T Shoe Index Team Adjustments After Week 4
Week 4 of the college football season delivered in a big way from an entertainment standpoint, starting with the thriller in Death Valley between Florida State and Clemson and culminating in an instant classic in South Bend, where the Ohio State Buckeyes managed a last-second touchdown to secure a win against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
From a betting perspective, our best bets went 2-1 again, and my T Shoe Index was a scalding 62% ATS overall, as documented by independent third party Andrew Percival of the Metric Consensus on X. Andrew also verified this week that TSI is one of only three models hitting above the break-even point of 52.4% for the season so far, at 53.8%. Now, let’s take a look at which teams TSI upgraded and downgraded the most after Week 4.
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Biggest Upgrades in the T Shoe Index
Oregon Ducks
They certainly weren’t playing for clicks, but we’re going to give them some anyway. The Oregon Ducks absolutely took care of business at home against the public darling Colorado Buffaloes, 42-6, in what feels like a game that Oregon could have scored 100 if they wanted to. Earning a game grade of 41 (points above average expectation), which is one of the highest for any team this season, Oregon has now catapulted itself to the No. 2 overall ranking in the T Shoe Index with a Power Rating of 28.7. I’ve mentioned before that National Championship contenders are generally around a 28-point power rating average, so Oregon is in rare air currently. They still have their toughest games ahead of them, but for right now the Ducks are playing as well as anyone. Currently the highest-rated Pac 12 team, you can get +260 odds on a Pac 12 championship future bet on the Ducks at DraftKings, which is certainly something to consider if you believe in Dan Lanning’s team moving forward.
Miami Hurricanes
Another team that TSI can’t seem to upgrade quickly enough is the Miami Hurricanes. Miami easily covered on the road at Temple, winning by 34 in a game where the line was 24, earning a game grade of 25.2. The U is now up almost 15 full power rating points from its preseason rating, good for the third-highest upgrade in the country in my ratings. They do still have to play Clemson at home, at UNC and at Florida State, but I currently have the ‘Canes No. 1 in the ACC after Florida State didn’t quite meet TSI expectations in what I’d consider a fortunate win at Clemson. You can get an ACC championship future on Miami, my No. 13 overall team, at +750 at DraftKings, which could be worth a sprinkle for a team that has far exceeded expectations to this point. The Hurricanes are on a bye this week.
Biggest Downgrades in the T Shoe Index
Kent State Golden Flashes
We have a new “most irrelevant” (lowest power rated team in FBS) – the Kent State Golden Flashes. Coming into the season, I knew Kent State would be hard to get a handle on from a power rating perspective because of their roster and coaching turnover, similar to Colorado or Texas State. However, unlike those teams who have exceeded expectations, Kent is plummeting in the ratings and is now 133rd out of 133 FBS teams after a 53-10 loss to Fresno State, which earned them a -40 game grade, or the “anti-Oregon” of game grades. Yuck. They’ve now posted a game grade of -35 or worse twice in four games. The silver lining is, the only way to go is up from here, right? RIGHT? This is not a team I could, in good conscience, even pretend to be interested in for a future bet right now.
Georgia Bulldogs
There are teams who got downgraded slightly more, but I want to mention the Georgia Bulldogs as a team that has taken a major hit in its TSI power rating so far this year. Failing to cover by two touchdowns against UAB this week, I can’t tell if the Bulldogs are just bored or if there are legitimate concerns with their ceiling this year. Nonetheless, they are down four points this week, and now 11 points since the preseason and are now 9th in my overall rankings. They’ve posted game grades of 29, 20, 6 and 17 in their four games so far this year, a far cry from the projected 32 points above average coming into the season.
I’m not ringing the alarm just yet, as they’ve got the schedule in place to be able to fumble their way through it while figuring some things out, but I’ve got my eye on them – and the Michigan Wolverines, too, for that matter. Given that they’re still the betting favorite to win the National Championship, I think the odds are too short on Georgia for me to consider making a wager at this point.
To learn more about who I am or what my T Shoe Index is, be sure to read my introduction on VSiN.com and check out my free CFB guide with ratings, projections and win probabilities for every single game this season and follow me on X, @TShoeIndex.
