Michigan went on the road for the first time in 2026 and wound up laying an egg against Minnesota, losing by a 20-14 final score. With the loss, the Wolverines fell to 3-2 and were sent plummeting in the latest edition of ESPN and Bill Connelly’s SP+ rankings.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with SP+, it’s an advanced metric that takes into account a team’s offensive, defensive, and special teams efficiencies. It combines all three of those metrics into one uniform rating that predicts how many
points a given team would beat (or lose to) the “average” college football team by on a neutral field. In other words, it’s a metric designed to look at how “good” teams really are at different aspects of the game rather than ranking them purely on wins and losses.
After Week 5, Michigan now finds itself sitting at No. 26 in the country with a rating of 12.4. That’s a drop of four spots from where the Wolverines were last week.
Looking at the rest of the schedule, the Wolverines still have quite a few tough games remaining, with Penn State, Indiana, Oregon, UCLA and Ohio State still looming. At this point, four of those five teams are ranked higher on SP+ than Michigan. That means the Wolverines are projected to go 6-6 and that bowl eligibility is a serious question at this point — definitely not what fans expected coming into the year.
When you take a deeper look at Michigan’s rating, it’s pretty predictable why it is what it is based on what we’ve seen on the field through five games. The defense is doing much of the heavy lifting, ranked as the No. 9 unit in the country per SP+. The offense and special teams are lagging well behind at No. 76 and No. 87, respectively.
Michigan has a bye week to recoup after dropping back-to-back games, but looking ahead to the next two games, Penn State is currently ranked No. 30 with a rating of 11.9, while Indiana is ranked No. 3 with a rating of 29.3. Based on these numbers, SP+ is currently predicting a tight win against Penn State and a big loss to Indiana in the subsequent week.
We’ll see how things pan out when Michigan returns to action after a much-needed reset.
