Tag: ESPN SP+ Rankings

Where does the ESPN SP+ rankings have Ohio State football heading into the season

Is the gap between Ohio State and Georgia really that great? #GoBucks

The Ohio State football program had one whale of an offseason. It got several key members of the team that could have gone off to the NFL to come back, nabbed several high-profile players out of the transfer portal, restructured the coaching staff to a degree with some significant hires, and brought in a top five recruiting class.

All of that has Buckeye Nation buzzing for what this fall could be, and it has many of the mainstream media outlets calling for a season worth remembering this fall.

One of the metrics we have followed through the years is the ESPN SP+ that is a metric ranking that takes into account past performance, returning production, and other things in an attempt to predict the future performance of college football teams.

OSU has historically been high atop these rankings, and it’s no different heading into 2024 with the Buckeyes landing at No. 2 with a score of 30.1, just behind the Georgia Bulldogs who are well atop the rankings at 34.5 points.

Rounding out the top ten at this point before any games are played is Oregon, Texas, Michigan, Alabama, Penn State, Ole Miss, Notre Dame, and LSU.

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Where the Aggies rank among their peers in ESPN’s SP+ metrics

Where does Texas A&M land in ESPN’s newest SP+ returning production rankings among the rest of the SEC ahead of the 2024 CFB season?

The 2024 college football season will be filled with storyline after storyline, led by conference realignment and the first year for the expanded 12-team playoff structure.

For Texas A&M, new head coach Mike Elko has already proven his recruiting prowess after signing the Aggies’ three remaining targets, including 2024 5-star athlete Terry Bussey, 4-star wide receiver Ashton Bethel-Roman, and 3-star offensive tackle Robert Bourdon.

Concerning the 2024 season, coupled with the returning veterans, Elko has already acquired 22 players from the transfer portal, led by sophomore Edge Nic Scourton, who Purdue and the Big 10 in sacks (10) during the 2023 season.

With starting quarterback Conner Weigman set to return after missing most of last season due to injury, the Aggies have already received plenty of preseason hype, and according to Fan Duel, Texas A&M is predicted to win an average of 8.5 games in 2024, while Weigman is a +1800 bet to win the Heisman trophy.

However, what sets A&M apart from the rest of the SEC is their returning production on both sides of the ball outside of Weigman and the transfer portal additions, including the entire starting offensive line and a bulk of the defensive line, led by senior DL Shemar Turner.

Providing the metrics to back it up, ESPN’s Bill Connelly released his newest SP+ rankings, but the question remains: where do the Agges land in the SEC for returning production next season?

ESPN releases projections for Texas A&M and the SEC West

ESPN’s Bill Connelly leveraged the SP+ rankings to compile his win projections for Texas A&M and the rest of the SEC West.

With talkin’ season and the SEC media days in the rearview mirror, it offered the opportunity for the media to unveil their preseason projections. Now, it’s time for the worldwide leader in sports to do the same.

ESPN’s Bill Connelly compiled his picks for the SEC division’s final results using his SP+ rankings, which have become a staple throughout the college football season. In his SEC West outlook, Connelly illustrated his belief in Texas A&M bouncing back from their underwhelming 5-7 campaign a season ago, which included a 2-6 record versus SEC competition.

As a reminder, ESPN’s SP+ rankings take into account returning production, recent recruiting, and recent history. The Aggies sit atop the SEC in returning production this season, highlighted by key positional units such as their offensive line, which should take a significant leap in performance.

While their trials in 2022 were ultimately a result of injuries and inexperience, identifying the root causes of last season and working to correct them should only add further belief in the Aggies’ chances of bouncing back in 2023. Of course, staying relatively healthy for the long haul of the season will be paramount to not produce a repeat of last season.

Here’s a look at ESPN’s SEC West projections ahead of the 2023 season.

ESPN ranks the best college football teams of every decade – Where did Texas A&M land?

ESPN used their SP+ rankings to highlight the best college football teams over the decades, and of course Texas A&M found themselves well-represented throughout history.

Being a fan in the landscape of college football is not for the faint of heart, or at the very least, for someone that emphasizes parity.

The worst-kept secret in the sport is that the number of viable title contenders each season can be counted on the palm of your hand. The most dominant football programs have typically been concentrated in just a few conferences, and that statement has rung true for much of the last decade.

But the history of college football is vast, so does that statement carry the same amount of weight in say, the 1920s, as it does today? To answer that question, ESPN and Bill Connelly are turning toward their staple SP+ rankings.

As Connelly notes in his piece, he’s updating his method for crunching these figures that differ from his typical weekly SP+ rankings:

While the version of SP+ presented weekly during a given season is based on a large number of predictive factors, I have come up with a version based solely on points scored and allowed that, at the lower levels of the sport, can serve to make solid projections. I applied those same methods to the games going back to 1883, when football’s scoring rules became mostly what they are now. (You can find all ratings here.)

Starting with the 1920s, I looked at which teams most thoroughly dominated the sport from decade to decade, using SP+ percentile averages for each team and each decade. How much do these lists change over the decades? What can these averages tell us about how things have evolved over the past 100 years and how much things are evolving now?

With Texas A&M football boasting a vast history of success on the gridiron, it should come as no surprise to see them well-represented in Connelly’s decades’ rankings. The Maroon and White are just one of four teams to show up in the top 10 for at least one decade, with much praise handed out to their vaunted defenses over the years.

Let’s dive in and see how the Aggies compare with some of the most successful college football teams over the last 100 years, based on SP+:

Where did Texas A&M and the rest of the SEC land in ESPN’s post-spring SP+ rankings?

With spring ball in the rearview and the transfer portal slowing down, ESPN’s Bill Connely has updated his SP+ rankings, which include Texas A&M and a handful of SEC heavyweights.

With every college football team’s spring program in the rearview mirror, it means there’s no better time to forecast which teams are well-situated for success in 2023.

Sure, teams will still be active in adding talent following the close of the spring transfer portal, but for the most, the rosters as they stand today will be intact come Week 1.

And with that in mind, ESPN’s Bill Connely has recently updated his SP+ rankings, marking his first update since his first unveiling back in February.

As a quick reminder, his projections take into account three factors: returning production, recent recruiting, and recent history.

There was no shortage of SEC teams in Connely’s latest SP+ rankings with Georgia, Alabama, LSU, and Tennessee clocking in among the top 10. Texas A&M and Ole Miss just missed out on the top 10 but were well situated in the top 20 teams.

Here’s the full breakdown of where the Aggies, as well as every other SEC team placed in ESPN’s rankings.

Where MSU, every Big Ten team lands in ESPN’s opening SP+ rankings for 2023 season

See where Michigan State football lands in ESPN’s opening SP+ rankings for the upcoming 2023 season

We are still months away from the opening kickoff, but that doesn’t mean we can’t look ahead to the 2023 season.

As part of that process, Bill Connelly of ESPN has released his first batch of SP+ projections and rankings for the 2023 season. Connelly’s SP+ rankings are “a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a rĂ©sumĂ© ranking, and, along those same lines, these projections aren’t intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the year.”

So where does the data think Michigan State will finish in the Big Ten next year? Let’s take a look at where each Big Ten team is ranked in the league and nationally in the initial SP+ rankings.

Georgia football named No. 1 by ESPN’s 2023 SP+ rankings

ESPN’s 2023 SP+ rankings are out with UGA on top…

Georgia football is projected at the top of college football in 2023, according to ESPN’s 2023 SP+ rankings.

ESPN states the SP+ measurements are based on returning production, recent recruiting and recent history.

The back-to-back national champion Bulldogs come in at No. 1, followed by Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama and Penn State.

Tennessee (No. 6) and LSU (No. 7) round out the SEC’s top selections.

The Bulldogs were ranked No. 3 at this time last year.

The SEC is projected as the top conference in college football in 2023, followed by the Big Ten and Big 12.

Georgia’s returning production on defense should help the offense’s transition as new offensive coordinator Mike Bobo replaces Todd Monken, who was hired by the Baltimore Ravens on Tuesday.

The Bulldogs return six starters on offense and seven on defense for 13 total, which is three more than Georgia returned from its 2022 national title team.

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You might be surprised where Ohio State football is on ESPN’s early 2023 SP+ rankings projections

Do you think Ohio State is getting too much respect from the SP+ model, just about right? #GoBucks

Ohio State football has continually been at or near the top of ESPN’s SP+ rankings over the last few years.

The predictive formula Bill Connelly uses includes returning production, recruiting, recent history and other data that — according to ESPN — are built as a “tempo and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football. … These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information that we have been able to gather to date.”

With a ton of skill position players returning on the offensive side of the ball and the recent success on the field and in recruiting, you would naturally expect Ohio State to be pretty high on the projections for the 2023 season despite the loss of quarterback C.J. Stroud to the NFL draft. You would not be wrong.

In fact, the ESPN SP+ rankings projections (subscription required) have Ohio State among the top teams in the country once again, but how high exactly? We go through the top 25 for you based on whatever formula goes into making the college football sausage that ESPN is churning out at this early juncture.

Where is Ohio State compared to teams like Alabama, Michigan, USC, Clemson, Georgia and others? Let’s find out.

There’s a new No. 1 in the ESPN SP+ rankings. Is it Ohio State?

There’s a new No. 1 in ESPN’s SP+ rankings. Yes, you can celebrate if you’d like.

The Ohio State football team has been a monster in the ESPN SP+ rankings (subscription required) over the last few years, but that changed just a wee bit just before and after the first game of the 2022 season vs. Notre Dame. The Buckeyes didn’t exactly drop off a cliff but weren’t up as high as what we’ve seen in the past.

But slowly and surely, Ohio State has been climbing in the SP+ rankings. But before we tell you where OSU is after Week 6, let’s remember what these ratings mean from the ESPN resident analytics expert, Bill Connelly. According to him, SP+ rankings are somewhat straight-forward

“SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency … SP+ is intended to be predictive and forward-facing. It is not a rĂ©sumĂ© ranking that gives credit for big wins or particularly brave scheduling — no good predictive system is. It is simply a measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football. If you’re lucky or unimpressive in a win, your rating will probably fall. If you’re strong and unlucky in a loss, it will probably rise.

OK, now that you are clear on that (sort of), here’s what the top 25 of the SP+ rankings are after Week 6 and where Ohio State landed (hint, the Buckeyes have risen).

Ohio State on the rise in the SP+ rankings after win over Wisconsin

How did the blowout win over a good Wisconsin defense impact Ohio State in the latest ESPN SP+ rankings? #GoBucks

One of the most interesting metrics we like to follow that correlates to a college football team’s strength and talent is ESPN’s SP+ rankings (subscription required) by ESPN’s Bill Connelly. The model has heaped some love on Ohio State over the last few years and we like to see where things stand from year-to-year, month to month, and week to week.

Early on before the season, the SP+ was bullish on the Buckeyes. And it makes sense because the model takes into account things like historical performance of recent years, recruiting, and returning talent. That’s always going to bode well for a program like OSU. But since the season started, Ohio State has dropped a wee bit in the SP+. But what goes into the ratings, bleeps, and bloops of the model?

According to ESPN:

“The SP+ is intended to be predictive and forward-facing. It is not a resume ranking that gives credit for big wins or particularly brave scheduling — no good predictive system is. It is simply a measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football. If you’re lucky or unimpressive in a win, your rating will probably fall. If you’re strong and unlucky in a loss, it will probably rise.”

OK. Kind of makes sense, right? Ohio State wasn’t entirely impressive against Notre Dame, looked a bit better against Arkansas State, and then blew the doors off of Toledo and Wisconsin.

Here is what the newly released top 25 of the SP+ looks like, with Ohio State movin’ on up.