It has been a tough last few weeks for Michigan State fans. After a surprising 3-0 start to the 2024 season, the Spartans have dropped the last three games to fall to a record of 3-3 at the mid-point of the season, including 1-2 in Big Ten play.

The story of the last three losses was a little bit different. Against Boston College, the Spartans largely outplayed the Eagles, but turnovers and other mistakes cost the Green and White the game late. Against Ohio State, the Spartans played a solid first half, but once again mistakes cost the Spartans the chance to at least keep the game close against a team with a big gap in talent.

Friday night at Oregon, the Spartans lost in a way that was both surprising and a little disappointing. To make a long story short, Michigan State got beat up in the trenches.

At the beginning of the year, both the defensive and offensive lines for the Spartans were a question mark. Through the first five games of the season, both units - and especially the defensive line - were a mostly pleasant surprise.

But on Friday night, the dam broke and it broke early. A few first half stats tell the entire story. Oregon racked up 192 yards rushing in the first 30 minutes, while the Duck defense allowed only 21 yards rushing and generated three sacks and a fumble. That was essentially where the battle was lost.

There are a lot of reasons or potential excuses for the issues in Eugene. Playing back-to-back night games against then top-six now top-three Ohio State and Oregon opponents and traveling over 2,300 miles on short rest certainly did not help. The accumulation of injuries on the offensive line was also a significant contributor.

Regardless, this week's bye could not have come at a better time. The Spartans now have two weeks to hunker down, rest, reflect on the first six games, and prepare for the remainder of the season. Michigan State needs to dig deep and figure out a way to split the final six games of the season in order to qualify for a bowl game. Getting the big fellas in the trenches to shake off Friday night's performance will be a big step in achieving this goal.

The goal of making a bowl is still a pretty entrenched bench mark of a successful first season under head coach Jonathan Smith. Another losing season will have fans feeling like they are stuck in no-man's-land. The battle ahead will be a tough one, but it is still a battle that can be won.

Now it's time to review the results of last week's Bad Betting Advice, starting with the overview summary shown below in Figure 1. More information about how to read this figure can be found in Week One's edition of Against All Odds.

In Week Six of the 2024 campaign, eight teams overachieved by beating the spread by more than 14 points, including Army, Wisconsin, Texas A&M, Navy, Virginia Tech and Mississippi. No team failed to cover by more than 14 points and still win.

There were, however, a total of 12 upsets in this week, which was dead on with the value of 12.2 predicted by my simulation. Table 1 below summarizes those upsets and compares them to the picks made last week.

This biggest upset of the week was clearly Vanderbilt's win over No. 1 Alabama (-23.5). Other notable upsets include Louisiana-Monroe over James Madison (-14.5), Arkansas over Tennessee (-13), Minnesota over USC (-8.5), SMU over Louisville (-7), and Syracuse over UNLV (-4.5).

The upset predictions of both computers were both in the ditch. My computer went 1-5 (16.7%), bringing the year-to-date performance down to 16-25 (39%). The FPI also had a tough week, going 0-2 and bringing its year-to-date record to 12-11 (52%).

As Table 1 shows, all of the upsets had a spread of at least 3.5 points, which is unusual. The computers tend to stick to games where the line is close to a pick'em. This is the main reason for the poor performance from the machines.

Table 2 below gives the results of the computers' picks against the opening spread.

On the against-the-spread front, the machines did not perform much better. My computer went 1-2 (33%) in suggested bets and 19-30 (38.8%) overall against the spread. This brings the year-to-date performances to 19-14 (57.6%) and 157-136 (53.6%), respectively.

My curated set of FPI picks went 0-3, while the full set of FPI picks went 24-25 (49%). This brings the year-to-date performance for the FPI to 15-14 (52%) and 154-139 (53%), respectively.

Table 3 below gives the results of the point-total (over/under) bets for Week Five.

For the first time in a while, my point-total bets were actually not in the ditch. This was the only front where my machine can claim victory.

My "lock" picks had their best week of the year, going 4-1 (80%), while the full collection of suggested bets went 10-5 (66.7%). This brings the year-to-date totals to 11-14 (44%) for the locks and 70-49 (59%) for the suggested bets.

Following the results of Week Six, I have re-run the full season Monte Carlo simulation using the updated power rankings, including the current uncertainty in those rankings, to update the season odds for each team. Table 4 below gives the update for the Big Ten conference and Table 5 shows the updated Big Ten win distribution matrix.

Note that all the rankings listed next to each team refer to my computer's power rankings and not the national polls.