Michigan 12th in new SP+ rankings

Submitted by Newton Gimmick on December 1st, 2019 at 2:07 PM

Full rankings:

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/28201778/sp+-rankings-week-14-why-alabama-drop-iron-bowl-loss

A couple notes:

Michigan is now 20th in offense but drops to 10th in defense.  OSU drops from #1 to #2 in defense.

Imagine being a Washington fan this year.

Michigan lost to the overall #1, #9, and #10, the latter two on the road.  They defeated the #18, #20, and #24, the latter one on the road.  

Connelly said in a tweet that Michigan's 5-year SP+ under Harbaugh is 7th in the country.  Unfortunately, our biggest rival is better than that.

 

Yeah, Michigan’s currently 7th in 5-year SP+ — he’s done an outstanding job. And the rival to which UM will always compare itself is on a historic run of awesomeness at the moment.

— Bill Connelly (@ESPN_BillC) November 30, 2019
https://twitter.com/ESPN_BillC/status/1200866352178880513

RedPandaCmmanda

December 1st, 2019 at 3:18 PM ^

Washington is 16th. Even though they have five losses, they lost four of their games by one possession (including Oregon and Utah) and all of their games by no more than ten points. If Eason comes back next year, there's a good chance we'll face the Pac-12 favorite (with Herbert and Huntley/Moss graduating).

EDIT: This is why the OP put "imagine being a Washington fan". They're a good team but haven't seen the results this year.

Ghost of Fritz…

December 1st, 2019 at 6:37 PM ^

Isn't that exactly what 7th best in S&P+ over 5 years does say?

I mean being 7th best means consistently very good, but not playoff level team, right? 

If Michigan had 'gotten it done when it mattered' over the last 5 years, they would be 2nd or 3rd best in S&P+ and have maybe three playoff appearances, right?

b618

December 1st, 2019 at 4:41 PM ^

For those of you saying things like "but we weren't ranked in the top 10" --

The original poster is talking about SP+ rankings, not CFP rankings.

CFP rankings are mainly just record, with margin of victory and strength of schedule only weakly figured in.

SP+ significantly counts strength of opponents and margin of victory.  This is why SP+ has better prediction accuracy than CFP or AP rankings.

It is how you get Auburn and Michigan (at 9-3) ranked above Memphis and Boise State (at 11-1) in SP+.

BoHarb

December 2nd, 2019 at 4:16 PM ^

S/P #7 - hell yeah baby!  Harbaugh is on the cusp of a natty - next year for sure, S/P doesn't lie - we are so close. I'd say petition for moving to the west so we dont have to play OSU anymore, or go independent and never schedule OSU or other good teams and with the S/P metrics, cannot envision any scenario where we aren't in the CFP next year.