T Shoe Index Team Adjustments After Week 5
The highlight of Week 5 from a betting perspective was certainly our bet our Bowling Green +22, who won outright by double digits; however, we lost our other two best bets, as ECU failed to score on its final drive to push the total over the number and Georgia state got throttled at home by Troy.
Bets aside, it was a wildly entertaining weekend of college football, highlighted by the shootout at Ole Miss that saw the Rebels beat Brian Kelly’s LSU Tigers. As always, my T Shoe Index power ratings had quite a bit of shakeup, so let’s see which teams got the biggest upgrades and downgrades this week. Reminder: a team’s power rating change in a given week is not solely based on the results of that one game; rather, an interconnected web of results of all previous opponents’ performances as well. For instance, Ohio State didn’t play this week but got a slight downgrade in its rating due to Youngstown State giving up 44 points to another FCS team, Indiana getting annihilated by Maryland, and Notre Dame getting outplayed (per TSI) at Duke.
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Biggest Upgrades in the T Shoe Index
Troy Trojans
The aforementioned Troy Trojans smothered any chance we had at cashing a Georgia State bet in week 5, in what was considered a standard let-down spot after beating Western Kentucky the previous week. I was (too) low on them coming into the season, and they have really hit their stride now and are back on top of my Sun Belt West power ratings. They are now up 12 points on the season in the TSI ratings, and I have them favored in every remaining game with a most likely win total at nine. At the time of writing this Monday morning, there are no posted odds at DraftKings for Sun Belt futures, but as those lines get re-posted later in the week, keep an eye out for a Troy future, as the Trojans are trending way up.
Virginia Tech Hokies
Speaking of coming back from the dead, the Virginia Tech Hokies put the pedal down against Pitt this week, dropping 38 points on Pat Narduzzi’s team. Not ideal for our Virginia Tech win total under bet. I do still have them projected just under five wins, so the win total is going to be a sweat for us down the stretch, as TSI gives the Hokies a 62.5% chance to win at least five games after this performance. Now, all of this to say, Virginia Tech is still rated slightly below FBS average, so they’re by no means world-beaters, but much improved from the -10 rating they had in the preseason. There are no realistic future bets I would make on the Hokies just yet, though.
Biggest Downgrades in the T Shoe Index
Illinois Fighting Illini
Boy, was I wrong about the Illinois Fighting Illini. Bret Bielema’s team had the respect of TSI in the preseason, being rated seven points above FBS average; however, after a beatdown at the hands of the mediocre Purdue Boilermakers, Illinois finds itself 4.5 points below FBS average in my ratings. Illinois’s most likely win total is now just four games, and I have them as underdogs in all but two games the rest of the season – a half-point favorite vs Nebraska and a 2.5-point favorite over Indiana. The Illini are now the lowest rated team in the Big Ten West, the lowest rated segment of Power Five football. I want no part of any futures action on this team right now.
USC Trojans
While I don’t think there are any elite, two-way teams in college football yet this year, the USC Trojans are really concerning on the defensive side of the ball. After eking out a win against public darling Colorado, the Trojans find themselves No. 22 overall and No. 64 on defense in my ratings. Caleb Williams is undoubtedly the best player in college football, but I’m afraid this Alex Grinch defense is going to waste that talent by allowing any team with a pulse to score 4+ touchdowns on them. USC is now projected to win just nine games, with only a 2.9% chance to win 11+ (de facto playoff contention). At +240 to win the Pac 12, those odds are too short for me to pull the trigger, as well as +1800 to win the national championship.
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