Michigan looked rather lifeless on both sides of the ball in its 31-13 loss to USC on Saturday night, and as you might expect, it fell pretty far in Bill Connelly and ESPN’s SP+ rankings as a result.
For
those of you who might not be familiar with SP+, Connelly describes it as, “A tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency – It is simply a measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football. If you’re lucky or unimpressive in a win, your rating will probably fall. If you’re strong and unlucky in a loss, it will probably rise.”
A team’s SP+ rating is determined from it’s offensive, defensive, and special teams efficiencies and is used to predict how many points a given team would beat (or lose to) the “average” college football team by. For example, Michigan’s rating after the loss to USC is 16.8 — good for No. 22 overall, which is down eight spots from where it was last week. In other words, Michigan should beat the “average” college football team by 16.8 points on a neutral field.
As for the rest of the Big Ten, the conference has been well-represented at the top of the rankings all year. Ohio State reclaimed the top spot after a big win over Illinois on Saturday, while Oregon dropped to No. 2 and Indiana held at No. 3. Oddly enough, USC actually fell one spot in the rankings to No. 14, but its win over Michigan on Saturday was predicted by SP+ anyway, so this isn’t all that surprising.
A bit further down the rankings, because of how far Michigan dropped, there are three new Big Ten teams ahead of the Wolverines in the rankings. Penn State still comes in at No. 18 after losing to Northwestern, while Nebraska dropped one spot to No. 19 after narrowly defeating Maryland.
Michigan’s next opponent, the Washington Huskies, defeated Maryland by a 38-19 final score on Friday night in Seattle. The Huskies will travel to Ann Arbor next weekend ranked as the No. 21 team in the country per SP+, just one spot ahead of Michigan. Washington’s SP+ rating is 16.9, just 0.1 point ahead of Michigan — meaning the matchup is basically predicted to be a toss-up. We’ll see how things turn out when the teams take the field at noon on Saturday.
