We’re still quite a way off from the beginning of the 2022 season, but with ESPN’s Bill Connelly releasing the preseason projections for his propriety SP+ analytics system, we have some new data about this year’s LSU team to sink our teeth into.
Connelly’s SP+ system takes three main factors into account: returning production, recent recruiting and recent history. SP+ does not take wins and losses into account and is not a resume ranking but rather a predictive measure of efficiency. As a result, these rankings can often vary quite a bit from, say, the AP Top 25.
In the preseason projections for 2022, LSU has quite a bit of ground to make up. It ranks 36th nationally with the No. 47 offense and No. 27 defense. That sandwiches the Tigers right between Purdue and Fresno State, which may come as a bit of a surprise for a team with a lot of potential.
Connelly offered a specific explainer on why LSU (as well as USC, who ranks No. 53) fell so low in the projection, and it largely has to do with roster turnover. The 2021 production from players added in the transfer portal conflicts with these two teams’ recent history rankings.
New LSU head coach Brian Kelly has made similar changes, bringing in Arizona State quarterback Jayden Daniels, at least one transfer for every unit on the field and completely transforming the Tigers’ secondary, losing five of last year’s top six but bringing in five transfers. LSU will almost certainly be ranked relatively high in the AP poll this year as well, but after ranking 45th and 65th over the past two seasons, the Tigers get only so much benefit of the doubt from SP+.
Once we have dealt with a couple of years of evidence in how teams loading up on transfers change their ratings from year to year, I will get a pretty good idea of how to account for this in the projections. This is a very new phenomenon, however, and I don’t want to overreact in how I account for this, so for now we’re just going to have a couple of weird outliers.
It sounds like Connelly expects the Tigers to rise in the rankings once the actual games start being played, but they remain an outlier for now. It goes to show how much uncertainty surrounds this year’s team, but the potential for a surprising year in Baton Rouge remains.
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