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 9 Favorites of the odds makers
#	Team	Spread
1	Texas	30
2	Florida	26.5
3	Oklahoma	23.5
4	Alabama	21.5
5	TCU	18.5
6	Penn St.	17
7	Oregon	17
8	Southern Cal	16.5
9	Boise St.	16.5
10	Ohio St.	16
11	LSU	16
12	Georgia Tech	15
13	Cincinnati	15
14	Mississippi	14.5
15	Nebraska	14.5
16	Virginia Tech	14.5
17	Texas Tech	13.5
18	Tennessee	11.5
19	Clemson	11.5
20	Oklahoma St.	11
21	California	10.5
22	Miami	10.5
23	Arkansas	10
24	Pittsburgh	10
25	Missouri	9.5
26	Iowa	9.5
27	Wisconsin	9.5
28	Auburn	9.5
29	West Virginia	9.5
30	Georgia	9
31	Stanford	8.5
32	Arizona	8
33	South Carolina	7.5
34	Kansas	7.5
35	Notre Dame	7
36	Boston College	7
37	Oregon St.	6.5
38	BYU	6.5
39	Florida St.	6
40	Houston	5
41	Michigan St.	5
42	Texas A&M	5
43	Utah	5
44	Mississippi St	4.5
45	North Carolina	4.5
46	South Florida	3.5
47	Wake Forest	3.5
48	Kentucky	3
49	Arizona St.	2.5
50	Nevada	2.5
51	Southern Miss.	2
52	Minnesota	2
53	Fresno St.	1.5
54	Rutgers	1.5
55	Kansas St.	1.5
56	Michigan	1
57	Cent. Michigan	1
58	Connecticut	1
59	Iowa St.	0.5
60	Tulsa	0.5
61	Purdue	0.5
62	Air Force	0.5
63	Troy	0.5
64	UCLA	0
65	Virginia	0
66	N.C. State	-1
67	Duke	-1
68	Washington	-1
69	East Carolina	-1.5
70	Illinois	-1.5
71	Navy	-1.5
72	Colorado	-2
73	UCF	-3
74	Northwestern	-3.5
75	Vanderbilt	-4
76	Baylor	-4
77	Indiana	-4.5
78	Marshall	-5
79	Temple	-5
80	Maryland	-5
81	N. Illinois	-5.5
82	Arkansas St.	-6
83	SMU	-7
84	Middle Tenn. St.	-7
85	Louisiana Tech	-7.5
86	Louisville	-7.5
87	Syracuse	-8
88	UTEP	-8
89	Idaho	-8.5
90	Ohio	-8.5
91	Kent St.	-9
92	San Diego St.	-9
93	UAB	-9
94	Wyoming	-9.5
95	Buffalo	-9.5
96	Bowling Green	-10
97	W. Michigan	-10
98	Utah St.	-10
99	Colorado St.	-10.5
100	Fla. Atlantic	-11.5
101	Memphis	-11.5
102	Toledo	-12
103	La.-Monroe	-12.5
104	Army	-13.5
105	San Jose St.	-13.5
106	North Texas	-14.5
107	UNLV	-14.5
108	Akron	-15
109	Hawaii	-16
110	La.-Lafayette	-16
111	Miami (Ohio)	-16
112	Florida Intl	-16.5
113	Ball St.	-17
114	Tulane	-18.5
115	New Mexico	-19.5
116	Washington St.	-20
117	Rice	-21.5
118	E. Michigan	-23.5
119	New Mexico St.	-25
120	W. Ky	-27

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