The power rankings and polls haven’t been kind to the LSU Tigers and for good reason. The team dropped its second-straight game in SEC play and third on the year. Sitting at 3-3 after the first half of the season isn’t going to sit well with anyone in Baton Rouge. So much so, it has local media discussing the future of the head coach more than the state of the team.
In the latest SP+ update from ESPN’s Bill Connelly (subscription required), the Tigers continue to fall in the rankings. This isn’t just a power ranking, the analytics say this team is reaching pedestrian levels we haven’t seen since 1999.
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After six weeks of college football, the Tigers come in ranked at No. 58 overall. That puts them ahead of only Missouri (No. 66), South Carolina (No. 72) and Vanderbilt (No. 122) in the SEC.
Going into the season, this isn’t a spot anyone expected. The Tigers looked like a second-rate SEC program on Saturday after Kentucky ran all over the defense. The Wildcats come in at No. 30, jumping 15 spots after the win. While Kentucky jumped 15, the Tigers fell 12 spots from No. 46.
Their Saturday opponent, Florida, is among the best teams in the country at No. 4.
SP+ explained:
What is SP+? In a single sentence, it’s a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. I created the system at Football Outsiders in 2008, and as my experience with both college football and its stats has grown, I have made quite a few tweaks to the system.
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