S&P+ Updated Rankings
The rankings have been updated.
4. Michigan
5. OSU
7. Penn State
33. MSU
October 14th, 2018 at 1:31 PM ^
S&P looks at per play numbers. Army averaged 4.4 YPA passing and 4.3 YPC rushing while OU had 11 and 7.5 respectively. Army managed 21 points but had 4 drives of 15+ plays. S&P views them as lucky to have continually gotten first downs on those TD drives when only averaging 4 yards per play, since one bad play on 1st or 2nd down would normally kill the drive.
Same with Texas. OU had like a 92% post game win expectancy after that game. They killed Texas on a per play basis and Texas only won because of 2 turnovers by OU, including 1 where Kyler Murray literally placed the ball on the ground.
They dominated every other game.
October 14th, 2018 at 1:50 PM ^
OU only lost to Texas because the defense had another meltdown, which led to the firing of Mike Stoops.
October 14th, 2018 at 1:33 PM ^
OU lost to Texas but it didn't really harm their S&P+ ranking because they were the better team on a yards-per-play basis. From what I remember their probability for winning that game was well over 50% according to S&P. Couple that with preseason predictions and all of the top-10 clunkers yesterday, and you get the high ranking.
October 14th, 2018 at 1:56 PM ^
Perhaps your eyes don't pass the stats test.
October 14th, 2018 at 12:36 PM ^
Texas is so AP overrated.
October 14th, 2018 at 12:52 PM ^
Yeah, I don’t get it. Lost to Maryland pretty badly. They should be ranked probably near the end of one loss teams.
October 14th, 2018 at 1:47 PM ^
Texas should automatically play Maryland in a bowl because they need to play them until they beat them.
October 14th, 2018 at 1:00 PM ^
This game reminded me of the Penn State game two years ago when we crushed a depleted team that was missing half of it’s starting defense. Not getting too excited just yet.
October 14th, 2018 at 1:26 PM ^
I mean, that was a pretty good team that year. I'll take a blowout win over MSU and a coinflip game at OSU if offered that right now.
October 14th, 2018 at 1:35 PM ^
Yeah man, who wants to repeat 2016??? What a terrible year that was for Michigan football.
October 14th, 2018 at 1:03 PM ^
Ohio State's defense has been dropping like a rock. Now down to 41st. 4 spots ahead of Maryland.
October 14th, 2018 at 1:06 PM ^
Sparty always gets lucky wins, and hope that they has spent all of their luck for this year.
October 14th, 2018 at 1:30 PM ^
Generally, yes. However, I could give you between 3 and 9 reasons that their luck ran out two seasons ago. It ran out in a few games this season too, with more probably to come.
October 14th, 2018 at 1:15 PM ^
Hard to know what to make of these rankings when the #33 team just beat the #7 team....obviously fluk-ish but that seems like too wide a variance IMO. One of those teams is seriously misranked.
October 14th, 2018 at 1:36 PM ^
Have you watched college football before?
October 14th, 2018 at 2:03 PM ^
no. 33 beats no. 7 maybe 15% of the time. Not so uncommon.
October 14th, 2018 at 2:17 PM ^
Not according to the usual stats. Connelly just actiallu wrote about this. MSU finished with 4.1 more TOs than expected which usually leads to a 20 point swing. So they got out played and got a ton of TO luck and pulled out a bunch of trick plays. Remember, MSU fumbles 4 time...and recovered them all. PSU fumbled once and MSU recovered it. Fumble recovery is 50-50 by all stats over enough time. Plus PSU dropped a couple TOs themselves. Those huge TO swings are what leads you to win despite getting outgained by a yard and a half on a per play basis. UM outgained UW by 0.66 per play. That’s how much MSU got dominated and lucked into the win.
Problem is that this will happen to UM against MSU next week too since that’s what MSU does
October 14th, 2018 at 1:59 PM ^
App State 11th? Fresno State 12th? Does anyone seriously think either of those teams would stand a chance against #14 LSU?
October 14th, 2018 at 2:34 PM ^
App State took Penn State to overtime on the road.
October 14th, 2018 at 2:55 PM ^
I'm quite aware of that. And Fresno State lost to Minnesota. My question still stands. Pit LSU vs. App State at a neutral site. Who would you bet on to win?
October 14th, 2018 at 3:37 PM ^
Ok, here's an answer. I would bet on Appalachian State.
October 14th, 2018 at 4:21 PM ^
I wish that game were actually going to be played so I could bet on LSU! Alas.
October 14th, 2018 at 5:45 PM ^
lol why.. do you think vegas uses S&P to set spreads?
October 14th, 2018 at 2:18 PM ^
OSU, ND and LSU are the only teams in the top that have Second-Order Wins which are at least 1 game below their actual win total. It suggests that they are not as good as their records, and have been somewhat fortunate to win all their games.
On the other side, Oklahoma, Penn State and Washington are all +0.8 on 2ndO, unsurprisingly, since they have all played well, statistically, in games they lost. Michigan is at +0.3.
October 14th, 2018 at 3:43 PM ^
Penn State at #5 makes sense, very good players but their coach is a fucking idiot