Dr. Green and White Analysis: Michigan State's narrow path to a bowl game

Author's note:

With Friday's blowout loss to Penn State, Michigan State has officially been eliminated from bowl contention, making this analysis moot. But the #math was fun while it lasted.

On Nov. 11, Michigan State was soundly defeated in Columbus, 38-3, by the Ohio State Buckeyes for the team's seventh loss of the season. With only 12 total games in the regular season, the best-case scenario was that Spartans could win out to finish at 5-7.

As a rule, a team needs to have at least a .500 record to qualify for a bowl game. However, if not enough FBS-level teams finish with at least six wins to fill the 82 bowl spots available, there is a process to select teams with a 5-7 record to fill those spots.

With a current record of 4-7 overall, Michigan State is still mathematically alive to qualify for a bowl game. Today, we will examine what needs to happen for the Spartans to reach the postseason and how likely it is to happen.

The first, and most important, step in this process is that the Spartans need to win a fifth game this season. For this to happen, the Spartans need to defeat the No. 12 Penn State Nittany Lions on Friday night at Ford Field in Detroit.

On Sunday afternoon, the point spread for the game opened with Penn State as a 20-point favorite. Fortunately, over the years I have developed a correlation that helps me to understand the odds of an upset given a specific Vegas line.

This correlation tells me that teams that are 20-point underdogs win straight up 7.8% of the time. This is the first piece of the puzzle that we need to understand Michigan State's odds to make a bowl game. By Saturday morning, the rest of this analysis may be moot, but let's go ahead and explore the optimistic scenario where the Spartans win.

If Michigan State were to beat Penn State on Friday night, Saturday will be a waiting game to determine if a bowl slot will be available for the Spartans or not.

As of Monday, Nov. 20, there are a total of 67 teams that have qualified for a bowl game with six wins. This leaves 15 slots, which will be filled by teams that are currently in one of three categories.

First, there are teams currently with five wins that will earn a sixth win this weekend to automatically qualify. Second, if slots are still available, the next two teams in line are James Madison and Jacksonville State. These two teams are in the final year of transitioning from the FCS to the FBS. They are not technically eligible for the postseason, but they are first in line to fill bowl slots if not enough teams with a winning record are available.

Third, any remaining bowl slots will be filled by teams with a final record of 5-7 based on each school's Academic Progress Rate (APR) rankings, which are meant to measure "improvements and academic success." The pool of 5-7 teams will be prioritized based on the APR rankings for the 2023 season. Michigan State is ranked No. 28 on the current APR list.

Based on this process, there are currently eight additional teams that will automatically receive a bowl bid before the Spartans. James Madison and Jacksonville State are two of those teams. In addition, there are five teams that already have five wins, and that have a higher APR rank compared to Michigan State: No. 8 Minnesota, No. 15 Rice, No. 19 Mississippi State, No. 22 UCF and No. 23 South Carolina.

Finally, the winner of Saturday's game featuring Syracuse and Wake Forest will also finish ahead of Michigan State on the bowl priority list. Either Syracuse will earn a sixth win in this contest or Wake Forest will earn a fifth win. The Demon Deacons are No. 8 in the APR rankings and thus would also take priority over the Spartans.

This leaves only seven open bowl slots. By my count, there are 19 teams currently sitting with five wins that could claim one of those spots with a win this week. If seven or more of these teams win, Michigan State will be eliminated from consideration.

Assuming Michigan State upsets Penn State, which other games should Spartan fans focus on this weekend?

Table 1 below summarizes the remaining 19 games of interest where the bowl candidate team is listed first. The opening point spread for each game is listed and that spread has been converted to the odds that the team of interest wins.

In all cases, Spartan fans should root against the first team listed in each matchup, starting with rooting for Buffalo to beat Eastern Michigan (+6.5) on Tuesday night.

The summation of the odds listed in Table 1 gives the expected number of teams that will win before the end of the regular season. That value is 8.5, which is larger than the number of wins (six or less) necessary for Michigan State to earn a bowl bid. This suggests that it is a long shot for Spartans to qualify.

There is one other note regarding the games shown in Table 1. Navy has a record of 5-5 and has two games remaining. Navy is a heavy underdog this week at SMU and the Midshipmen will face Army (5-6) on Dec. 9. By the end of the season, either Navy or Army will have a higher priority than Michigan State for a bowl bid and there is a small chance that both Army and Navy will finish at 6-6 (if Navy upsets SMU and then Army upsets Navy). This further reduces the odds of the bowl game for the Spartans.

Finally, I used the data above to simulate the 19 games of interest to generate more precise odds for the Spartans to qualify for a bowl with a 5-7 record. The result of that simulation gives a value of just 7.9%, which is almost exactly equivalent to the odds of an upset over Penn State.

Therefore, the final probability that Michigan State qualifies for a bowl game in 2023 is equal to the odds for an upset over Penn State (7.8%) multiplied by the odds that enough bowl slots are available (7.9%). Simple math tells that those odds are just 0.62%.

The final variable in this analysis cannot be quantified. Let's assume that the stars align, Michigan State beats Penn State, and enough teams in Table 1 lose such that the Spartans qualify for a bowl. In that scenario, would or should Michigan State accept that bid?

On Monday afternoon we were able to ask MSU interim head coach Harlon Barnett directly if this scenario had been discussed. He indicated that it had not as of yet.

Based on the current injury situation and the lack of stability on the coaching staff, a compelling argument could be made that Friday night's matchup with Penn State should be the final game of the season regardless.

The additional bowl practices would potentially be greatly beneficial, especially for the younger players as the program moves forward. But is that benefit worth it? That is likely a decision that athletic director Alan Haller would need to make.

Not to mention, there is also a chance that a new (at least partial) coaching staff could be in place by the end of November. Would it be likely that the current staff would stick around and coach in a bowl game? It is hard to say.

Unfortunately, I have no way to calculate Michigan State's interest in accepting a bowl bid.

Since this article was originally published on Monday, there have been two minor developments:

First, someone on Twitter/X pointed out that two of Army's five wins came against FCS opponents. So, Army is not going to qualify for a bow game even if they beat Navy on December 9.

However, this game is still important because it will likely be Navy's second chance to get to six wins. Overall, this helps Michigan State's odds slightly. I have updated my calculations to reflect this change.

Second, on Tuesday night, Easten Michigan upset Buffalo to become bowl eligible. This hurts the Spartans' odds.

I reran the simulation last night and the odds for a slot being available for a 5-7 Michigan State squad have dropped to 5.2% Overall, the odds of a bowl game are now 0.4% or 1-in-245.

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