Imagine, if you will, a hypothetical fan of the Michigan State Spartans. Let's call him Rick. Maybe Rick works in law enforcement, but that doesn't matter for this story.

Rick was hanging out at home with a few of his buddies on the afternoon of Saturday, Sept. 9. They watched the Spartans demolish the Richmond Spiders by 31 points. Michigan State was 2-0. Things were looking good. Rick was optimistic about the 2023 season and about the direction of the program.

Once the game was over, Rick decided that it was time to have another brewski, so he walked into his kitchen toward his fridge. But on the way there, his foot slipped on a melted ice cube on the floor, he bonked his head on the corner of the kitchen island, and he slipped into a coma.

Rick woke up Sunday morning.

Imagine trying to explain to Rick what has transpired in East Lansing over the past seven weeks.

"Mel Tucker did what? The Spartans haven't beaten anyone? Noah Kim threw how many interceptions? They put a picture of who on the video board? Michigan State lost to Michigan by how much? The board of trustees did what? Some fans want to hire who?"

It would be a lot for anyone to handle. It would likely feel like waking up in the middle of some post-apocalyptic horror show. Unfortunately, all of it is only too real.

After this weekend's lifeless loss to the Minnesota Golden Gophers, the Spartans can now also officially be classified among the living dead, just in time for Halloween. They are technically still walking around, but there is little or nothing left to play for.

Interim head coach Harlon Barnett says that his team is still "contending for Spartan pride." The Spartans can still beat Nebraska and Indiana. Maybe. Those two wins would at least get Michigan State to a record of 4-8, which would surpass the record of 3-9 in 2016. That would be at least something. It is incredibly unlikely that MSU beats either Ohio State or Penn State, though. A win over Nebraska on senior day this weekend would be a special moment for the Michigan State players and coaches.

At this point, it is important to look toward the future. On the football side of things, that means getting meaningful snaps for a lot of the young players and trying to retain as much talent as possible for the next regime. On the administration side of things, that means aggressively executing the coaching search to secure the right set of brains to lead the team going forward.

As for Rick, there is one more thing that has happened over the last seven weeks that might lift his spirits. Just wait until he hears about what has been going on down in Ann Arbor.

Now it is time to refocus our brains on the results of last week's bad betting advice, starting with the overview summary of the action shown below in Figure 1.

A total of 14 teams overachieved relative to the opening spread, including Southern Methodist, Notre Dame, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Boise State, Louisville and Nebraska. A total of three teams won but failed to beat the spread by more than 14 points: Washington, Miami and James Madison.

An additional 15 teams were pulled underneath the red vertical line of Figure 1 to join the ranks of the "unwinners." Those 15 teams are summarized below in Table 1 in comparison to the week's upset predictions.

Week Nine did see a few more upsets than the expected number of 13.1, but only three of the 15 upsets were in games where the opening spread was over 10 points. The most notable upsets this week were Northwestern over Maryland (-13.5), Georgia Tech over North Carolina (-11.5), North Carolina State over Clemson (-10.5), Kansas over Oklahoma (-10), and Arizona over Oregon State (-4.5).

The silicon brains of the computers had a solid week on the upset front. My computer went 4-3 (57%) to bring the year-to-date performance up to 21-26 (45%), which is well above my target of 40%. The FPI went 3-3 (50%) to bring its totals for the year up to 13-24 (35%).

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

Both computers did very well in this area in Week Nine. My machine was 3-1 (75%) against the spread, while my FPI-based suggestions went 6-2 (also 75%). Year-to-date, my computer is back to .500 at 18-18, but the FPI lags at 29-39 (43%).

For all Week Nine games, my computer was 32-22 (59%) against the spread and the FPI was 28-26 (52%). Year to date, my machine is now just four games below .500 (240-244) and five games ahead of the FPI (235-249).

Table 3 below gives the results of the point-total (over/under) bets for Week Nine.

Much like our friend Rick, my point-total recommendations seem to have been in a coma for most of the season. The overall picks went 5-7 (42%) this week bringing the year-to-date record to just 76-84 (48%). The "locks" went 3-4 (43%) and this method (which might need some updated branding) is now 20-24 (46%) for the year.

I am hoping that the point-total recommendations will return to life sometime before the end of the season.

Following the results of Week Nine, 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.

Note that all the rankings listed next to each team refer to my computer's power rankings and not any of the national polls.