In reply to: Here's one story I don't want to read on December 29th posted by El Kabong
Sagarin's golden mean approach favors ND by 6.64 points. ESPN's FPI favors ND by 6.27. FEI likes ND by 6.6.
ThePredictionTracker.com has collected 55 predictions from various models; here are the highlights:
- Mean Prediction: ND by 6.51 points
- Median Prediction: ND by 6.64 points
- Min Prediction: ND loses by 0.95 points
- Max Prediction: ND wins by 13.40 points
Of the 55 prediction models:
- 7 have ND winning by double-digits
- 25 have ND winning by 7 points or more
- 46 have ND covering the point spread
- 54 have ND winning the game
In other words, ND should absolutely win this game (this level of consensus is pretty rare).
If the names were stripped off of these two teams and the betting numbers stayed where they are, the pros would be hammering ND +3.5. The fact that that's not happening, and that the point spread has been stable for so long, is pretty weird. This might be one of those cases where Vegas just knows something that the public doesn't.
If you'd like, you can check the numbers out yourself at the link below.
If every game Iowa State played in were ISU +3.5, they would've covered against #4 Oklahoma, #7 Baylor, and #16 Iowa.
We should win this game, but this is about as good as a 7-5 team can be. 3.5 seems right to me, and I don't think it has to do with our history.
Tomorrow is going to suck. We might lose. We'll likely win with something like a 24-20 game. It'll be boring, frustrating, and a true lose-lose situation.
With that said, I'm getting up at 8AM for a 14 hour day of drinking and Brian Kelly can't stop me.
If you don’t start in the morning.
I saw the ends of their losses to IA and to OU. My point was that ND's history would be a factor (among others) to logically take into account in setting this spread.