Coming into Week Eight, the fans of both in-state Big Ten schools were saying the same things about the bye week. Both teams were coming off at least one loss, and both teams had hope, faith or the wish that the extra week of rest would provide the cure to want was ailing them.

Michigan fans were hoping that quarterback Jack Tuttle was going to be the answer at quarterback, the running game would continue to be explosive and that the defense would keep them in every game.

Spartan fans were hoping that quarterback Aidan Chiles would be able to cut down on mistakes, that the run game would start to get some traction and that the defense would look better again a team not ranked in the top three.

One fan base had their wishes granted on Saturday. The other watched their dreams disintegrate in front of them and spent most of Sunday sulking around in dark, gothic clothing, acting depressed.

In both cases, all the signs have been there for a while, for those who have been paying close enough attention. Michigan has looked shaky for weeks, relying on big plays, bad calls, and a bit of luck to scrape past teams like USC and Minnesota. The Maize and Blue are perhaps just a few plays away from a 2-5 record.

Meanwhile, Michigan State has shown signs of being close to a breakout. Chiles' talent is obvious. The run game showed periodic promise, and the defense has overachieved all year. The Spartans played a surprising good first 28 minutes against Ohio State. But they followed it up with three bad halves in a row against the Buckeyes and at Oregon.

After a little bit of rest and a return to Spartan Stadium, those pieces finally came together on Saturday night against a very solid Iowa team. The final score was not even that indicative of Michigan State's surprising dominance against the Hawkeyes. Michigan State had over twice as many first downs, twice the time of possession, almost 200 more yards of offense, and outside of one play, completely shut down Iowa's running attack.

Now, the Spartans' focus will turn entirely to that team down the road. The teams and the programs suddenly seem to be headed in completely different directions. The tables have once again turned. The Spartans are now the team that is looking to bolster its postseason position. The Wolverines are now the team fighting just to stay over .500.

At the official open to rivalry week, I wish that I could tell the Spartan faithful that a win over the Wolverines is in the bag, but we know that in this rivalry anything can happen, and that is simply not true at this point. But if on Saturday night the two teams play anything like they did last weekend, the biggest wish on the minds Spartan fans will almost certainly come true.

Let's now check in on the picks that I made in last week's Bad Betting Advice article, starting with the overview summary shown below in Figure 1.

More information about how to read this figure can be found in Week One's edition of Against All Odds.

In Week Eight, seven teams overachieved by beating the spread by more than 14 points, including Indiana, Navy, Southern Methodist, Florida, Kansas, Kansas State and LSU. In contrast, Vanderbilt was the only team that failed to cover by more than 14 points and yet still won.

A total of 16 teams had their upset wishes granted, which was once again in agreement with my simulation's forecast of 16.7 upsets. Table 1 below summarizes those upsets and compares them to the picks made last week.

The biggest upset on the board was New Mexico State's win over Louisiana Tech (-10.5). Other notable upset winners other than the Spartans' win over Iowa (-5.5) were Georgia Southern over James Madison (-9), Maryland over USC (-8), UCLA over Rutgers (-7), TCU over Utah (-7), Georgia over Texas (-3.5), and Tennessee over Alabama (-1.5).

My computer went 4-5 (44%) for upset picks this week, bringing the year-to-date performance to 25-35 (41.7%). The FPI wishes it did as well, but it only went 1-4 (20%) bringing its year-to-date record to 16-18 (47%).

Table 2 below gives the results of the computers' picks against the opening spread.

My computer had a tougher time against the spread. It went 1-6 (14%) in suggested bets and 24-35 (41%) overall. This brings the year-to-date performances to 26-23 (53%) and 212-192 (52.5%), respectively.

My curated set of FPI picks went 0-1 (0%) while the full set of FPI picks went 30-29 (51%). This brings the year-to-date performance for the FPI to 17-16 (51.5%) and 211-193 (52.2%), respectively.

Table 3 below gives the results of the point total bets for Week Eight.

While I wish the performance of my point-total bets (over/under) was a little better, it could be worse. My lock picks went 1-1 (50%) while the full collection of suggested bets went 3-4 (43%). This brings the year-to-date totals to 14-15 (48%) for the locks and 81-56 (59%) for the suggested bets.

Following the results of Week Eight, I have re-run the full season Monte Carlo simulation using the updated power rankings, including the current uncertainty in those rankings, to update the season odds for each team.

Table 4 below gives the update for the Big Ten Conference and Table 5 shows the updated Big Ten win distribution matrix.