SP+ Stats for BigTen
Using SP+ stats:
Michigan was predicted in the preseason to be the 6th best team and we are currently the 4th best team in the nation with the 6th best offense and the 11th best offense.
However, we are still a big gap away from Ohio State who is rated 30.6 overall to our 25.4.
Iowa has the #1 ranked defense in the nation, thus our offense passed a solid test on Saturday.
Maryland is ranked 24th in the nation and 5th in the conference, so they were a legit test.
Upcoming matchups feature:
Indiana 83rd overall, 92nd offense and 73rd defense.
Penn State 14th overall, 45th offense and 5th defense.
Michigan State 37th overall, 32nd offense and 41st defense.
Surprised MSU is as high as 37th, but they do have a lot of talent.
October 4th, 2022 at 8:27 PM ^
6th and 11th best offense? I knew the second team had played well, but damn!
October 5th, 2022 at 8:54 AM ^
“Surprised MSU is as high as 37th, but they do have a lot of talent.”
This is false according to 247 RCMB. Their current issues are due to NO talent. They have stated the next 2 recruiting classes will set them right.
October 5th, 2022 at 10:50 AM ^
There may be *some* truth to that, but let's see how many of those guys even stay.
I'd jump from that ship REAL quick.
October 5th, 2022 at 2:45 PM ^
I mean I don't know about the actual star ratings but their CB's are a very untalented bunch when it comes to being able to actually do anything positive on the field.
October 4th, 2022 at 8:29 PM ^
Correction, 6th best offense and the 11th best defense.
October 4th, 2022 at 8:31 PM ^
“But they do have a lot of talent”
Nobody said it was good talent. Outside of Reed and the occasional play by Thorne….not so much.
October 4th, 2022 at 9:49 PM ^
Now, now. The red haired kid over there is good at delivering pizza. The two Neanderthal brothers there plow serious amounts of snow, and none of the WRs have been arrested this year. Their cup runneth over…
October 5th, 2022 at 8:52 AM ^
Where's the Lumberjack? I will save my sarcasm for the postgame.
October 5th, 2022 at 10:51 AM ^
There's gotta be a panasuik (sp?) brother or two still there who can end a guy's career...that should help
October 4th, 2022 at 8:39 PM ^
MSU's SP+ ranking (37) actually lines up really well with their spot on the 247 team talent composite (34). Of course, if they keep getting hamblasted by every team with a pulse on their schedule, they will probably continue to drop.
October 4th, 2022 at 9:09 PM ^
The SP+ numbers still have some carryover from last season, although I think it goes away pretty soon (maybe week 7?). Doesn't matter in MSU's rent-a-player approach to team building. The whole will always be less than the sum of the individual parts.
October 5th, 2022 at 12:57 AM ^
There are still preseason priors in the current ratings. I don't know how much but it's definitely significant and keeping MSU higher than they should be. Actually Connelly said the preseason ratings never entirely fall out of the formula anymore.
October 5th, 2022 at 6:15 AM ^
I often think of the saying 'all models are wrong, some models are useful' for SP+. SP+ is very good, but a clear weakness seems to be that pre-season expecations weigh really heavily in the first half of the season and it's slow to correct for when a P5 team really underperforms. I believe it still has OU at 6th this week and Texas is in the top 10 too. Maybe last season(?) when Wisconsin was clearly faltering, SP+ still had them in the top 10 well past the point it was obvious they were not good.
October 5th, 2022 at 7:18 AM ^
Texas is also benefitted substantially from its close loss against Alabama.
October 5th, 2022 at 7:52 AM ^
That isn’t a weakness but a feature. Fans vastly overreact to small sample sizes. How a guy played all of last year is more predictive of how he will play the rest of the year than 2 games this year. Of course this means sp+ will miss on a few teams but it makes the overall system better.
and that is something people always miss when they point out outliers. The goal of a rating system isn’t to have no outliers where you are wrong by a lot, it’s to be as accurate overall as possible across all 132 teams. It’s better for the system to be off by more on msu by keeping in pre-season expectations but generally being right for 100 teams than it is to move msu down faster and only be generally right for 70 teams.
October 5th, 2022 at 8:52 AM ^
It’s optimized for prediction, and keeping preseason info in (and decaying it) is more accurate than not including it,. Therefore, it’s a feature not a bug.
October 4th, 2022 at 8:40 PM ^
From what I've seen, I'm not sure Maryland isn't the third best Big Ten team (with a healthy QB). Obviously Penn State deserves consideration, but I'm thinking if you split it up by unit, I'd rank it (1) Maryland offense (2) Penn State defense (3) Maryland defense (4) Penn State offense.
October 4th, 2022 at 10:04 PM ^
Is PSU's offense that bad? I know they didn't do much against Northwestern, but that was played in bad weather. They did drop 41 on Auburn.
October 4th, 2022 at 10:51 PM ^
I've watched the Purdue games and bits of the Auburn and Northwestern games, and I still don't know how good Penn State's offense is. The Northwestern game is impossible to judge due to the weather. Auburn is bad, but dominating a modestly talented SEC team on the road is still something. Purdue mostly held them in check until they bungled the end of the game.
I'd say their offense is slightly better than last year, due to their freshman running backs who are very talented. Sean Clifford is what he is, a smart but limited player who can scramble and make throws in clutch situations, but won't scare you like a JJ, CJ Stroud or Taulia will. Their o-line is not great due to the coaching but they're at least talented. Their WR's are talented as usual but I think they lack a true "superstar" like they've had in years past with Jahon Dotson or KJ Hamler and they don't a super duper tight end like Mike Gesicki or Pat Freiermuth like they're used to having, although Brenton Strange will be later this year or next
October 4th, 2022 at 11:18 PM ^
"they did drop 41 on auburn" --- LOL, so im guessing you have not watched any highlights of auburn this year? Their coach will be fired before the year is over..
they are a 5-7 or 6-6 team at BEST
If missouri didn't drop the winning td walking into the endzone they are 1-3
October 5th, 2022 at 12:02 PM ^
I know Auburn isn't very good, but scoring 41 on a Power 5 team on the road is still something.
October 4th, 2022 at 11:18 PM ^
"they did drop 41 on auburn" --- LOL, so im guessing you have not watched any highlights of auburn this year? Their coach will be fired before the year is over..
they are a 5-7 or 6-6 team at BEST
If missouri didn't drop the winning td walking into the endzone they are 1-3
October 4th, 2022 at 11:49 PM ^
Auburn isn't good, but that's mostly a problem with the QB/offense being unable to do anything. They have the #18 SP+ defense. 477 yards and 41 points against them is impressive.
October 5th, 2022 at 1:36 AM ^
Agree it’s primarily a one side of the ball issue. 2022 Auburn is actually a fair analogy to 2021 Penn State. There is talent on the team (both schools recruit fairly well year in and year out, so they almost never do NOT have talent) - but they just don’t put it together well on the offensive side of the ball. Defense is solid though and utilizes their talent well.
Shoot: the analogy extends further, 2022 Missouri vs Auburn was basically 2021 Illinois vs PSU: home game as a significant favorite, low scoring, offensive ineptitude and even the OT finish.
Anyway, how that relates to 2022 Penn State - the offense can’t be TOO incompetent if they had 41 and 477 against the equivalent of 2021 PSU (OSU and MSU got to the low 30s on that defense in 2021; everyone else 24 or less). The 2022 PSU offense isn’t elite, but it’s fair to say it’s clearly better than last year IMO.
October 5th, 2022 at 7:27 AM ^
As others have said it's tough to get a read on PSU yet. Their wins so far this year have come against:
- Purdue (3-2) who lost by just 4, and doesn't have a particularly good defense, where PSU put up 35 points. This was a straight up football game that dogfight the whole way. Purdue has also lost to Syracuse and managed to squeak past FAU by 2. Their other wins were demolitions of Indiana St and what looked like a good Minnesota team so I have no idea what this win means other than that Purdue is probably in the top half of the B1G but inconsistent?
- Ohio (2-3) who lost by almost an identical amount to Iowa State, and their other loss was to Kent State. Not like a sneaky good mid-major or anything, pretty much tells you nothing
- Auburn (3-2) who was pantsed by PSU and would be a great win in any other year. So what is Auburn? Auburn blew out Mercer who is now 4-1 and not a total waste of a program but still FCS, Struggled to put away San Jose State (now 3-1) who has won the rest of their games. We all laughed as they needed OT to be Mizzou, but Mizzou then went out and damn near beat Georgia (should have). Then they lost by a few to LSU in a game where Auburn had 4 turnover. This is not a good LSU team but they are 4-1 and we'll see if they've improved from their Wk 1 loss to FSU when they play Tennessee this week. Check back later and they may still fire their coach but Auburn may be better than their record indicates? They are at least not as laughable as I though before looking into it and perhaps this is a more valuable win than i thought.
- CMU (1-4). This is the confusing one. CMU is not good. They gave up 38 points in losses to Toledo and South Alabama. PSU ended up winning comfortably but this was 21-14 at halftime and their second half was buoyed by a punt fumble recovered on the 7 yard line, and CMU lodged 4 turnovers. Maybe an off day following Auburn but this was kind of ugly and confusing
- NU (1-4). This was a weather slopfest so pretty much half to throw this out. James Franklin plus planning for bad weather = no bueno though. 5 turnovers for PSU, 3 for NU and they win 17-7.
So....yeah...no idea.
October 5th, 2022 at 11:27 AM ^
I am more impressed by the Auburn win than others are, as it was a road game against a team with a lot of talent, and Auburn's strength is their defense. Penn St put up 477 yards and 41 points on them. Auburn's highest points allowed otherwise was 21 vs LSU, and they outgained LSU 438-270 but kept turning the ball over. They are #18 in the country in SP+ defense.
Penn State seems to be about as good as they were last year before Clifford got banged up, which is to say pretty good, and dangerous, but maybe not elite. As usual with Franklin, they will have some flat performances, but they will test OSU at home with those corners. Hoping we have the typical Franklin performance in front of a (full) Michigan Stadium.
October 4th, 2022 at 9:11 PM ^
I know Iowa is listed as the #1 defense, but I can guarantee you they are not the best defensive in college football
October 5th, 2022 at 6:07 AM ^
You are probably right, but other computer models like ESPN's FPI have them ranked highly too, FPI has Iowa's D as the 4th best nationally.
A lot of people were predicting us to score 17 or so against Iowa.
October 4th, 2022 at 9:40 PM ^
Based on 5 games. I wonder how the stat rankings at the end of last year compare to 2021 week 5?
October 4th, 2022 at 10:31 PM ^
Not sure I would characterize the gap between UM and OSU as "big" when OSU is #3 offense and #15 defense and UM is #6 offense and #17 defense.
Edit: I used the preseason numbers above. The current adjusted numbers show a bigger gap for offense with UM #6 and OSU #1 (UM 41.7 vs OSU 47.1) but a closer gap for defense with UM #11 and OSU #8 (UM 16.8 vs OSU 16.2).
October 4th, 2022 at 11:56 PM ^
Except, it is big. Rankings mean less than the raw numbers. The difference between #2 Ohio State and #4 Michigan is the same as the difference between #5 Texas (!) and #17 Oklahoma State.
(Also, I'm not sure where your rankings are coming from, but they're not correct. OSU is #1 on offense and #8 on defense, whereas Michigan is #6 on offense and #11 on defense).
Assuming a 3-point home field advantage, OSU is about an 8 point favorite over Michigan at the moment -- but Michigan is at least a 10 point favorite over everyone else on their remaining schedule.
October 5th, 2022 at 6:14 AM ^
Look at the raw numbers.
The gap between us and OSU is 5.2.
The gap between Maryland and MSU is 3.8.
P.S. OSU has the #1 offense and #8 defense.
October 5th, 2022 at 7:57 AM ^
Yeah that’s not how this works. The gap from one number to the next isn’t set so the gap between the #3 to the #4 team can be bigger than the gap from #4 to #10. If you were to break the teams into tiers rather than rankings osu and Michigan are on separate tiers
October 4th, 2022 at 10:31 PM ^
How much preseason weight is still included?
October 5th, 2022 at 12:13 AM ^
100 lbs +/-
October 5th, 2022 at 12:59 AM ^
Not sure exactly but it's still very significant. Still early in the season.
October 5th, 2022 at 1:43 AM ^
It’s really not that early in the season any more - it is 40% over already!
I don’t know about SP+, but I know that FEI (a better metric in my opinion, but that’s just my opinion) eliminates all the preseason rankings completely by end of week 6. Eg very soon.
October 5th, 2022 at 2:07 AM ^
Iowa had faced the offensive juggernauts of SD St, Iowa St, Nevada, and Rutgers before we played them. Iowa may have a decent defense, but a metric that uses the results from those games to claim Iowa had the best defense in the entirety of college football is laughable horseshit.
October 5th, 2022 at 7:13 AM ^
🐴💩 Lol 😆
October 5th, 2022 at 2:35 PM ^
One thing ill say about OSU/UM when OSU has the offense clicking its 25 yard receptions and when U of Ms offense is clicking its 6/7 yard runs. Both are fantastic when the other team cant stop it but im sure the 25 yard passes grade better. If it comes down to the last game of the season, between two undefeated teams, the question is whose defense can get the most stops.