Michigan turned in arguably its sloppiest win of the season on Saturday night, defeating Purdue at the Big House by a final score of 21-16. Despite the unexpected result, Michigan actually didn’t move
at all in the latest edition of ESPN and Bill Connelly’s latest SP+ rankings.
For those of you who might be unfamiliar with SP+, Connelly describes the rankings as, “A tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency – SP+ is intended to be predictive and forward-facing. It is not a résumé ranking, so it does not automatically give credit for big wins or particularly brave scheduling – 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.”
SP+ takes into account a given team’s offensive, defensive and special teams efficiencies and spits out one rating that predicts how many points that team would beat (or lose to) the “average” college football team by. In Michigan’s case, it checks in at No. 21 in the country after the win over Purdue with a rating of 15.6, meaning the Wolverines should defeat the “average” college football team by 15.6 points.
As for the rest of the Big Ten, there was another change at the top this week, as Indiana ceded the No. 1 spot back to Ohio State. The Buckeyes convincingly beat a hapless Penn State team to move to 8-0 on the year. Indiana now sits at No. 2, albeit by a narrow 0.3-point margin. Oregon still slots in at No. 3.
A little bit further down the rankings, USC continued its late-season ascent by moving up four spots to No. 12 after defeating Nebraska. Iowa stands pat at No. 17, but will get a tough test next week when it welcomes in Oregon for what should be an excellent matchup. Finally, Washington jumped up three spots despite being idle this weekend and is now at No. 19.
Michigan is off next weekend with its second bye week of the season and will head to Chicago to take on Northwestern at Wrigley Field on Nov. 15. Northwestern is 5-3 and plays USC on Friday night, but the Wildcats rank as the No. 60 team in the country with a rating of 3.4, per SP+. In other words, if the Wolverines were to play Northwestern this week, SP+ predicts Michigan should win by 12.2 points.
