The Ohio State football team hasn’t even played a game yet but it still looks like the best team on paper, at least according to the newest release of ESPN SP+ Rankings.
These things are complicated and the worldwide leader in sports programming doesn’t exactly tell you what goes into the secret sauce when it comes to the formula that drives the ratings. However, it’s supposed to use things like returning talent, recruiting classes, and on-the-field performance to be a predictive measure of a team’s future success.
And the computer that puts it all together still likes Ohio State, just like it did midway through last year and all the way through the end of the season even though the Buckeyes got knocked out of the College Football Playoff.
As you would guess, some of the usual suspects are there right behind the Buckeyes. Alabama took over the No. 2 spot from Clemson (3), followed by Georgia (4), and Notre Dame (5). Penn State (6), Wisconsin (7), Florida (8), Miami (9), and Oklahoma (10) round out the top ten.
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🔥 NEW SP+ RANKINGS 🔥
* Unbeaten Ohio State remains No. 1
* Bama’s back to No. 2
* Miami kicked Bye Week’s butt
* OU: still top-10 because no one else wanted to be
* The 4-tiered SEC
* (Sorry for forgetting you last week, UMass)https://t.co/isxMu5sTDc— Bill Connelly (@ESPN_BillC) October 4, 2020
If this is your sort of thing, you can look at the entire SP+ Rankings for all 127 teams at your reading and dissecting pleasure.
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