It was an eventful weekend across the Big Ten. Indiana got a signature win by breaking the Ducks home winning streak. Penn State got a signature loss-which resulted in firing of their head coach. UCLA had another big win. USC and Ohio State had wins over (previously) ranked teams. And Wisconsin had another terrible offensive performance. So, where does that put all of the teams?
Polls
Ohio State remains at the top in both polls. And there remains 3 Big Ten teams in the top 10. Across college football, Texas
upset Oklahoma and Florida State, Iowa State, and Arizona State were all top-25 teams that lost. Those losses allowed two Big Ten teams to move into the top-25 in the AP poll and one into the Coaches poll.
Here are Big Ten teams in the polls (AP/Coaches):
- Ohio State (1/1) Unchanged
- Indiana (3/3) Up 4 in both polls
- Oregon (8/9) Down 5 in the AP and down 7 in the Coaches
- USC (20/21) Previously unranked
- Nebraska (25/UR) Previously unranked in the top-25 in both polls
- Illinois (UR/25) Previously #17 in both polls
Three Big Ten teams are getting votes in the AP poll. Illinois (#26), Michigan (#27), and UW (#28). Four Big Ten teams are getting votes in the Coaches poll. Michigan (#26), Nebraska (#27), UW (#28), and Iowa (#35).
Composite Ranking
The Massey Composite (https://masseyratings.com/ranks) includes 64 different rankings (as of the writing of this article), including the AP and Coaches polls. The following “Cool Chart” shows the changes since the preseason.
The same two teams are at the top (Ohio State and Indiana) this week, but there is now a new team at the bottom: Wisconsin.
Elsewhere there was some movement-as should be expected given the results last weekend. Penn State continues to drop; they are now solidly in the bottom half of the conference (0-3 in conference will do that!). Northwestern and UCLA have both risen significantly in the last 2 weeks but are still in the bottom half of the conference. Three of the 4 former Pac-12 schools are bunched together in the top third of the conference.
At the half-way point of the season for the teams (except for Illinois which has played 7 games), some teams are playing as expected, some are better, some are worse, and some are MUCH worse. Purdue is up the most since the preseason-up 27 places. Northwestern and UW are the other Big Ten teams up at least 20 places. Four teams are down more than 20 places, led by Penn State (-60!). Wisconsin isn’t far behind at -45. Minnesota (-25) and UCLA (-27) are the other two teams. UCLA has obviously improved their ranking a lot over the last 2 weeks, so who knows where they will end up.
Other Rankings
Here is a comparison of the Composite ranking with some other popular rankings of all FBS teams. (Sagarin includes all D1 teams, so FCS teams are included).
There is a wide range of rankings for Penn State; some rankings still have them as a top-25 team while others have them MUCH lower. The wide range of rankings for Penn State make sense. They have the talent to be in the top half of the conference, but they haven’t been playing like it lately. And with a coaching change it is hard to know what they will look like the rest of this year.
Maryland, Iowa, and Wisconsin are other teams that vary by more than 20 places. At the other end is Ohio State which is #1 in every one of these rankings.
The Dawgs range from as high as #15 to as low as #28. That #28 matches where they are in the polls; but that means that these other rankings all think that UW should be in the top-25.
F+ Ratings
The F+ Ratings (and rankings) are a combination of the FEI Rating and the SP+ Rating. It includes an overall rating along with separate ratings for offense, defense, and special teams.
UCLA had the biggest overall jump in the last week-up from #80 last week (to now #69). Their offense improved 9 places and their defense is up 17 places.
Michigan State dropped 9 places overall in the last week. They are down 12 places on offense and 11 places on defense.
Wisconsin also dropped 9 places overall after their loss to Iowa. They are down 15 places on offense and 5 on defense.
UW is up 5 places overall, 3 on offense, and 7 on defense. They still have work to do on special teams; they are last in the Big Ten. (A missed FG and a 28 yard punt against Rutgers did not help.) While UW is doing well on kickoffs, field goals, punt returns, and kickoff returns, they are #15 in opponent kickoff returns (allowing an average of over 20 yards per return), #16 in punting (averaging less than 40 yards per punt), and are last in the Big Ten in opponent punt returns (allowing an average of 21 yards, although that was from just 2 punt returns).
SRS
Now that every team is at least half-way through their season, it is time to start looking at the Simple Rating System (SRS). This uses point differential (with some limits) and strength of schedule to rank teams. In addition to ranking teams, it can also separate out offense and defense and passing and rushing for each. In future articles in this series, I’ll compare rankings for all of the Big Ten schools. For now, here is where UW ranks in the different SRS categories.
- Overall: 17
- Offense: 17
- Defense: 42
- Offense Scoring: 8
- Defense Scoring: 36
- Passing Offense: 6
- Passing Defense: 25
- Rushing Offense: 43
- Rushing Defense: 49
While someone could argue a bit on a few of those rankings, those seem consistent with observations of the team so far this season-very good offense and decent, but not great defense. The surprising one for some fans might be the rushing defense since UW is allowing less than 83 yards rushing per game. But this looks at how successful the running plays have been against the UW defense-not just totals, which can be influenced by the number of attempts. (If a team has a 3rd down with 2 yards to go and gets 3 yards, total yards and yards per carry look good for the defense, but they just gave up a first down.)
Overall, UW is currently ahead of all of the rest of their opponents for this (regular) season, except for Illinois. (That means they are ahead of both Michigan and Oregon.)
Win Total Projections
Here are the updated win total projections for each of the Big Ten teams.
There is not much difference between the total win projections for any of the Big Ten teams. What is significant is the change from last week.
Northwestern had their win total improve the most; they are up 1.3 wins on ESPN FPI and 1.2 on Kelley Ford. Indiana’s total wins improved by about 1 win (1.1 according to ESPN’s FPI and 0.8 according to Kelley Ford). UCLA’s total wins improved by about 1 win as well (1.0 according to ESPN’s FPI and 0.9 according to Kelley Ford). Iowa was also up by 0.9 by both sites. Washington is up 0.6 according to both sites.
Oregon’s total wins are down by over a win (1.3 according to ESPN’s FPI and 1.1 according to Kelley Ford). Penn State’s are down by 1.2 according to both sites. Michigan State is also down at least 1 win (1.2 according to ESPN’s FPI and 1.0 according to Kelley Ford). Michigan’s is down 0.7 according to both sites.
Week 8 Games
There are another 9 games involving Big Ten teams this week. One team is off (Illinois) and one team (USC) is playing an out-of-conference game.
There is consistency with which team is the favorite in 7 of the games, although the win percentages differ on a few games. In two of the games there is a different favorite. Maryland is the favorite in 3 of the four projections, but Massey has UCLA favored. Similarly, Iowa is favored in 3 of the 4; again, it is Massey that has Penn State favored.
Surprisingly, only one home team has a win percentage over 80% (Indiana). Two road teams have a 80% win percentage (Oregon and Ohio State).
Final Notes
USC looks like they are playing at a top-25 level. Unfortunately for them, they seem to struggle some on the road-and they have 3 tough road games still to play this season (Notre Dame, Nebraska, and Oregon). They will likely need to win at least one of those to still be in the top-25 at the end of the season.
UCLA has been able to rebound after the firing of their head coach. How will Penn State respond? They have a tough game this weekend, but then they get a bye before playing the two top teams in the conference back-to-back (at Ohio State then vs Indiana). If they don’t win this weekend, they may not be bowl-eligible until the final game of the season (if at all).
Wisconsin has struggled this season, and their remaining schedule will not help. After hosting Ohio State this weekend they head on the road to take on Oregon. After their bye, the face Washington, at Indiana, and then Illinois.
Purdue looks much improved compared to last season. Not only do they already have 2 wins (twice what they had last year), but they have been more competitive in the games they lost. If they want to get another win, it may have to come in their next 2 games (at Northwestern and vs Rutgers); after that they face Michigan, Ohio State, Washington, and then Indiana.
The game this weekend against UW is a critical one for Michigan. Win and they could go into their game against Ohio State with a chance to make the playoffs if they can beat Ohio State again; most of their remaining games should be winnable-even though 3 are on the road (at Michigan State, Purdue, at Northwestern, and at Maryland). If Washington wins, they will very likely move up into the top-25 and keep their playoff hopes alive while Michigan’s playoff chances will take a huge hit.
