Even Vegas Thinks Oklahoma State Is a Top 10 Team

I’ve already discussed how worried I am about how advanced metrics have the Pokes rocking again in 2016, and Vegas is not helping me with these feelings.

There is a great post currently up over at Football Perspective about how Vegas, which as we all know is almost always spot on, sees the Cowboys.

Essentially they took the early spreads (see here) and used them to determine which teams Vegas likes the most based on how big the lines are and the strength of the teams listed as the underdog.

For example, Alabama is listed as a 6-point favorite over Ole Miss at Ole Miss. Ole Miss is favored in most of its other games so if you adjust for home field and Ole Miss’ relatively strong team, Vegas actually thinks quite highly of Alabama (I know this is incredibly shocking to everyone).

When you work all this out, OSU checks in at No. 9 on the Vegas list of top teams. This is significant because OSU is not traditionally a public team Vegas can make huge lines for and still get action on because everyone loves them (i.e. Texas). The opposite is true actually. Vegas probably has to lower the OSU lines a bit to get people to bite on any kind of action on the Pokes. Here’s the full top 10 according to Vegas’ early lines.

1. Alabama
2. Oklahoma
3. LSU
4. Clemson
5. FSU
6. Tennessee
7. Ohio State
8. Michigan
9. Oklahoma State
10. Ole Miss

You should check out the full post based on Vegas’ lines here.