College football is a funny game sometimes, especially early on. In the preseason, we think we know which teams have a strong hand and which ones do not. Then, we see just one week of action and then we really think that we know what is going on.

In Week Uno, teams like Notre Dame, Penn State, Alabama, Oklahoma, Iowa and Kentucky all looked fairly good. Meanwhile a few other teams, such as Clemson, did not look as good. In Week Two, all those teams get slapped with the Reverse Card.

But those schools were not alone. Last week, the red team from Maryland dominated UConn. The Green and White team from East Lansing struggled to beat Florida Atlantic. But in Week Two, the Spartans were also the beneficiaries of some reversal of fortune.

Often teams make the biggest improvements between Week One and Week Two. For Michigan State, that was certainly the case on offense (although, turnovers were still an issue). Starting from the opening kickoff, the Spartans seemed like a more tied together group. They played with discipline and focus, and as the box score shows, Michigan State was the better team over the full 60 minutes.

That is not to say that the game went perfectly. Far from it. There were still too many penalties, and young Spartan quarterback Aidan Chiles is still a bit of a Wild Card. His three interceptions gave Michigan State a difficult hand late in the game.

But to his credit, and to the credit of the Spartan defense and special teams, they all made the plays that mattered in the final five minutes to secure a rare road conference victory over a solid Maryland team. True freshman wide receiver Nick Marsh also had a breakout performance. That is a refreshing reversal of what Spartan fans have witnessed over the past two years.

Can the green team continue this streak without experiencing another reversal? That remains to be seen. But if Chiles had taken a little better care of the ball and if the defense had gotten off the field a few more times on third down, Michigan State likely would have won this game going away by double-digits.

That is perhaps the most encouraging thing of all. If head coach Jonathan Smith can continue to play his cards right, his first season in East Lansing could wind up being a very pleasant surprise.

Now it's time to review the results of last week's Bad Betting Advice, starting with the overview summary shown below in Figure 1. More information about how to read this figure can be found in last week's edition of Against All Odds.

A total of seven teams are in the overachiever category in Week Two by beating the spread by more than 14 points: Clemson, USC, Tennessee, Texas State, Navy, Oregon State and Ohio State (off scale). Four other teams were solidly in the underachiever category: Liberty, Oregon, Oklahoma and Penn State. They each scrapped by with a win despite being double-digit favorites.

A total of 20 teams took an upset loss in Week Two. Seventeen of those teams lost to another FBS team while UTEP, Kent State, and Wyoming all lost to FCS teams. Table 1 below summarizes those 17 FBS upsets and compares them to the picks made last week.

Of the 17 total upsets in the table, the majority involved spreads below 14 points. In this group, there were several involving notable Big Ten or other Power Four teams, including California over Auburn, BYU over Southern Methodist, South Carolina over Kentucky, Illinois over Kansas, Iowa State over Iowa, Duke over Northwestern, and Michigan State over Maryland.

By far the biggest upset of the weekend was Northern Illinois' walk-off winner over Notre Dame. As a 30-point favorite, the Irish only had a 1.7% chance to lose. In fact, this upset is in a tie for the sixth-biggest upset since 2001 (which is as far back as I could find data). Based on the odds, this is the equivalent of a No. 16 seed beating a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

The computer systems had a solid week, going a combined 3-3 on upset picks, thanks entirely to the FPI. ESPN's computer went 3-2, while my computer got its only pick of the week wrong.

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

My algorithm went 1-1 for the first two picks of the year. My analysis of the FPI data resulted in a 6-4 record for the week (60%), which brings the year-to-date results to 10-7 (58.8%).

Overall for the week, however, both computers experienced a major reversal after a strong first week. My computer went just 17-32 (35%) against the spread (ATS) bringing the year-to-date total to 39-49 (44%). The FPI did a little better, going 20-29 (41%) for the week, which brings its total to 45-43 (51%).

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

Just as I was ready to skip the point-total bets, they had a surprisingly strong week. My "lock" picks went 2-2 (50%) this week to bring the year-to-date tally to just 4-9 (31%).

However, the full set of recommended bets was an impressive 22-11 (67%), which brings that set of picks up to 30-25 (55%) for the year.

Following the results of Week Two, 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.