Bill Connelly, ESPN Staff WriterDec 3, 2023, 11:30 PM
And now we wait. After a manic Championship Weekend that saw four upsets in 10 conference title games - and prompted maybe the College Football Playoff committee's hardest set of decisions in its 10-year history - the dust will settle until we see most FBS teams (sans Army and Navy) again. But when play resumes, we can confidently say one thing: Michigan is the national title favorite.
Despite an increasingly unconvincing offense, Jim Harbaugh's Wolverines rank a comfortable first in this week's SP+ rankings. Their top-ranked defense, combined with Georgia's sudden bout with mortality, increased the Wolverines' lead over the FBS field. Now comes the hard part: actually living up to their ratings in the College Football Playoff for the first time in three tries.
Below are this week's SP+ rankings. What is SP+? In a single sentence, it's a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. I created the system at Football Outsiders in 2008, and as my experience with both college football and its stats has grown, I have made quite a few tweaks to the system.
SP+ is indeed intended to be predictive and forward-facing. It is not a résumé ranking that gives credit for big wins or particularly brave scheduling -- no good predictive system is. It is simply a measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football. 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.
Here are the full rankings:
This week's movers
Let's take a look at the teams that saw the biggest change in their overall ratings. (Note: We're looking at ratings, not rankings.)
MOVING UP
Here are the four teams that saw their ratings rise the most this week:
Boise State: up 1.8 adjusted points per game (ranking rose from 44th to 41st)
Troy: up 1.7 points (from 28th to 26th)
Texas: up 1.6 points (from seventh to sixth)
Washington: up 1.5 points (no change from 11th)
Perhaps not surprisingly, the four teams that exceeded projections the most benefited from doing so. Washington's is probably the oddest-looking ranking of the bunch -- unbeaten but only 11th overall -- but once again, this is a predictive rating, and the Huskies barely maintained their unbeaten record between the two Oregon games. Coming through when it counts the most matters, and UW did that with aplomb, but we'll see if their close-game magic continues in the CFP.
MOVING DOWN
Here are the five teams whose ratings fell the most:
Toledo: down 3.0 points (from 39th to 51st)
UNLV: down 2.0 points (from 49th to 60th)
Tulane: down 1.5 points (from 43rd to 50th)
Appalachian State: down 1.2 points (from 48th to 55th)
Oklahoma State: down 0.9 points (from 41st to 43rd)
Five teams punished for disappointing performances. No surprises here. Georgia's rating did fall as well, but only by 0.4 points. The Dawgs lost a statistical tossup game to a top-10 team, and you're only going to fall so far for that.
Résumé SP+
Today is CFP selection day, so I'm also including Résumé SP+ rankings here.
As mentioned above, SP+ is intended to be a power rating, not a résumé evaluation tool, but Résumé SP+ attempts to fill that latter gap. It is a look at two things: (1) how the average SP+ top-five team would be projected to perform against your schedule (in terms of scoring margin) and (2) how your scoring margin compares to (1). Throw in a seven-point penalty for every loss a team has suffered, and you can say that this is what the CFP rankings would look like if SP+ and only SP+ were in charge.
(Note: Because of the high bar teams have to clear in getting compared to an average top-five team, and because of the loss adjustment, almost every team here ends up with a negative score. It is what it is.)
Here is this week's Résumé SP+ top 15:
1. Michigan (13-0): +2.3 points
2. Florida State (13-0): -3.5 points
3. Washington (13-0): -6.1 points
4. Ohio State (11-1): -6.7 points
5. Georgia (12-1): -7.2 points
6. Alabama (12-1): -9.1 points
7. Texas (12-1): -9.3 points
8. Oregon (11-2): -12.5 points
9. Penn State (10-2): -13.2 points
10. Oklahoma (10-2): -17.1 points
11. Liberty (13-0): -18.4 points
12. Missouri (10-2): -22.9 points
13. Notre Dame (9-3): -23.9 points
14. James Madison (11-1): -23.9 points
15. Ole Miss (10-2): -24.3 points
The three unbeaten power-conference teams lead the way, which is probably how it should be at this point in the season. But it might be notable that, without any sort of direct discussion about head-to-head results, Georgia remains a couple of points ahead of both Alabama and Texas. (And Ohio State is ahead of all three.)
Happy Selection Day to all who celebrate!
