Week 9 college football power ratings and game spreads

The weekly variance in college football feels higher than ever before. Maybe it’s just a giant helping of recency bias, but the week-to-week performances feature a lot of head-scratchers, don’t they? That’s why box score study is so important, not only to find out what happened in the game, but find out who played in the game.

This past week, we had a bunch of replacement quarterbacks in the Group of Five ranging from “we thought it was possible” to “this is the first we’re hearing of this”. Most college coaches shy away from sharing injury information, especially with programs that don’t have a lot of people on the beat. Bettors find out some of this inside intel and you’ll see line moves, but the average bettor isn’t going to have any idea and then may make some incorrect judgments based on the results.

Todd Centeio of James Madison, Collin Schlee of Kent State, James Blackman of Arkansas State and Cooper Legas of Utah State were among the quarterbacks that missed games last week for teams that failed to cover the spread. Those weren’t the only ones, but those were three that did create some line movement in the market. James Madison wound up going 0-for-17 on third down. Kent State never came close to covering against Akron with a true freshman at QB. Utah State was inept offensively against Wyoming in a game that also featured wind.

These weren’t the first and won’t be the last, but it is critically important to know whether or not a starting quarterback played in the game and how much of it he actually played before you start looking at results and reading too much into them. Of course, then you also have to keep in mind that those signal callers might be out again.

I’ve also mentioned this multiple times already, but the dispersal of talent across the country thanks to how easy it is to transfer has really created a lot of parity, particularly in the Group of Five. The elites are still the elites in the Power Five conferences, but we’ve even seen a lot of Jekyll-and-Hyde performances from middle-tier teams in those leagues. It’s just the reality that we live in.

Here are my Week 9 Power Ratings:

Here are my Week 9 adjustments:

Up: App State + 1.5, Temple + 2, TCU + 2.5, South Carolina + 1.5, Rutgers + 2, Ohio State + 2, Wake Forest + 1.5, Louisville + 2, Liberty + 2.5, Houston + 1.5, Bowling Green + 2, Akron + 2.5, Western Michigan + 1, Ohio + 2.5, Old Dominion + 2.5, Syracuse + 4, Wyoming + 2, Fresno State + 2, Arizona State + 1.5, Oregon + 3, North Texas + 1.5, LSU + 4, Texas Tech + 4, FIU + 3.5, Wisconsin + 2, Rice + 2, Northwestern + 2, Hawaii + 3.5, Cal + 2.5, Cincinnati + 1.5, Louisiana + 2, Coastal Carolina + 2, Colorado + 3

Down: Georgia State -1.5, Georgia Tech -2, Tulsa -2, Kansas State -2, Miami (FL) -4.5, Texas A&M -5, Indiana -2, Boston College -2.5, Pitt -3.5, BYU -2, Navy -1.5, Central Michigan -4, Kent State -3.5, Miami (OH) -2, Northern Illinois -4, James Madison -2.5, Georgia Southern -1.5, Clemson -2, Utah State -3.5, Notre Dame -4, Oregon State -2, Washington -1.5, UCLA -2, UTSA -2, Ole Miss -2, Kansas -2, Vanderbilt -2.5, Charlotte -5, Purdue -2, San Diego State -2, Mississippi State -3, Louisiana Tech -2, Colorado State -2.5, Boise State -1.5, UCF -2, New Mexico State -3, Iowa -2, Stanford -2.5

Injury: Maryland -6 (if Tagovailoa out), Minnesota -4 (if Morgan out), Miami -5 (if Van Dyke out), UAB -3 (if Hopkins out), Kansas State -4 (if Martinez out; other inj.), Kent State -5 (if Schlee out), James Madison -6 (if Centeio is out), Arkansas State -5 (if Blackman out)

Obviously you see that there are several quarterbacks listed there that will alter a line greatly whether they are in or out. Those adjustments are in addition to any changes to the team power ratings that have already taken place.

A few notes on the biggest changes:

Texas A&M -5: The Aggies are a mess right now and the athletic department is probably trying to figure out whether or not Jimbo Fisher’s buyout is worth the cost or if he recruiting prowess might lead to good things down the line. I had A&M -6 against South Carolina last week in a game that closed 3 and the Aggies lost outright. They were better than the final score, but this is a team in turmoil.

Charlotte -5: Speaking of turmoil, Charlotte did fire Will Healy after getting taken to the woodshed by a really bad FIU team. Even with Chris Reynolds back (who was benched last week), this team stinks to high heaven.

Miami (FL) -4.5: The Hurricanes committed eight turnovers against Duke and the Blue Devils scored on a lot of short fields, but this Miami team is bad in a lot of facets and Mario Cristobal isn’t impressing anybody in Coral Gables. Great recruiter, bad coach. We’ll also see if Tyler Van Dyke is out for a while, which would force another adjustment.

Texas Tech + 4: Behren Morton played extremely well against West Virginia and it looks like the Red Raiders have their quarterback. They’ve had injuries at the position and have been forced to experiment much of the season, but a good coaching staff in Lubbock has this rig rolling in the right direction.

Syracuse + 4: So, I realized that I’m not really in line with the market on Syracuse based on where I initially had the line against Notre Dame this week. I also didn’t realize that they are + 1.76 yards per play on the season with a top-15 defense and a top-30 offense. I guess I’ve been underestimating them.

LSU + 4: Brian Kelly has it all working down in Baton Rouge. Jayden Daniels was a phenomenal free agent grab in the transfer portal and this team looks so much better than it did early in the season. The mark of a good coach is how a team progresses throughout the season and the Tigers look very strong right now.

Notre Dame -4: The Fighting Irish coasted to a win over UNLV, but Drew Pyne still doesn’t look very good and Notre Dame just isn’t able to punish teams physically. Stanford barely beat Arizona State last week and had a really bad offensive showing despite about 1,000 pass attempts. UNLV is just in shambles and Notre Dame really let them hang around after the first quarter. I haven’t had a good handle on them all season, but they got bumped down again.

Central Michigan -4: Trying to figure out the teams in the MAC on a weekly basis is like trying to herd stray cats. The conference is an absolute dumpster fire this season. But, Central Michigan seems to be one of the teams engulfed in flames, as they are decent defensively, but just awful on offense.

FIU + 3.5: I wanted to mention FIU here because Mike MacIntyre is doing one hell of a job. This was a team that basically quit at the end of last season, lost a bunch of players, was recycling threadbare uniforms and just in complete disarray. They’re way better than I expected and they’ve actually had some very nice data points recently. I had to give them some love this week.

Here are my Week 9 game lines:

Date	Away	Home	My Line
10/27	Virginia Tech	NC State	-11
	Louisiana	Southern Miss	-1.5
	Utah	Washington State	+ 5
10/28	East Carolina	BYU	+ 1
	Louisiana Tech	FIU	+ 6.5
10/29	Illinois	Nebraska	+ 8
	Boston College	UConn	+ 6
	Coastal Carolina	Marshall	-3.5
	New Mexico State	UMass	+ 7
	Miami (OH)	Akron	+ 10
	Missouri	South Carolina	-7
	Kentucky	Tennessee	-10
	TCU	West Virginia	+ 11.5
	Georgia Tech	Florida State	-20.5
	Ohio State	Penn State	+ 18
	Wake Forest	Louisville	+ 4.5
	Notre Dame	Syracuse	-1.5
	Michigan State	Michigan	-26
	Miami (FL) (w/ Van Dyke)	Virginia	+ 3.5
	Cincinnati	UCF	-0.5
	Northwestern	Iowa	-14
	Toledo	Eastern Michigan	+ 9.5
	Old Dominion	Georgia State	-3.5
	Pitt	North Carolina	-4
	Rutgers	Minnesota (w/ Morgan)	-11.5
	South Alabama	Arkansas State (w/ Blackman)	+ 7
	Oklahoma	Iowa State	-2
	Arizona State	Colorado	+ 16
	Colorado State	Boise State	-30
	Charlotte	Rice	-15.5
	USC	Arizona	+ 14.5
	San Diego State	Fresno State	-11
	Stanford	UCLA	-13
	Oregon	Cal	+ 16
	USF	Houston	-15
	SMU	Tulsa	+ 2
	Oklahoma State	Kansas State (w/ Martinez)	-4
	Baylor	Texas Tech	-1
	Ole Miss	Texas A&M	+ 2.5
	Arkansas (w/ Jefferson)	Auburn	+ 4
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