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MSU might wind up being overrated, but I don't think it's by "default" now.  Massey has 62 computers in his composite.  MSU is #13.  Wisconsin is #59.

My "by default" comment was referring to the way the teams immediately behind the Spartans last week all eliminated themselves.  In last week's rankings the Spartans were #5 and:

• #6 Wisconsin got spanked by Michigan
• #7 Maryland got spanked by Iowa
• #8 Rutgers got spanked by Ohio State
• #9 Indiana got spanked by Penn State
• #10 Purdue lost at home to a team that just lost at home to BGSU.  

So who are MSU's contenders now?  Well, last week's #11 Nebraska beat the snot out of Northwestern and moves up to #6 this week and they are followed by Wisconsin but note the difference a week makes.  Last week MSU was #5 with an average ranking of 5.69 not very far ahead of #6 UW (6.08) and #7 Maryland (6.31).  Now they have a humongous lead over #6 Nebraska (7.00), #7 Wisconsin (7.38), and #8 Maryland (7.69).  

To that point, the computers aren't even judging it as MSU vs. Wisconsin.  MSU is #5, as most here have them, but it's not even though Wisconsin is #6.  Wisconsin is #11.  The computers, who if anything understand context, have Maryland, Rutgers, Nebraska, Purdue, and Minnesota all between MSU and Wisconsin

In our rankings Nebraska is between MSU and UW with Maryland in a near-tie with the Badgers so similar to that.  

That said, I just disagree.  Wisconsin's loss to Notre Dame looks like a blowout based on the final score but that was a close game in which the Badgers had a fourth quarter lead and then they just collapsed and gave up 31 fourth quarter points to the Irish to make a close game into a blowout.  The Badgers also had a fourth quarter lead on Penn State which is now ranked #4.  Even the Michigan loss was reasonably competitive.  Wisconsin never led by they were within a FG at the half and within two scores until almost midway through the fourth quarter.  

I just don't see that as a team that is worse than Minnesota, Purdue, Nebraska, Rutgers, and Maryland . . . or MSU either.  I'm all alone in that but we'll see.  

• #6 Wisconsin got spanked by Michigan
• #7 Maryland got spanked by Iowa
• #8 Rutgers got spanked by Ohio State
• #9 Indiana got spanked by Penn State
• #10 Purdue lost at home to a team that just lost at home to BGSU. 

I just want to point out that all of these losses were WAY worse than generally expected.  For example, in your 10/2 breakdown you predicted:

• That Wisconsin would lose by 8, they lost by 21
• That Rutgers would lose by 1, they lost by 39
• That Purdue would win by 10, they lost by 7

So Wisconsin, Rutgers, and Purdue did 13, 38, and 17 points worse than your projections.  Understand, I'm not criticizing your projections at all.  I thought your projections were perfectly reasonable based on what we knew last week but Wisconsin, Rutgers, and Purdue substantially underperformed relative to expectations.  

The back side of this is that the teams that beat UW/RU/PU were the three teams ranked immediately ahead of #5 MSU in last weeks rankings:

• #4 Michigan beat UW more soundly than most expected.  
• #3 Iowa beat Maryland more soundly than most expected.  
• #2 tOSU beat Rutgers more soundly than most expected.  

Thus, the Spartans are now all alone in the rankings.  Anyone who was thinking last week that the Spartans were as good or better than M/IA/tOSU probably gave that up when they saw how well M/IA/tOSU performed.  Similarly, anyone who was thinking last week that the Spartans weren't as good as UW/UMD/RU probably gave that up when they saw how poorly UW/UMD/RU performed.  My "by default" comment simply refers to that.  Last week's results pretty much eliminated any competition that MSU had for the #5 spot from above or below.  

I don't see projections of yours for UMD/IA or IU/PSU but in discussion on here it seems that most of us expected closer games than we got.