Bill Connelly, ESPN Staff WriterNov 5, 2023, 09:45 AM ET
Michigan, Georgia and Ohio State in the top three in some order, followed by everyone else. That has basically been the story of the SP+ rankings all season, with brief interludes by teams like Alabama (first in Week 2), Texas (third in Weeks 6-7) and Bama again (third in Week 9).
Ten weeks into the season, Michigan is distancing itself a bit in first, but a new usurper is emerging: Following yet another blowout win, Oregon has jumped to fourth overall, only 0.3 points behind No. 3 Ohio State. The Ducks are leading the nation in scoring by nearly two points per game over everyone else, and they're up to 21st in defensive SP+ as well. Even including their Oct. 14 loss to Washington, they're outscoring opponents by an average of 47-16, a margin better than every unbeaten team but Michigan. If they played Washington in a neutral-field rematch tomorrow, SP+ would favor them by 4.7 points. The big three are stalwarts this year, but Oregon is trying to make it a big four.
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 10 teams that saw their ratings rise the most this week:
Arkansas State: up 3.0 adjusted points per game (ranking rose from 107th to 98th)
Appalachian State: up 3.0 points (86th to 71st)
Army: up 3.0 points (110th to 102nd)
UMass: up 2.7 points (130th to 123rd)
Penn State: up 2.6 points (10th to fifth)
Southern Miss: up 2.6 points (120th to 111th)
UNLV: up 2.3 points (83rd to 73rd)
Georgia Tech: up 2.1 points (73rd to 62nd)
Utah: up 2.1 points (26th to 24th)
Texas State: up 2.1 points (94th to 82nd)
You never know when SP+ will be particularly enamored of a blowout win, but it was evidently particularly seduced by Penn State's 51-15 domination of Maryland. The Nittany Lions produced a massive success rate advantage (plus-14%) over the fading Terrapins and allowed just 4.0 yards per play and leapfrogged a cluster of top-10 teams to fifth overall, fourth on defense. Despite a general lack of explosiveness, PSU's up to 21st in offensive SP+ as well. It rose at just the right time, too: Michigan's on deck.
MOVING DOWN
Here are the 10 teams whose ratings fell the most:
Navy: down 3.1 points (103rd to 115th)
Arizona State: down 3.0 points (79th to 91st)
Virginia Tech: down 2.8 points (59th to 66th)
BYU: down 2.6 points (63rd to 70th)
Virginia: down 2.5 points (85th to 93rd)
New Mexico: down 2.4 points (116th to 122nd)
Air Force: down 2.2 points (30th to 39th)
Georgia State: down 2.1 points (72nd to 79th)
Louisiana: down 2.1 points (68th to 76th)
UCLA: down 1.9 points (19th to 22nd)
Arizona State, Virginia Tech and Virginia had produced improving results of late, but they all took major steps backwards in Week 10. ASU and Tech did so against high-level competition (Utah and Louisville, respectively), while Virginia lost by 28 at home to a rising Georgia Tech.
Among the more elite teams, meanwhile, Notre Dame fell by 1.7 points (but only dropped from ninth to 10th) and Oklahoma, after a second straight gut-wrenching loss, dropped 1.5 points and fell from 11th to 12th.
Conference rankings
Here are the FBS' 10 conferences, ranked by average SP+. We're pretty locked in until bowl season at this point.
1. SEC: +10.7 average points per team (32.8 offense, 22.3 defense)
2. Pac-12: +7.6 average (33.0 offense, 25.4 defense)
3. Big 12: +6.5 average (31.0 offense, 24.5 defense)
4. Big Ten: +6.1 average (24.9 offense, 18.9 defense)
5. ACC: +5.0 average (27.6 offense, 22.7 defense)
6. Sun Belt: -4.5 average (25.2 offense, 29.6 defense)
7. Mountain West: -7.9 average (23.3 offense, 31.2 defense)
8. AAC: -8.5 average (24.3 offense, 32.7 defense)
9. Conference USA: -9.8 average (20.9 offense, 30.6 defense)
10. MAC: -12.5 average (17.2 offense, 29.6 defense)
Résumé SP+
Since the College Football Playoff rankings are on the horizon, I'm also including résumé SP+ rankings in this piece each week.
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+ 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, most of these teams end up with a negative score. It is what it is.)
Here is this week's résumé SP+ top 15:
1. Michigan (9-0): +4.3
2. Ohio State (9-0): +0.3
3. Florida State (9-0): -0.7
4. Georgia (9-0): -1.9
5. Oregon (8-1): -3.6
6. Washington (9-0): -4.1
7. Penn State (8-1): -5.4
8. Texas (8-1): -10.7
9. Alabama (8-1): -11.2
10. Ole Miss (8-1): -12.5
11. Louisville (8-1): -16.6
12. JMU (9-0): -18.3
13. Oklahoma (7-2): -18.4
14. Liberty (9-0): -20.1
15. Kansas State (6-3): -20.5
Florida State's propensity for playing with its food before eventually feasting has resulted in an SP+ rating that remains in the bottom half of the top 10. But from a résumé perspective, the Noles are still in excellent shape. They've also got the highest probability among any power conference teams of reaching 12-0.
Odds of reaching 12-0, per SP+:
Liberty 69%
Florida State 59%
Georgia 46%
JMU 46%
Michigan 37%
Washington 35%
Ohio State 29%
Despite the loss penalty, Oregon's consistent dominance bumped the Ducks ahead of the team that beat them, Washington. That's pretty noteworthy and, you would think, confirms that they'll have the résumé to get in as a 12-1 team if they win out. Both Oregon and Washington have some tests to pass between now and then, but it sure looks like we might see a Pac-12 championship that also serves as a CFP play-in game.
Also: Poor K-State. The Wildcats have now lost three road games to ranked teams by a total of 14 points and have otherwise romped through their 2023 schedule -- enough so that they could crack the top 15 despite a three-loss penalty. This team is probably as good as the one that won the Big 12 last year, but the breaks have gone the other way.
