team	Spread
1	Florida	31
2	Texas	28
3	Oklahoma	23.5
4	Alabama	23
5	Southern Cal	21
6	Ohio St.	17
7	Nebraska	17
8	Boise St.	15.5
9	Penn St.	15.5
10	Miami	15
11	Oklahoma St.	14.5
12	Mississippi	14
13	Oregon	14
14	LSU	13
15	Kansas	13
16	TCU	12.5
17	Georgia	11.5
18	Virginia Tech	11
19	Cincinnati	11
20	Missouri	10.5
21	Auburn	10.5
22	Iowa	10
23	BYU	9.5
24	Texas Tech	9.5
25	South Carolina	9.5
26	Arkansas	9
27	Georgia Tech	9
28	Florida St.	9
29	Clemson	8.5
30	California	8.5
31	Tennessee	8.5
32	Notre Dame	7.5
33	Pittsburgh	7
34	Michigan St.	7
35	West Virginia	7
36	Arizona	7
37	Stanford	6.5
38	Tulsa	6.5
39	Michigan	6
40	Utah	5.5
41	South Florida	5.5
42	Oregon St.	5
43	Houston	4.5
44	Wisconsin	4.5
45	Boston College	4.5
46	Wake Forest	4
47	UCLA	4
48	Baylor	4
49	Arizona St.	3.5
50	N.C. State	3.5
51	Kentucky	3
52	Minnesota	3
53	Illinois	2.5
54	North Carolina	2
55	Nevada	2
56	Texas A&M	1.5
57	Southern Miss.	1.5
58	Rutgers	1
59	Connecticut	1
60	Air Force	0
61	Washington	0
62	Fresno St.	0
63	Navy	0
64	Vanderbilt	-0.5
65	Purdue	-0.5
66	Cent. Michigan	-0.5
67	Mississippi St	-1
68	Northwestern	-1.5
69	Virginia	-2
70	East Carolina	-2
71	Iowa St.	-2
72	N. Illinois	-3.5
73	Louisiana Tech	-3.5
74	Maryland	-4
75	Kansas St.	-4
76	Indiana	-4
77	Troy	-4
78	Arkansas St.	-4.5
79	Temple	-5
80	Colorado	-5.5
81	UCF	-6
82	UTEP	-6.5
83	Louisville	-6.5
84	Syracuse	-6.5
85	UAB	-7
86	Duke	-7
87	Toledo	-7
88	Marshall	-7.5
89	UNLV	-7.5
90	Ohio	-7.5
91	Middle Tenn. St.	-7.5
92	Colorado St.	-8
93	La.-Monroe	-9.5
94	Hawaii	-10
95	Utah St.	-10
96	Bowling Green	-10
97	Fla. Atlantic	-11
98	Wyoming	-11
99	SMU	-12
100	Buffalo	-12
101	Memphis	-12.5
102	San Diego St.	-13
103	W. Michigan	-13.5
104	Rice	-14
105	Idaho	-14
106	San Jose St.	-14.5
107	Akron	-14.5
108	Florida Intl	-14.5
109	Army	-15
110	La.-Lafayette	-15.5
111	Ball St.	-15.5
112	Kent St.	-16
113	E. Michigan	-16
114	Tulane	-16.5
115	North Texas	-19
116	New Mexico	-19.5
117	Miami (Ohio)	-20
118	Washington St.	-20.5
119	W. Ky	-22.5
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