Illini Outlook and MSU Pick

On this cool site, you can track how the line setters at Vegas are ranking each college football team based on the weekly spreads.  Illinois has been plummeting through the rankings, but they are still seen as a team with enough talent to rank 51st nationally.  More importantly, these rankings allowed me to generate some prospective lines for the rest of the season:

Illinois (+6) at Indiana
Illinois at Purdue (-2)
Michigan (+1.5) at Illinois
Illinois at Minnesota (-3)
Northwestern at Illinois (-6.5)
Illinois at Cincinnati (-11.5)
Fresno State at Illinois (-4.5)

(+x denotes a road favorite; -x a home favorite - so Illinois projects to be favored at Indiana, and at home against Northwestern and Fresno State)

Of course, having acquired some prospective lines, I really got going and using odds generated from projected money lines, I simulated 1000 Illinois seasons to see what their prognosis is.  Here are the results:

9-3: 0
8-4: 19
7-5: 94
6-6: 239
5-7: 302
4-8: 221
3-9: 96
2-10: 27
1-11: 2

Clearly Illinois isn't going to win out, but fans shouldn't fear that the team won't be winning any more games this year.  In fact, the team will likely finish at least 4-8 with a mean projection of 5-7.  A bowl berth is not yet out of reach either, with their odds of finishing 6-6 or higher at 35.2%.  Good news for Ron Zook - if the team does finish 5-7, he probably won't lose his job, at least not this season.

This weekend's game is as good a time as any for Illinois to start making a late run.  For all his deficiencies, I admire Zook for being willing to take a chance and start Eddie McGee at quarterback.  The team is more likely to miss a bowl than make one at this point, so it is worth seeing if McGee can spark the Illini offense.  Michigan State is a stronger team than their record indicates, but if Illinois wins tomorrow, their odds of making a bowl increase to 49.5% in my simulation and potentially higher since a win would positively impact future lines.  I am still going to pick against Illinois until they prove me wrong with a win, but this analysis has made me more optimistic about the future of the season.

Pick: Michigan State 27, Illinois 21