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 7 Favorites of the odds makers
#	Team	Spread
1	Florida	26.5
2	Texas	25.5
3	Alabama	24
4	Oklahoma	21.5
5	Southern Cal	21.5
6	Nebraska	16.5
7	Ohio St.	15.5
8	LSU	15
9	Texas Tech	15
10	Penn St.	15
11	Virginia Tech	15
12	TCU	14
13	Miami	14
14	Boise St.	13.5
15	Mississippi	13
16	Oklahoma St.	13
17	California	12.5
18	Oregon	11.5
19	Arkansas	11.5
20	Tennessee	11
21	Kansas	11
22	Clemson	11
23	Cincinnati	10.5
24	Auburn	10.5
25	Iowa	10.5
26	Georgia Tech	10
27	Georgia	10
28	BYU	9.5
29	Missouri	9
30	Notre Dame	8.5
31	West Virginia	8.5
32	Pittsburgh	8
33	Michigan	7.5
34	South Carolina	7.5
35	Arizona	7
36	Utah	6.5
37	Stanford	6.5
38	Michigan St.	6
39	Houston	5.5
40	Wisconsin	5.5
41	Kentucky	5
42	Florida St.	5
43	North Carolina	5
44	Connecticut	4.5
45	South Florida	4
46	Oregon St.	4
47	Purdue	4
48	Virginia	3
49	Tulsa	3
50	Boston College	3
51	Fresno St.	3
52	Arizona St.	3
53	Cent. Michigan	2.5
54	Washington	1.5
55	Mississippi St	1.5
56	Wake Forest	1.5
57	Navy	1.5
58	UCLA	1.5
59	Kansas St.	1
60	Minnesota	0.5
61	Iowa St.	0.5
62	Southern Miss.	0.5
63	Baylor	0
64	Nevada	0
65	Air Force	-0.5
66	Colorado	-1
67	Rutgers	-1
68	Troy	-1.5
69	East Carolina	-2
70	Vanderbilt	-2
71	N.C. State	-2.5
72	Duke	-3
73	Texas A&M	-3
74	Northwestern	-3
75	Illinois	-4
76	Louisville	-4.5
77	N. Illinois	-4.5
78	Indiana	-4.5
79	Louisiana Tech	-4.5
80	Ohio	-5
81	Maryland	-5.5
82	UCF	-6
83	Marshall	-6
84	Arkansas St.	-6
85	Colorado St.	-6
86	UTEP	-7
87	Bowling Green	-7.5
88	Temple	-8
89	SMU	-8
90	La.-Monroe	-8
91	Syracuse	-8.5
92	W. Michigan	-8.5
93	Wyoming	-9
94	Toledo	-9
95	Utah St.	-9
96	UAB	-10
97	Buffalo	-10.5
98	Idaho	-10.5
99	Middle Tenn. St.	-10.5
100	San Diego St.	-11.5
101	Memphis	-11.5
102	Kent St.	-12.5
103	Hawaii	-13.5
104	Army	-13.5
105	La.-Lafayette	-13.5
106	Fla. Atlantic	-13.5
107	San Jose St.	-14
108	UNLV	-14
109	Florida Intl	-14
110	Akron	-15
111	North Texas	-17
112	Tulane	-17
113	Miami (Ohio)	-17.5
114	Ball St.	-18
115	Rice	-19.5
116	New Mexico	-20
117	Washington St.	-20.5
118	E. Michigan	-24
119	W. Ky	-25
120	New Mexico St.	-25.5

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