Michigan failed to put its best foot forward on both sides of the ball on Saturday night, losing to Oklahoma by a final score of 24-13. As such, the Wolverines took a pretty steep drop in the latest edition of ESPN and Bill Connelly’s SP+ rankings after Week 2.
For those of you who might be unfamiliar with SP+, Connelly describes it as, “A tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency.
It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking.” SP+ takes into account a team’s efficiencies on offense, defense, and special teams to form one uniform metric that can be used to predict how many points a given team would beat (or lose to) the “average” college football team by on a neutral field.
As for Michigan, the Wolverines are ranked as the No. 25 team in the country with an SP+ rating of 14.7 after Week 2. In other words, SP+ predicts Michigan should defeat the “average” team by 14.7 points on a neutral field.
Michigan’s new ranking represents a drop of 10 spots from where the Wolverines were after their win over New Mexico. As for Oklahoma, the Sooners actually dropped from No. 7 to No. 8 and have a rating of 19.7, largely due to being jumped by Alabama and Tennessee.
There was a bit of shakeup at the top of the rankings, as Ohio State no longer occupies the top spot even after a big win over Grambling State. The new No. 1 is still a member of the Big Ten, as Oregon jumped from No. 3 to No. 1 after an absolute dismantling of Oklahoma State on Saturday afternoon in Eugene. Ohio State only dropped to No. 2, while Alabama is the new No. 3.
This week, Michigan checks in as the seventh-best team in the Big Ten, according to SP+. The aforementioned Oregon and Ohio State occupy the top two spots in the rankings, while Penn State (No. 7) and USC (No. 10) are included in the top-10. Not too far behind are Indiana and Illinois at No. 16 and No. 17, respectively.
Looking ahead to Week 3, the Wolverines will be welcoming in Central Michigan to the Big House in an attempt to get right before conference play begins. Fortunately, the Chippewas should be a good opponent to right the ship against, as they check in at No. 119 in the latest SP+ rankings. Their rating of -14.5 is about 28 points lower than Michigan’s, suggesting the Wolverines should win by about four touchdowns on Saturday.
