Rankings Roundup after Week 6: AP, Coaches, SP+

Submitted by Blue@LSU on October 9th, 2023 at 8:59 AM

Here are the numbers after week 6.

COMPARING AP, COACHES, AND SP+ (RANKINGS)

Georgia and Michigan remain the consensus #1 and #2, with SP+ giving Michigan the #1 position for the third week in a row. 

The biggest difference between the human polls (AP, Coaches) and SP+ continues to revolve around FSU. SP+ has been lower on FSU since the beginning and currently have them ranked #15 versus #4 in both the AP and Coaches. 

The other interesting ones are Texas and Oklahoma. Texas remains #3 in SP+ after their loss to Oklahoma, while Oklahoma rose one spot in SP+ to #8. FWIW, the raw numbers are pretty close (22.6 and 20.6), meaning that this game would basically be a tossup on a neutral field, which we ended up seeing.

SP+ OFFENSE & DEFENSE (RANKINGS)

Focusing on the SP+ …

Did I mention that Michigan is the SP+ #1 for the third week in a row? Nice! Michigan is also the only team with a top-ten ranking in all three facets of the game: offense (#8), defense (#2) and special teams (#7). Very nice!

In the category of “I obviously don’t know shit about fuck with regard to how SP+ works”: Clemson, Notre Dame, and TAMU are ranked #11-13. 

Meanwhile, Brian Kelly clearly still hasn’t acquired the Southern mentality as he absolutely refuses to get defensive. 

And now, if anyone is wondering about good matchups according to SP+ next week:

  • #5 Oregon @ #6Washington
  • #13 Texas A&M @ #14 Tennessee
  • #9 USC @ #12 Notre Dame
  • #17 Miami @ #18 North Carolina
  • #16 UCLA @ #19 Oregon State

Meanwhile, in the B1G…

Good shit, Iowa! 

Who’s looking forward to that Michigan State @ Rutgers matchup on Saturday?

TRENDS (RAW SP+ SCORES)

Here are the weekly changes in the SP+ top 25 from the preseason through Week 6

Michigan and Georgia both an increase in their raw SP+ scores this week after dropping pretty consistently over the last three weeks. Meanwhile, OSU saw their raw SP+ score drop by roughly 2 points. 

SP+ OFFENSE AND DEFENSE (RAW SP+ SCORES)

Standard interpretation applies:

  • Top-right: Good at offense and defense
  • Bottom-right: Good defense, below-average offense
  • Top-left: Good offense, below-average defense
  • Bottom-left: Not so good at football

I decided to change things up a bit this week. 

As it turns out, the SP+ scores are pretty normally distributed. But I wanted to give a little more meaning to words like ‘average’, 'good', 'bad', etc., so I standardized the data. Each team’s offense and defense SP+ scores now represent the exact number of standard deviations from the mean (basically a z-score). 

The inner box then represents your thoroughly ‘average’ teams on offense and defense (+/- 1 standard deviation of the mean). Here, you’ll find teams like Florida, Florida State, Maryland, and Wisconsin. They are not really good or bad at any part of football. Just, well, ‘average’. 

The outer box represents teams falling between 1 and 2 standard deviations from the mean on either offense, defense, or both. These are your 'special' teams. For example, LSU is ‘special’: specially good at offense and specially bad at defense. Pay particular attention to two groups:

  • > 1 standard deviation above the mean for both offense and defense. These are the 4 ‘specially good at everything’ teams: Michigan, Georgia, Texas, and OSU.
  • > 1 standard deviation below the mean for both offense and defense. These are the ‘specially bad at everything’ teams: Boston College, Indiana, Arizona State, Stanford, and Northwestern.

Finally, we have the ‘extreme’ cases, falling > 2 standard deviations from the mean. Only 5% of cases, or three teams, fall in this area. For example, USC is ‘extremely good’ at offense, but thoroughly average at defense. Vanderbilt is ‘extremely bad’ at defense, but thoroughly average on offense. Only one team falls at the true extreme (> 2 standard deviations from the mean) on both dimensions. Say hello to Iowa.

SP+ RANKINGS BY CONFERENCE (RAW SP+ SCORES)

Horizontal lines are the average (mean) SP+ scores for each conference.

Woof. The B1G really took a hit. 

Anything you find interesting?

MGoBoard
Football
rankings
AP
coaches
SP+

Hab

October 9th, 2023 at 9:08 AM ^

If that was you adding in a new SP+ category for 'toughness' and ranking OSU #1, you have my admiration.  Credit to you for making the joke that's unlikely to pay off.  If we ever cross paths, first round is on me.

Joined: 01/02/2015

MGoPoints: 39676

Chaco

October 9th, 2023 at 9:23 AM ^

It's interesting to me that collapsing UT/OU into the SEC and USC/WASH/ORE into the B1G yields 2 power conferences both top heavy with this seasons differentiated talent.  

Maybe it's unfair to PSU (and UCLA) but them being clustered with the top of the ACC and the  next wrung on the SEC ladder (Tenn and TAMU) also feels about right.  Of course time will tell as all these teams start to play each other and wins/losses shakes some teams out.

Thanks for doing this and also for reminding us OSU is the toughest team in the land.

Joined: 11/15/2012

MGoPoints: 27909

oriental andrew

October 9th, 2023 at 9:42 AM ^

This is what I'd like to see on the last chart - a version of it showing that it would look like with next year's realignment. 

Big ten took the cream of the pac12 crop (from a football perspective), sec took the same from the big 12, big 12 gets the mediocre teams from the pac, and the acc gets the pac dregs.

Love this series. 

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 56196

PopeLando

October 9th, 2023 at 9:24 AM ^

Iowatch! is up. If you want a little more context about how much BETTER Iowa is at defense than offense, the gap between their defensive SP+ and offensive SP+ is top-5 EVER. Like "since 1883" ever.

Love this feature. I will never forgive the coaches/media polls for ranking Colorado on "hype and two shaky wins" alone.

Joined: 08/01/2015

MGoPoints: 68639

Blinkin

October 9th, 2023 at 9:51 AM ^

I really like the addition of the standard deviations on the SP+ offense/defense chart.  Really helps illustrate the rarified air Michigan if flying through right now.  

Joined: 08/17/2022

MGoPoints: 28496

DaftPunk

October 9th, 2023 at 10:10 AM ^

Who’s looking forward to that Michigan State @ Rutgers matchup on Saturday?

The big three in the B1G east notwithstanding, the Big Ten really is dogshit this year.

Joined: 08/21/2018

MGoPoints: 6260

1VaBlue1

October 9th, 2023 at 12:16 PM ^

I think UW is good in a simplistic way - Fickell is a good coach, but he has almost no players that can match his offense.  He's making do with what he has ina way that Rich Rod refused in his first year here.  UW will win the West quite easily, and they'll look somewhat competitive in their bowl game, but they won't threaten any 'good' teams this year.

I do think, though, that Fickell will improve his resume at UW beyond what he was able to do with Cincinatti.  

Joined: 01/31/2016

MGoPoints: 127316

Yeoman

October 9th, 2023 at 12:54 PM ^

Don't have old SP+ handy but Hoke's first two teams were better than OSU in offensive FEI.

Borges>Urban. That first Meyer team was smoke and mirrors--they weren't top 25 on either side of the ball and they somehow went undefeated. And, thanks to sanctions, unexposed.

Also 2016, just barely (16th vs 18th). That one surprises me.

Joined: 06/08/2011

MGoPoints: 21390

Blue Middle

October 9th, 2023 at 11:19 AM ^

USC and Iowa...wow.

Good slate of games this weekend. 

I know some of you like games where Michigan plays a tough opponent with a close finish, but I prefer blowouts.  Less stressful.

 

Joined: 01/07/2019

MGoPoints: 5254

RyGuy

October 9th, 2023 at 11:30 AM ^

This is so in depth it deserves to be promoted to a diary! Really great work on these charts. Sad we couldn't take home the #1 toughness ranking, but not everyone has the balls to stand up to Lou Holtz.

Joined: 01/25/2015

MGoPoints: 2468

Yeoman

October 9th, 2023 at 12:19 PM ^

The new FEI is out, and interesting. (And FWIW it's been more predictive than SP+ the last few years, at least during bowl season.)

  1. Michigan
  2. Ohio State
  3. Oklahoma
  4. Georgia
  5. Texas
  6. Washington
  7. Oregon
  8. Alabama
  9. Penn State
  10. Florida State

Offense:

  1. Washington
  2. Oklahoma
  3. Michigan
  4. LSU
  5. Oregon
  6. Georgia
  7. USC
  8. Ohio State
  9. North Carolina
  10. Oregon State

Defense:

  1. Alabama
  2. Clemson
  3. Utah
  4. Michigan
  5. Texas
  6. Penn State
  7. Iowa
  8. Ohio State
  9. Georgia
  10. Auburn

Iowa's 14th from the bottom in offense, still not close to Don Brown BC territory (they were #2 in defense and 6th from the bottom in offense).

Alas, there's no ranking for toughness efficiency.

Joined: 06/08/2011

MGoPoints: 21390

Yeoman

October 9th, 2023 at 2:09 PM ^

The last half dozen years or so I've been doing a thing where I use the various ranking services to do Bowl Challenge entries. If I've got time maybe I'll make a diary out of it this year.

SP+ has significantly underperformed. Even the straight-up score-based systems like Massey and Sagarin have done better, probably because they're better at schedule-adjusting.

Joined: 06/08/2011

MGoPoints: 21390

Yeoman

October 9th, 2023 at 6:28 PM ^

I think it's sort of the reverse where CFB is concerned. Connelly started out behind because the universe he developed it for was so different. The NFL's pretty homogeneous by comparison, both in quality of teams (how often do you see a 20+ point spread?) and in their style of play (there's no NFL equivalent to Air Force, or Iowa, or a Mike Leach team). The five-factors assumptions he makes about what wins games may or may not apply. Explosiveness is maybe an example: when you're 30 points better than the opposition it seems to me you want less variance, not more.

And--this part's more certain--he was, understandably, behind the curve on the + part of SP+.

I think it's gotten better through the years as he's tweaked it. The others are pretty stagnant; they also all still basically work. It's amazing how well they work, to be honest.

Joined: 06/08/2011

MGoPoints: 21390