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Christopher Boan is a staff writer for BetMichigan.com. He has covered sports and sports betting for more than seven years and has worked for publications such as ArizonaSports.com, the Tucson Weekly and the Green Valley News.
Michigan State Football Bowl Projections: Odds For Spartans’ 2024-25 Bowl Game
The opening year of the Jonathan Smith era in East Lansing has traveled a bit of a bumpy path for Michigan State football. The Spartans are 4-6 and coming off of with three straight losses at the hands of Michigan, Indiana and Illinois.
The Spartans’ most recent defeat was in Champaign-Urbana at the hands of Bret Bielema and the Illini, with MSU falling flat on the road, 38-16. That knocked Smith’s squad against the ropes with two games left in the season, with no room for error if MSU wants to reach six wins and bowl eligibility.
At BetMichigan.com, your source for the top Michigan sports betting promos, we developed exclusive odds on which bowl game the Michigan Spartans will play in based on the team’s latest performance.
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Michigan State Football Bowl Projections: Odds For Spartans’ 2024-25 Bowl Game
Bowl | Location | Conference Opponent | Odds | Pct. Chance |
GameAbove Sports Bowl | Detroit, MI | Vs. MAC | -400 | 80.0% |
Armed Forces Bowl | Fort Worth, TX | Vs. Big 12 | +900 | 10.0% |
The Field/No Bowl |
|
| +900 | 10.0% |
The final two games of Sparty’s regular season are both at home, giving Michigan sportsbooks customers and MSU fans reason to hope for a 6-6 finish and a bowl berth. Smith’s team hosts Purdue at 8 p.m. Eastern Saturday at Spartan Stadium, then welcomes 6-4 Rutgers to close out the season on Nov. 30.
Purdue is last in the Big Ten at 0-7, and sits 1-9 overall, with the only win coming in the opening week against FCS squad Indiana State.
For Saturday’s game, oddsmakers from DraftKings Michigan Sportsbook have the Spartans listed as a 13.5-point home favorite over the Boilermakers, to go with a -535 moneyline on Michigan State. Purdue is +400 on the moneyline.
Where Will Michigan State Play This Bowl Season?
For now, we’re going with Smith to lead MSU back to a bowl game for the first time since the Peach Bowl, when the Spartans capped an 11-2 season in 2021 under Mel Tucker. Detroit’s GameAbove Sports Bowl is the top landing spot on our chart at -400.
Throw in Fort Worth’s Armed Forces Bowl at +900, while the dual option of “no bowl” or “the field” is listed at +900, and you have the full range of options for MSU entering Week 13 of the college football season for Michigan sports betting apps.
Michigan State Bowl Game History Since 2019
Year | Bowl | Result |
2023 | No Bowl Game |
|
2022 | No Bowl Game |
|
2021 | Peach Bowl | Win, 31-21 against Pittsburgh |
2020 | No Bowl Game |
|
2019 | Pinstripe Bowl | Win, 27-21 against Wake Forest |
A trip to the Dallas Fort Worth region would be the first for MSU since they played in the Cotton Bowl in successive seasons in 2014 and 2015 under head coach Mark Dantonio, while Michigan State has never played in the Armed Forces Bowl, which dates back to 2003.
The only bowl game that MSU has played in Detroit was the old Cherry Bowl that was held in the Pontiac Dome, which the Spartans lost to Army, 10-6, in 1984, thus capping off a 6-6 campaign under head coach George Perles.
Since Dantonio’s first season at MSU in 2007, the Spartans have played in 13 bowl games, going 8-5 in those contests, with victories in each of the program’s last two postseason contests, those being the 2019 Pinstripe Bowl (27-21 over Wake Forest) and that 31-21 2021 Peach Bowl victory over the Pitt Panthers.
Since 2019, Michigan State has appeared in two postseason games, winning the 2021 Peach Bowl over Pittsburgh out of the ACC, 31-21, in addition to knocking off another member of that conference in that ’19 Pinstripe Bowl. Michigan State missed out on bowl season in 2020, 2022 and 2023.
See our Michigan State vs. Purdue odds page for the latest on this weekend’s Big Ten matchup.
USA Today photo by David Reginek
Michigan State Bowl FAQs
MSU’s best bowl game odds are to play in Detroit at the GameAbove Sports Bowl (-400 odds) or the Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth, Texas (+900).
The Spartans are not eligible for a bowl yet. Michigan State’s most recent bowl game was in 2021 Peach Bowl, a win against Pittsburgh.
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