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 2 Favorites of the odds makers
#	Team	Spread
1	Florida	27.5
2	Southern Cal	27
3	Oklahoma	23
4	Georgia	19.5
5	California	18
6	LSU	17
7	Oregon	16.5
8	Ohio St.	16
9	Penn St.	15.5
10	Texas	15.5
11	Missouri	15.5
12	Texas Tech	15.5
13	South Florida	15
14	Auburn	12.5
15	Arizona St.	11.5
16	Tennessee	11.5
17	Clemson	11
18	West Virginia	10.5
19	Alabama	10.5
20	BYU	10.5
21	Kentucky	10.5
22	TCU	10.5
23	Oklahoma St.	10
24	Nebraska	10
25	Wisconsin	9.5
26	Arizona	9.5
27	Virginia Tech	9.5
28	Utah	9
29	Notre Dame	9
30	Kansas	8.5
31	Boise St.	8
32	Florida St.	7.5
33	Miami	7.5
34	South Carolina	7
35	Michigan St.	6.5
36	East Carolina	6.5
37	Colorado	6.5
38	Illinois	6.5
39	Fresno St.	6
40	Kansas St.	5.5
41	Michigan	4.5
42	Louisville	4.5
43	Boston College	4.5
44	Purdue	4
45	UCLA	3.5
46	Arkansas	3
47	Wake Forest	3
48	Georgia Tech	3
49	Maryland	3
50	Cincinnati	3
51	Tulsa	3
52	North Carolina	2.5
53	Rutgers	2
54	Texas A&M	2
55	Air Force	1.5
56	Indiana	1.5
57	Connecticut	1
58	Washington	1
59	Nevada	1
60	Iowa	0.5
61	Oregon St.	0.5
62	Mississippi	0
63	Pittsburgh	0
64	UCF	-0.5
65	Northwestern	-1.5
66	Virginia	-1.5
67	Stanford	-2
68	Vanderbilt	-2
69	Southern Miss.	-2
70	Ball St.	-2.5
71	Houston	-3
72	Troy	-3
73	Wyoming	-3.5
74	New Mexico	-3.5
75	Iowa St.	-4
76	Minnesota	-4
77	Mississippi St	-4.5
78	Hawaii	-4.5
79	Cent. Michigan	-4.5
80	La.-Monroe	-5
81	Miami (Ohio)	-6
82	N.C. State	-6.5
83	San Diego St.	-7
84	Fla. Atlantic	-7.5
85	Temple	-7.5
86	Colorado St.	-7.5
87	Navy	-8
88	Middle Tenn. St.	-8
89	W. Michigan	-8.5
90	Rice	-9
91	Washington St.	-9
92	Bowling Green	-9
93	UNLV	-9.5
94	Arkansas St.	-9.5
95	Ohio	-10
96	Buffalo	-10
97	Duke	-10
98	N. Illinois	-11
99	Akron	-11
100	Memphis	-11.5
101	Toledo	-11.5
102	Kent St.	-11.5
103	Louisiana Tech	-11.5
104	Marshall	-12
105	Tulane	-12.5
106	Baylor	-13
107	San Jose St.	-13.5
108	Syracuse	-13.5
109	E. Michigan	-14
110	UTEP	-14.5
111	La.-Lafayette	-14.5
112	New Mexico St.	-17
113	Utah St.	-18
114	SMU	-18
115	UAB	-18.5
116	Army	-23
117	Idaho	-23
118	North Texas	-23.5
119	Florida Intl	-26.5

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