There were several conference games that shook up the rankings this last weekend, led by Indiana’s rout of Illinois. Michigan had a big win at Nebraska, and Iowa also won on the road at Rutgers. Here’s a look at where the Big Ten teams stand now.
Polls
There are still 7 Big Ten teams in both polls, although their rankings have changed. Here are Big Ten teams in the polls (AP/Coaches):
- Ohio State (1/1) Unchanged
- Penn State (3/2) Down 1 in the AP
- Oregon (6/5) Unchanged
- Indiana (11/12) Up 8 in the AP and up 5 in the Coaches
- Michigan (19/18) Up 2 in the AP and 2 in the Coaches
- USC (21/22) Up 4 in the AP and unchanged in the Coaches
- Illinois (23/23) Down 14 in the AP and down 15 in the Coaches
After their loss to Michigan, Nebraska is no longer getting votes in the AP poll. But, a new Big Ten team is getting votes:
Maryland; they are at #33. Three Big Ten teams are getting votes in the Coaches poll: Washington (#33), Maryland (#35), and Nebraska (tied at #39).
Composite Ranking
The Massey Composite (https://masseyratings.com/ranks) includes 44 different rankings (as of the writing of this article), including the AP and Coaches polls. The following chart shows the rankings of all of the Big Ten teams and the changes since the preseason.
Wisconsin (-18), Rutgers (-13), Illinois (-12), and Minnesota (-10) dropped the most in the last week. Surprisingly, Minnesota, Northwestern, Penn State, and UCLA all dropped despite not playing. (At least partly because teams that were behind them played and looked better.)
Indiana’s win bumped them all the way up to #2 (+10). Maryland (+16) rose the most. UW is up 8 places. Iowa and Michigan both had small increases (+3 and +2 respectively) from their wins.
SP+
Bill Connelly has updated his SP+ rankings of all college football teams, including FBS, FCS, DII, D3, and NAIA. Here is where the Big Ten teams rank among all FBS teams. Last week’s rank is in ().
- Oregon: 1 (2)
- Penn State: 2 (1)
- Ohio State: 3 (3)
- Indiana: 6 (13)
- USC: 11 (9)
- Michigan: 17 (18)
- Nebraska: 20 (21)
- Washington: 28 (32)
- Maryland: 33 (43)
- Iowa: 35 (34)
- Illinois: 36 (16)
- Minnesota: 41 (47)
- Rutgers: 43 (46)
- Michigan State: 59 (58)
- Wisconsin: 60 (52)
- UCLA: 81 (85)
- Purdue: 84 (78)
- Northwestern: 85 (83)
Just like in the Composite rankings, there is also a jump here for Indiana (+7). Maryland also has a big jump here as well (+10). Obviously the biggest change is the huge drop by Illinois (-20).
Both Michigan and Nebraska moved up one spot after their game-which means that Nebraska moved up despite their loss. Iowa dropped one spot and USC 2 spots despite their wins. Rutgers rose 3 spots despite their loss.
Interesting that Minnesota rose 6 places here, but dropped 10 places in the Composite ranking. And that is despite (or maybe because?) Minnesota did not even play.
Purdue and Northwestern are two of the lowest-ranked Power-4 teams; only Stanford is below them. There are 6 FCS teams above Purdue and Northwestern in the rankings; there are 5 FCS teams above UCLA. North Dakota State is ranked #38 among all teams, so they are ranked between Illinois and Minnesota. And Memphis is the highest ranked non-P4 team at #34 (so, above Iowa and Illinois).
F+ Ratings
The F+ Ratings (and rankings) are a combination of the FEI Rating (mentioned last week) and the SP+ Rating. It includes an overall rating along with separate ratings for offense, defense, and special teams.
Just like with the rankings above, Illinois has dropped-not just overall (-14), but they also dropped in offense (-10) and defense (-20) since last week. Wisconsin also dropped overall (-11), in offense (-21) and in defense (-5).
Maryland improved the most overall; they are up 17 places. Michigan State’s offense rose the most; they are up 24 places.
But, these stats are still using some data from last year. UW’s special teams has not been great this year, but they have been good enough that being #106 doesn’t make sense from just this season. So, I expect that these numbers will change as the season goes on and more of the data is from this season.
Offensive Success
There are several advanced stats which measure the efficiency of the offense (and defense). They go a step beyond just looking at just total yards or total points. You can find these at http://bcftoys.com
While ‘total yards’ is a decent measure of an offense (or defense), Available Yards is better in that it takes into account teams that end up with short fields (or long fields). It takes out ‘garbage time’ scores and only looks at FBS vs FBS games (so the UC Davis game for UW is not included). Here are the top 5 teams:
- 1) Washington (84.5%)
- 2) Oregon (82.3%)
- 3) USC (78%)
- 4) Florida State (75.6%)
- 5) Indiana (75.6%)
Ohio State’s offense is #45 (52.6%) and their defense is #14 (31.9%).
The next one is Points Per Drive. Again this is for just FBS vs FBS games and takes out ‘garbage time’ scores. Here are the top 5 teams:
- 1) Washington (5.19 points per drive)
- 2) Oregon (4.96)
- 3) Vanderbilt (4.68)
- 4) USC (4.65)
- 5) Florida State (4.61)
Drive Success is the percentage of drives that end in a TD or FG attempt. Here are the top 5 teams:
- 1) Washington (81.3%)
- 2) Oregon (80%)
- 3) USC (78.4%)
- 4) Florida State (72.2%)
- 4) Penn State (72.2%)
Washington, Oregon, and USC are consistently 3 of the most efficient offenses so far this season. Penn State and Indiana also have had good offensive success so far this year. But this is based on just 2, 3, or 4 games (just 2 for UW), so these values will definitely change as the season goes on.
Win Total Projections
ESPN’s FPI and Kelley Ford have updated their win total projections for all FBS teams after the week 4 games. Again, the changes can tell us about how each team looked in their games compared to what was expected. Here are the current win totals from both.
The win projections are all within 0.5 wins between the two sites.
Illinois’ win total dropped by more than 1 win on both sites; the same with Wisconsin. Nebraska and Rutgers also had their win totals drop by at least 0.5 wins on both sites.
Indiana and Maryland had their win totals increase by at least 1 win. Iowa and Washington had their win totals increase by at least 1 win on ESPN’s FPI and close to that (0.8) on Kelley Ford.
As we get further into the season, the swings in win percentages for individual games are usually not large, but this week that is not the case; there were some dramatic swings. Here are games where the favorite changed according to ESPN’s FPI:
- USC at Notre Dame: USC was at 51.2%, now at 46%
- Wisconsin at Minnesota: Minnesota was at 46.9%, now at 54%
- Iowa at Wisconsin: Iowa was at 49.7%, now at 64.1%
- Indiana at Penn State: Indiana was at 32.1%, now at 51.7%
- Illinois at Washington: Washington was at 47%, now at 72.5%
I’ve been looking at these win percentages for several years and most of the time the changes are minor and predictable. The Indiana-Penn State change was a shock. Penn State is the #3 team, playing at home, and now they are the underdog? Kelley Ford doesn’t have Penn State as the underdog, but they are only a slight favorite now at 53%; that’s still a huge change from the preseason when their win percentage was 89%! That game isn’t until November 8, so I’m expecting the win percentages to change-and probably which team is the favorite-multiple times between now and then.
I wasn’t surprised that Washington is now the favorite against Illinois; it had been going back and forth since the preseason. But I was surprised by how much of a change there was: over 25 points swing. That was the largest change among any of the Big Ten games. And Kelley Ford has UW’s win percentage in that game at 75%, so it is consistent. But that game is also a month away, so it will likely change (maybe multiple times) between now and then.
I’ll also point out another couple of games. The Washington-Wisconsin game was a toss-up according to ESPN’s FPI last week (50% win percentage). Now Washington has a 69% win percentage. The other is the Illinois-Maryland game. Illinois is still the favorite, but they went from a 86% win percentage to 68.7%; that’s a drop of over 17 points. Given Illinois’ schedule, it wouldn’t be a surprise to have that game be a toss-up or favor Maryland by the time they play that game.
Ohio State is still favored in all of their remaining games. Indiana and Oregon are favored in all but one of their remaining games; Indiana against Oregon and Oregon against Penn State.
Purdue is not favored in any of their remaining games; neither is UCLA. Surprisingly, Wisconsin isn’t the favorite in any of their remaining games, either; although, there are a couple of games where their win percentage in at last 40%.
UW is favored in all but 3 of their remaining games: at home against Ohio State, at Michigan, and at home against Oregon. This is true on both ESPN’s FPI and on Kelley Ford’s projections.
Week 5 Games
All of the games this week in the Big Ten are conference games. Here’s a look at win projections for the week 5 games in the Big Ten.
There is general agreement on all but 2 games. Three of the four sites have Northwestern as the favorite while Massey has it as a toss-up. There is some disagreement on the Oregon-Penn State game, although it is clear that it is a virtual toss-up by all of the sites.
Here’s a review of last week’s games:
- ESPN’s FPI was correct on 5 of the 8 games last weekend, missing the Iowa-Rutgers, Maryland-Wisconsin, and Michigan-Nebraska games.
- Massey was correct on 7 of the 8 games, missing only the Maryland-Wisconsin game.
- Kelley Ford also missed the Maryland-Wisconsin game. They also had the Iowa-Rutgers game as a toss-up. (To be fair, that game was close until late in the fourth quarter.)
- SP+ was correct on 6 games. It also missed the Maryland-Wisconsin game and also had the Iowa-Rutgers game as a toss-up.
For the season, ESPN’s FPI is at 83% correct; Massey is at 90%; and Kelley Ford is at 93%. (I wasn’t tracking SP+ since the beginning.)
Final Notes
With so few games having been played by all of the teams, you may wonder whether some of the large changes in rankings and win percentages are overreactions. Did, for example, Illinois just have a bad game, or is Indiana just REALLY good, or was the result of that game a combination of Illinois not being a top-25 team (but still good) and Indiana just being very good? It may take a few more weeks before we know the answer and see the rankings not jump around as much.
However, Indiana does appear to be better than expected, but they’ve also played all 4 of their games at home. Their next two games are road games at Iowa and then (after a bye) at Oregon. Those will be a good test for them. Last year their road games were at UCLA, at Northwestern, at Michigan State, and at Ohio State-which was their only loss during the regular season. How will they handle tough road games this year? And they still have to play at Maryland and at Penn State later this season as well. They will certainly earn their ranking if they can get through this season with just one or two losses.
Six of the Big Ten teams will not be playing this weekend: Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Nebraska, Purdue, and Wisconsin. Will those days off help those teams? Or will the time off halt some of the momentum that teams like Maryland have?
There are two ranked-vs-ranked games this weekend: USC at Illinois and Oregon at Penn State. At the other end there is the ‘battle for the bottom’ as UCLA plays Northwestern. And, Rutgers, Ohio State, and Indiana have their first road games of the season.
Over the next couple of weeks UW will show whether they deserve to be a top-25 team-obviously starting with the toughest test against Ohio State. But, win or lose, they’ll have to follow that up with what appears to be a tough road game at Maryland. UW now does have a road win, but a cross-country game against a better opponent will be a much better test.
