All but 4 of the Big Ten teams have finished the non-conference portion of their schedule; and half of the remaining teams will finish this weekend. Most of the non-conference games last weekend were not particularly helpful since there were large margins of victory over teams that they were expected to handle easily. There were obviously a few exceptions since there were a couple of conference games and a couple of non-conference games against P4 opponents. Unfortunately, those P4 non-conference games did
not go well for the Big Ten teams. Then there was UCLA which has now lost all three of there games this season, plus now their head coach as well.
Polls
USC broke into the top-25 in the AP poll so there are now 7 Big Ten teams in the AP poll. USC ranks #28 in the Coaches poll, so there are still just 6 Big Ten teams in that poll. Here are the rankings (AP/Coaches).
- Ohio State (1/1)
- Penn State (2/2)
- Oregon (6/5) down 2 in the AP
- Illinois (9/8) up 1 in the Coaches
- Indiana (19/17) up 3 in the AP and up 2 in the Coaches
- Michigan (21/20) up 2 in both the AP and the Coachs
- USC (25/28) down 1 in the Coaches
In addition, Nebraska is getting votes in the AP poll (#34). Nebraska (#36) and Washington (#39) are getting votes in the Coaches poll.
Composite Ranking
With more games this season the rankings in the Massey Composite (https://masseyratings.com/ranks) are reflecting more about this season than last season. The following chart shows the changes since the preseason.
The big changes this week are UCLA and Minnesota after their losses. Despite the loss to USC, Purdue continues to rise.
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 teams. Last week’s rank is in ().
- Penn State: 1 (7)
- Oregon: 2 (1)
- Ohio State: 3 (2)
- USC: 9 (10)
- Indiana: 13 (16)
- Illinois: 16 (17)
- Michigan: 18 (25)
- Nebraska: 21 (45)
- Washington: 32 (29)
- Iowa: 34 (42)
- Maryland: 44 (53)
- Rutgers: 47 (46)
- Minnesota: 48 (32)
- Wisconsin: 53 (34)
- Michigan State: 59 (61)
- Purdue: 80 (85)
- Northwestern: 87 (84)
- UCLA: 89 (82)
There is one FCS team, North Dakota State, that is ranked #35 (among ALL schools), so they are ranked ahead of the bottom 8 Big Ten teams. Tarleton State is ranked #76, so they are ranked above Purdue, Northwestern, and UCLA. And South Dakota State is also ranked above Northwestern and UCLA.
Several teams made big moves. Penn State leaped Oregon and Ohio State. Michigan improved since it looks like they may have a competent offense. Nebraska surprisingly improved a lot considering they played FCS Houston Christian. Not surprisingly, Minnesota and Wisconsin dropped after their losses.
Washington’s drop (-3) was obviously more about other teams jumping them. Nebraska, Vanderbilt (with their upset win over South Carolina), and Memphis were teams that moved ahead of UW with their wins while UW was idle.
UW’s next opponent, WSU, is ranked #107, which is still above UW’s first opponent this season, Colorado State. And, if you’re wondering, UC Davis is now ranked #140.
This early in the season SP+, along with many rankings, use data from the previous season. As the season goes on they use less and less data from the previous season since there is more data from the current season. Bill Connelly ranked the top 15 teams if only the 2025 data was being used.
For UW (and BYU, TCU, and Florida State), it is just based on 2 games (the rest of those teams have played 3 games). For now UW is doing what they need to do, and if they can continue, they will put themselves in contention in the Big Ten.
F+ Comparison
F+ is a combination of Brian Fremeau’s FEI and Bill Connelly’s SP+. While 2 or 3 games may not be enough data for most teams to see where they are this season (especially since there have been a lot of games against lower-level competition), it can still be helpful to see where teams are now compared to the end of last season because several teams have already shown that they are different than last year.
F+ Offense Rankings
‘Week 0’ (after the week 0 games) was included to give a perspective on the expectations for this season. Michigan’s offense has made the biggest jump; and it was expected to given the new QB and other changes on the offense. Despite their new QB, Iowa’s offense has dropped the most since last year; and it was expected to be only slightly worse this season. Nebraska, Michigan State, UW, and Purdue have all improved by more than 20 places; only UW was expected to have improved much since last season.
Rutgers’ offense was supposed to drop since last season, but instead has improved. UCLA’s offense was supposed to improve a lot (probably due to their transfer QB); instead it is only up a little. Northwestern, Ohio State, Oregon, and Penn State were all expected to be about the same this season-and have so far met those expectations.
F+ Defense Rankings
The two teams whose defense has improved the most since last season are Purdue (+34) and Maryland (+30). Both were expected to improve a little since last year, but have improved considerably since even Week 0.
On the other hand, Northwestern (-45) and UCLA (-51) have dropped since last season despite expectations that they would improve.
Iowa, Michigan, and Ohio State are ranked the same as they were at the end of last year. Seven other teams, including UW, are within 5 places of where they finished last season. And all but Purdue, Maryland, Northwestern, UCLA, and Rutgers (-13) are within 10 places of where they were after Week 0.
F+ Rankings
Here is where all of the Big Ten teams stand in the overall F+ rankings:
- Ohio State: 1
- Oregon: 2
- Penn State: 4
- USC: 10
- Michigan: 13
- Indiana: 15
- Illinois: 21
- Nebraska: 22
- Iowa: 27
- Washington: 30
- Minnesota: 39
- Rutgers: 45
- Wisconsin: 46
- Maryland: 50
- Michigan State: 64
- Purdue: 80
- UCLA: 83
- Northwestern: 85
The top 3 teams are in the top 10 in both offense and defense. USC and Michigan are in the top 10 in one area (USC for offense and Michigan for defense) but not the other. If you look at just offense and defense, Washington should probably be ahead of Iowa. What is likely hurting UW is special teams where UW ranks #118 (while Iowa is #2). Since these rankings still use UW’s poor special teams performance from last season, UW should move up some if their special teams continues to play at least as well as they have this season.
Win Projections
ESPN’s FPI and Kelley Ford have updated their win projections for all FBS teams after the week 3 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 each.
There is a lot of consistency between the two projections. Purdue, USC, and UW are the only teams that differ by more than 0.4 wins.
Three teams had their win projections change by more than 0.5 games in both. Michigan improved by 1.5 on ESPN’s FPI and 1.0 on Kelly Ford. Minnesota dropped by 0.9 on ESPN’s FPI and 1.4 on Kelley Ford. And UCLA dropped by 1.4 on ESPN’s FPI and 1.6 on Kelly Ford. Nebraska improved by 0.6 on Kelley Ford but was unchanged on ESPN’s FPI.
There are a couple of games where ESPN’s FPI flipped which team is now the favorite. Here are those games along with the previous and current win percentages:
- Illinois at Washington: Illinois from 47.4% to 53.0%
- USC at Notre Dame: Was at 50% for each team last week, now USC at 51.2%
(Note that some of these win percentages may be different by the time you read this since ESPN sometimes makes updates during the week, but typically not by more than 1 percentage point.)
Ohio State is the favorite in all of their remaining games. Purdue and UCLA aren’t favored in any of their remaining games. USC, Oregon, and Penn State are favored in all but one of their remaining games. Michigan State is favored in only one of their remaining games (vs UCLA).
According to both ESPN’s FPI and Kelley Ford, UW is the favorite in 6 of their remaining games. Kelley Ford has the Illinois game as a toss-up (50% win percentage for each team) while ESPN’s FPI has Illinois as the slight favorite (see above). Both sources have UW as just a slight favorite at Wisconsin (50.9% for ESPN’s FPI and 60% for Kelley Ford).
Week 4 Games
Here’s a look at win projections for the week 4 games in the Big Ten. The SP+ projections are included this week.
The Iowa-Rutgers game is split. ESPN’s FPI has Rutgers as the favorite. Massey has Iowa as the favorite. And both SP+ and Kelley Ford have it as a toss-up.
There is also some disagreement on the Michigan-Nebraska game. Two places have Nebraska as the favorite and 2 have Michigan. Massey has Michigan as a clear favorite while the others all have it as very close.
There are 3 non-conference games this weekend. Oregon and Washington are the heavy favorite in their games while Notre Dame is the heavy favorite against Purdue. UW is the only visiting team (among these Big Ten games) that is the favorite from all 4 sites.
Final Notes
It is still very early in the season. And you can argue that for UCLA, the season is just beginning since they will have a new head coach. But some trends are visible. For example, Purdue has improved since last season. They aren’t the doormat like they were last season, but they probably won’t be moving into the top 25 like Indiana did last year after starting out at the bottom. So far most of the other teams are about where they were expected to be in the preseason-with the exception of UCLA.
But there has been some movement, and teams will continue to move up and down in the rankings, especially as we get more into conference play. This week there are some games that will really help either separate some teams, or possibly flip the rankings. The Illinois-Indiana, Iowa-Rutgers, and Michigan-Nebraska games could all be critical in both the rankings, but in how those teams are likely to be viewed this season.
Washington appears to be improved over where they were last season. But they started last season with 2 wins before falling in the Apple Cup. If they are improved, they can’t afford to stumble in this year’s Apple Cup. And despite UW being given great odds to win that game, it is a rivalry game which means that those odds may not mean a lot.
