S&P+: We are #3(?!), Heavy Favorites in Every Remaining Game
I think by now we're all aware how much the advanced stats like our team this year, but this is... crazy? F/+ has not been updated for last week's results yet, but S&P+ has updated and we are now #3 in the country (Offense #53, Defense #3, plus excellent special teams).
The rating has us as 16.5 point favorites this weekend (!?), 17.5 point favorites against MSU (!??!), and 15.8 point favorites against OSU (!?!?!?!?!?!). In fact, by this metric, our toughest remaining game is projected to be... drumroll please.... @PSU.
Here's a reminder explaining how S&P+ ranks teams:
"The S&P+ Ratings are a college football ratings system derived from the play-by-play and drive data of all 800+ of a season's FBS college football games (and 140,000+ plays). The components for S&P+ reflect opponent-adjusted components of four of what Bill Connelly has deemed the Five Factors of college football: efficiency, explosiveness, field position, and finishing drives. (A fifth factor, turnovers, is informed marginally by sack rates, the only quality-based statistic that has a consistent relationship with turnover margins.)"
Your thoughts?
Here is the relevant data: CLICK
See also: "Michigan and Florida have been the best teams in their divisions so far"
October 5th, 2015 at 12:41 PM ^
Let's run the table.
October 5th, 2015 at 12:45 PM ^
The only really above average QB we have faced is wilson against Utah. It will be interesting to see how the D does against a more experience QB like Cook.
October 5th, 2015 at 3:26 PM ^
October 5th, 2015 at 3:47 PM ^
Don't forget them trying to hurt Denard's neck jerking his helmet sideways by the facemask when he was on the ground.
I'm looking forward to lots of good, legal, HARD hits on every tackle against the spartans. I think our guys are going to be out for blood and turn the tables. msu has been playing dirty for several years now and also very agressive, I expect Harbaugh to remove the dirty aspect of that and show them what agressive is all about.
It's probably because of that Denard play and also the Devin game in 13 that I want to beat msu more than osu.
October 5th, 2015 at 5:56 PM ^
And after all that revenge, Add a few more hits to make up for the "apologize about the tent stake" mess.
October 5th, 2015 at 6:31 PM ^
I think Delano Hill owes Connor Cook a hard hit.
I would love to see this happen.
October 5th, 2015 at 12:53 PM ^
against a completely disparate group of teams.
Can somebody show what the data said last year at this time? Remember a few years back, under RR when we started like 5-1 and then lost almost every game afterwards? I wonder what the S&P+ said back then?
October 5th, 2015 at 1:44 PM ^
accurate after 15 games.
October 5th, 2015 at 1:58 PM ^
October 5th, 2015 at 1:04 PM ^
Seems like we shouldn't be arguing how accurate S&P+ is.
You should be able to run historical data through all these different predictive models to determine how accurate each is: which would have given the best prediction of the remaining games after the first five games of the 2012 season, for example. You should be able to use historical data to tweak a model to be more accurate. In fact, you should be able to use the historical data to generate the model.
Can anyone say if this is how it works? How accurate are these models?
October 5th, 2015 at 1:06 PM ^
October 5th, 2015 at 1:15 PM ^
Destroying everyone?
WORD??
October 5th, 2015 at 1:15 PM ^
I just can't take this S&P ranking seriously. We are no where close to being the 3rd best team in the nation.
October 5th, 2015 at 1:30 PM ^
#3 Defense + #53 Offense = #3 Overall? That seems....questionable.
I'm sold on our defense being Top 5, but I have a hard time with the idea that a legitimate #3 team in the country gets stuffed by Maryland's defense for 3 out of 4 quarters.
October 5th, 2015 at 3:45 PM ^
The offensive statistics are out to lunch because teams run up and down the field without it effecting the win total. OR a team has a defense that is very good, get up by a bunch and slow the game down on offense to reduce turn overs and snaps on D.
October 5th, 2015 at 1:40 PM ^
October 5th, 2015 at 2:20 PM ^
Book it
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October 5th, 2015 at 3:09 PM ^
Just out of curiosity, what did S&P predict for our games against Maryland and BYU?
October 5th, 2015 at 3:13 PM ^
everyone else here ....Nobody thought the name Michigan would be involved in all the good pr talk thats happening. and discussions of contenders and the like....BUT
Slow the train down ...take a breath and relax.....with 2 upcoming games against top 15 teams looming it could all go south quick....lets not get ahead of ourselfs..I still say a 8-4 season would be EXCELLENT progress and Id be very happy considering where weve been....win the next two? and THEN Ill be all WTF! Its Happening!!....right now its just fun to be in the hunt
October 20th, 2015 at 8:30 AM ^
I'm in total disbelief as well regarding UM's #3 ranking as per the S&P+ composite numbers. What's also interesting to note, beside the smattering of teams with losing records in the top 20, is the point separation between the top 3 teams. 6 between the first two, and another 2.2 between #2 and #3. That's as large a separation as between the #3 and #12 teams. There's definitely a lot of movement on this index from week to week, so apply grains of salt accordingly.
Along those lines, Bill Connelly has also updated the Adv. Stats Profile for Michigan, which of course features a win probability for each of the remaining games. So given that, here's an updated look at the Total Wins Probability distribution (click to embiggen):
Mr. Obvious: "WTF! It looks like the most likely number of wins has gone up to ... 10?!"
I think Bill Connelly's model may be fueled on some kind of MaizenBrew Cool-Aid. It seems that UM's statistical profile is some sort of outlier and some regression toward the mean might be anticipated after future games. I'm thinking that the defensive rating captures more of the 3&outs imposed on UMd late in the game, since UM didn't come around to score any points to kick in garbage time until that time. A sort of prolonged torture of the opponent, before finishing things off.
Oh, and here are the individual game numbers that went into it:
Win
Opponent Probability
---------------+------------
Northwestern 83%
Michigan State 84%
at Minnesota 69%
Rutgers 99%
at Indiana 84%
at Penn State 68%
Ohio State 82%
What's most interesting here is that PSU is now the least likely win, followed by... Minny?!
October 20th, 2015 at 8:29 AM ^
So now that the F/+ update has finally posted over on FO, I've updated the schedule table. It summarizes the actual values and FBS rankings for UM and all its opponents this season (past & future games), and also applies a pseudo-color scale to the values relative to M's values, to make relative values more visually apparent, where Red => DangerTeam, Blue => as cool and inviting as the other side of the pillow, and Grey => statistical equivalence.
I've added in the Game Efficiency (GE) rating this week, which is related to FEI. Also, I made the spreads relative to UM, which makes more sense to me at least. The numbers are all over the place ... orSwitch to plain text editor perhaps it's just S&P+ that's out of whack. The FEI and FPI color scales appear to have more correlation with each other than with S&P+.