We are starting to learn something about many of the Big Ten teams even after 2 games, despite (and partially because) many of the games last weekend were decidedly one-sided. A couple of potential Big Ten contenders lost last weekend-Michigan and Iowa. Even though they lost to ranked teams, as you’ll see, it has dropped them in the rankings.
Polls
The two major polls were released and there are still 6 Big Ten teams ranked in the Coaches Poll and in the AP Poll-including 3 of the top 5. Here are the ranked teams.
(AP/Coaches)
- Ohio State (1/1)
- Penn State (2/2)
- Oregon (4/5)
- Illinois (9/9)
- Indiana (22/19)
- Michigan (23/22)
In addition, there are 2 other teams getting votes in the AP poll: USC (#30) and Nebraska (#35). There are 3 Big Ten teams getting votes (but aren’t in the top-25) in the Coaches poll: USC (#29), Nebraska (#35), and Washington (tied at #37 with Mississippi State).
There should be no surprise that Michigan dropped after their loss at Oklahoma. And Illinois had a big win at Duke which moved them up into the top-10. (That makes 3 top-10 teams that will be playing at Husky Stadium this year-assuming that they all stay ranked that high.)
Composite Ranking
Many of the rankings in the Massey Composite (https://masseyratings.com/ranks) are still based a lot on the results from last season, but we are seeing some movement based on the games this year.
Here is a chart showing the rankings and changes since the preseason rankings. It also includes the final rankings from last season.
You can see that there are some differences among the top 25 teams between this ranking and the two major polls. Michigan is outside of the top-25 in this ranking while USC is in the top-25. Minnesota is above Washington in this, but Washington is getting votes in the Coaches poll while Minnesota is not.
UCLA has dropped after losing their first two games. They have a chance to reverse that over the next few weeks with games against New Mexico and at Northwestern before taking on Penn State at the beginning of October.
Purdue has won their first two games, both by 3 scores or more. That’s already more wins than last year. That’s why their ranking is up the most of any Big Ten team since last season. But, they have a difficult stretch of games coming up (USC, then Notre Dame, then Illinois). Let’s see if that upward trend will continue.
Maryland (+21), Michigan State (+17), USC (+15), and UW (+15) are also up a lot since last season. Purdue (+28), Illinois (+13), and UW (+11) are the teams up by 10 or more since the preseason. Michigan (-14) and Iowa (-10) are the two teams down 10 or more since the preseason.
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.
- Oregon (1)
- Ohio State: (2)
- Penn State: (7)
- USC: (10)
- Indiana (16)
- Illinois (17)
- Michigan: (25)
- Washington: (29)
- Minnesota (32)
- Wisconsin (34)
- Iowa (42)
- Nebraska: (45)
- Rutgers: (46)
- Maryland: (53)
- Michigan State (61)
- UCLA:(82)
- Northwestern (84)
- Purdue: (85)
Most of the SP+ rankings are within a few places of the Composite Ranking. There are, however, a few exceptions. Nebraska is 18 places lower in SP+ than in the Composite. Wisconsin is 8 places higher in SP+ than in the Composite. Iowa (+6), Maryland (-6), and UCLA (+6) are the only other teams that have a difference of more than 5 places.
Also note that there are two FCS teams that are ranked ahead of some of the FBS teams, including some of the Big Ten teams. North Dakota State is ranked #40, which is above 8 of the Big Ten teams. Tarleton State is ranked #78, which is above the bottom 3 Big Ten teams.
WSU (UW’s next opponent) is now ranked #77 in the SP+. That is still higher than UW’s last two opponents: Colorado State (#112) and UC Davis (#141).
Win Projections
ESPN’s FPI has updated their win projections for all FBS teams after the week 2 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 along with the change since last week.
- Illinois: 8.2 (+1.2)
- Indiana: 8.7 (+0.8)
- Iowa: 5.2 (-1.0)
- Maryland: 6.2 (-0.5)
- Michigan: 6.9 (-1.2)
- Michigan State: 5.5 (+0.3)
- Minnesota: 6.6 (unchanged)
- Nebraska: 9.2 (+1.3)
- Northwestern: 3.9 (-0.1)
- Ohio State: 10.8 (unchanged)
- Oregon: 10.7 (+0.9)
- Penn State: 9.7 (-0.4)
- Purdue: 3.7 (-0.2)
- Rutgers: 6.5 (+0.4)
- UCLA: 2.6 (-0.3)
- USC: 9.8 (-0.2)
- Washington: 7.5 (+0.1)
- Wisconsin: 5.6 (-0.5)
Two teams improved their win projection by 1 or more wins (Illinois and Nebraska), plus Indiana and Oregon each improved by almost a full game. Meanwhile, 2 teams had their projected win totals decrease by 1 or more wins (Iowa and Michigan).
There are some games where ESPN’s FPI flipped which team is now the favorite. Here are some of those games along with the previous and current win percentages:
- Illinois at Wisconsin: Illinois from 43.6% to 58.3%
- Indiana at Iowa: Indiana from 47.4% to 63.2%
- Wisconsin at Minnesota: Minnesota from 47.0% to 51.8 %
- Michigan at Nebraska: Nebraska from 45.9% to 69.5%
- Washington at Maryland: Washington from 47.3% to 54.9%
(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.)
In addition to those changes, the USC-Notre Dame game is now a toss-up. Each team has a 50% chance. That is an improvement by USC; they were at 43.6% last week, and at 27.5% before week 1.
Despite being ranked high in the polls, in the Composite, in SP+, and even in the ESPN FPI, Illinois is only the favorite in 6 of their remaining games. That mainly has to do with their schedule. They are underdogs at Indiana this week, against USC the following week, against Ohio State in week 7, and at UW in week 9 (although that game is now essentially a toss-up).
UW’s win percentage did drop in 4 games (WSU, Rutgers, Illinois, and Oregon) and improved in the other 6 games. The drops against WSU and Rutgers were each less than 3 percentage points-so not significant. Even though it did not flip UW from underdog to favorite, UW’s biggest improvement was against Iowa where it went from 40.7% to 49.6% (now essentially a toss-up).
Kelley Ford has also updated win projections for each of the FBS teams based on how the teams have looked so far, and based on each team’s schedule.
- Ohio State: 10.8
- Oregon: 10.6
- Penn State: 9.8
- USC: 9.4
- Illinois: 8.7
- Indiana: 8.6
- Nebraska: 8.5
- Washington: 8.0
- Minnesota: 7.3
- Michigan: 7.3
- Rutgers: 6.1
- Maryland: 5.8
- Iowa: 5.7
- Michigan State: 5.4
- Wisconsin: 5.1
- Northwestern: 3.7
- Purdue: 3.1
- UCLA: 2.7
Most of these win projections are within 0.5 of the win projections from ESPN’s FPI. The exceptions are Purdue (0.6 less), Nebraska (0.7 less), and Minnesota (0.7 more). UW is one of the teams that has a higher win projection with Kelley Ford than with ESPN’s FPI.
Week 3 Games
Here’s a look at win projections for the week 3 games in the Big Ten.
| Visitor | ESPN FPI | Massey | Kford | Home | ESPN FPI | Massey | Kford |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wisconsin | 11.1% | 9% | 8% | Alabama | 88.9% | 91% | 92% |
| Ohio | 4.6% | 0% | 2% | Ohio State | 95.4% | 100% | 98% |
| Houston Christian | 1.0% | 0% | 1% | Nebraska | 99.0% | 100% | 99% |
| Western Michigan | 4.1% | 3% | 3% | Illinois | 95.9% | 97% | 97% |
| Umass | 1.9% | 0% | 1% | Iowa | 98.1% | 100% | 99% |
| Oregon | 94.7% | 97% | 97% | Northwestern | 5.3% | 3% | 3% |
| USC | 92.7% | 84% | 96% | Purdue | 7.3% | 16% | 4% |
| Norfolk State | 1.0% | 0% | 1% | Rutgers | 99.0% | 100% | 99% |
| Youngstown State | 5.2% | 4% | 6% | Michigan State | 94.8% | 96% | 94% |
| Villanova | 1.0% | 0% | 1% | Penn State | 99.0% | 100% | 99% |
| Indiana State | 1.0% | 0% | 1% | Indiana | 99.0% | 100% | 99% |
| New Mexico | 18.6% | 11% | 18% | UCLA | 81.4% | 89% | 82% |
| Towson | 3.6% | 0% | 7% | Maryland | 96.4% | 100% | 93% |
| Central Michigan | 4.5% | 0% | 4% | Michigan | 95.5% | 100% | 96% |
| Minnesota | 52.6% | 65% | 63% | California | 47.4% | 35% | 37% |
The first note is that there is a remarkable consistency in the win percentages in all of the games-except the Minnesota-Cal game. Even in that game there is consistency with which team is favored-and that it should be relatively close.
The second note is that all of the games, again with the exception of the Minnesota-Cal game, are expected to be very one-sided. There is an 80% or higher win percentage for teams in all of those other games, and most are 90% or more. Even UCLA has a greater than 80% win percentage. Sometimes that can be expected when P4 teams take on G5 or FCS opponents in non-conference games. But this weekend there are also 2 conference games, and the visiting team in each of those games has better than a 80% win percentage. And there is another P4 vs P4 game (Wisconsin at Alabama) where there is about a 90% win percentage.
While UW doesn’t play this weekend, their next opponent, WSU, does play. The Cougars play at North Texas and North Texas has a 59.4% win percentage from ESPN’s FPI, 57% from SP+, and a 65% from Kelley Ford. (Massey does have WSU with a 60% win percentage.) So it is possible that WSU will be coming into the Apple Cup with a loss.
Final Notes
Yes, it is still very early in the season. But so far the 3 teams which were at the top of the power rankings in the preseason have done nothing to suggest that they aren’t going to be some of the top teams in the country. The bottom 4 teams in the preseason continue to be among the bottom teams in the Big Ten, although it’s possible that there could be changes over the course of the season. It is with the other 10 teams that we can expect to see the most movement over the course of the season.
But based on the matchups this week, only if there is a major upset should we expect any major changes in the rankings for the Big Ten teams. Given the number of those games this weekend, however, at least one major upset should be expected.
USC may be a team to watch. After what has happened with them the last 2 seasons, there was bound to be some hesitation in having them highly ranked this season. So far they have impressed, especially their offense. The next two weeks could see more of the same as they play two of the lower-ranked teams in the Big Ten. But then they will get tested as they play Illinois, Michigan, Notre Dame, and Nebraska in consecutive games (with some byes between them).
UW still has 10 (regular season) games to play. The good news is that so far they are trending in the right direction. The game against Ohio State still looks to be the first big test for the team. And the stretch of games at Michigan, against Illinois, and at Wisconsin still look to be a deciding factor in how UW will end up this season.
