Tag: espn sp+

ESPN SP+ still has Wisconsin in the nation’s top 10

ESPN SP+ still has Wisconsin in the nation’s top 10

Yes, you read that headline right. While Wisconsin sits at 2-3 on the season with losses to ranked Notre Dame, Michigan and Penn State, ESPN SP+ still loves what it has seen from the Badgers.

The latest SP+ top 10?

  1. Georgia
  2. Ohio State
  3. Alabama
  4. Florida
  5. Clemson
  6. Penn State
  7. Wisconsin
  8. Michigan
  9. Oklahoma
  10. Pittsburgh

Some other significant teams to note: 6-0 Iowa sits at No. 16 and 5-1 Notre Dame sits at 17.

Related: Big Ten power rankings after Week 6 — Hey, Iowa

Much of Wisconsin’s ranking is due to the team’s continued dominance on defense (SP+ lists them as the No. 2 defense in the country behind only Georgia) and due to the losses in the stat sheet not completely reflecting what occurred on the field.

No. 7 may be a bit high. But this is still a team that’s gone head-to-head with Penn State, Notre Dame and Michigan before collapsing late in each contest.

Contact/Follow us @TheBadgersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Wisconsin news, notes, opinion and analysis.

ESPN SP+ says Wisconsin’s schedule-to-date has been tougher than any

ESPN SP+ says Wisconsin’s schedule-to-date has been tougher than any

The Wisconsin Badgers are off to a 1-3 start to a football season for the first time since 1990.

The losses have all come against ranked opponents–No. 4 Penn State, No. 14 Notre Dame and No. 9 Michigan. The losing continues a streak dating back to 2019, as the Badgers have lost eight straight games to ranked opponents and are now 9-10 in their last 19 contests.

There usually aren’t moral victories that come from losing to Michigan at home for the first time since 2001. If there was one semi-bright spot, though, it was the improved play of quarterback Graham Mertz—that especially given how poor the offensive line played in front of him.

If there is a second piece of positive news, the schedule does get a lot easier moving forward. The Badgers have only one ranked matchup upcoming: at home October 30 vs. No. 3 Iowa.

How hard has Wisconsin’s schedule been thus far? ESPN SP+ says it has been the toughest of any team in the country. Here is what SP+ lists as the five-toughest schedules-to-date thus far:

ESPN SP+ predicts the final score of every Big Ten Week 4 contest

ESPN SP+ predicts the final score of every Big Ten Week 4 contest

Week 3 of the Big Ten football season saw some chaos. Not chaos in the sense of big upsets, but chaos that has seen No. 6 Penn State rise to the top of our Big Ten power rankings, No. 10 Ohio State fall after two underwhelming performances and two schools from Michigan continue to rise.

Week 4 in Big Ten land still doesn’t see any big-time in-conference matchups—No. 18 Wisconsin vs. No. 12 Notre Dame being the marquee game on the slate.

Related: The five biggest issues for Wisconsin headed into Notre Dame week

There are some sneaky in-conference games that could put two rising teams on upset alert, though, as No. 19 Michigan hosts Rutgers and No. 20 Michigan State hosts Nebraska.

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ESPN’s Bill Connelly used his SP+ metrics to predict every game on the Week 4 slate. Here are his score predictions for every Big Ten contest:

Wisconsin is one of four Big Ten teams inside top 10 of ESPN’s SP+ ranking

Wisconsin is one of four Big Ten teams inside top 10 of ESPN’s SP+ ranking

Wisconsin’s 34-7 victory over Eastern Michigan on Saturday saw the team stand pat in both weekly polls—the AFCA Coaches Poll and the AP Poll.

The ranking makes sense, though, as Eastern Michigan is a bottom-of-the-barrel MAC team and didn’t present much of a challenge.

One ranking where the Badgers did rise, notably, is ESPN’s SP+. They jumped up to No. 8, joining three other Big Ten teams within the ranking’s top 10.

The ranking puts Badgers offense No. 40 nationally and defense No. 3, the offense number being likely to rise as the team figures out its red zone flaws.

Some other things to note from the latest SP+ ranking:

  • Notre Dame, Wisconsin’s opponent on September 25, is at No. 18
  • Michigan, Wisconsin’s opponent the next week, is up at No. 6
  • Despite dominant wins, Iowa is down at No. 16 in the ranking
  • Wisconsin’s schedule is a lot tougher according to this metric than it is according to national polls

Contact/Follow us @TheBadgersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Wisconsin news, notes, opinion and analysis.

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ESPN SP+ predicts the final score of every Big Ten Week 1 game

ESPN SP+ predicts the final score of every Big Ten Week 1 game

Week 1 of the college football season is finally here. We have two Big Ten football games tonight, one tomorrow and a full slate on Saturday.

The opening week of this season actually sees many critical in-conference matchups, with Wisconsin hosting Penn State, Minnesota hosting Ohio State, Northwestern hosting Michigan State and Iowa hosting Indiana.

The slate of games will tell us a lot about where teams stand after a unique 2020 season.

For the Badgers, that may not be told by the final score. However, we will see what Graham Mertz looks like in year two, how the backfield rotation shakes out and what the defense looks like after returning eight starters.

ESPN’s Bill Connelly used his SP+ metrics to predict every Week 1 game on the college football calendar.

Here are his score predictions for every Big Ten game this weekend:

Wisconsin vs. Penn State preview:

Wisconsin joins the top 3 in ESPN’s latest SP+ rankings

The offseason love for Paul Chryst and the Wisconsin Badgers was higher than in any year I can remember…

The offseason love for Paul Chryst and the Wisconsin Badgers was higher than in any year I can remember.

Yes, they landed at No. 12 in the preseason AP Poll which seems like a normal for the team. But ESPN’s advanced rating systems FPI and SP+ have seen them as one of the best in the nation, even though they’ve only played one game.

FPI–ESPN’s college football power index–currently has the Badgers as the No. 4 team in the nation and gives them a 40 percent chance to make the playoff and a 7.5 percent chance to end the season National Champions.

Related: A Nebraska radio station had an awful theory about why Saturday’s game was canceled

ESPN’s SP+ rankings, created by staff writer Bill Connelly, saw what happened with Clemson struggling to defeat Boston College and now has the Badgers as the third-best team in the nation. Yes, SP+ moved the 1-0 Badgers ahead of the 7-0 Clemson Tigers.

From the rankings:

“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.”

The two teams still ahead of Wisconsin are Ohio State at No. 1 and Alabama at No. 2. I never thought I would say a sentence that included Ohio State, Alabama and Wisconsin as the top-3 teams in the nation.

Here is what Connelly had to say about the Badgers and their rest-of-season outlook:

“For all of this season, we have been able to count on two things regarding the SP+ rankings: Ohio State was going to be No. 1, and Alabama and Clemson were going to trade the No. 2 and 3 rankings back and forth.

Thanks to an extremely 2020 oddity, that trend finally changed. To be sure, Ohio State’s still No. 1 after handling a top-10 Penn State team with relative ease. But thanks to Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence-less struggle against Boston College, combined with Wisconsin’s canceled game against Nebraska — which meant the Badgers have still produced a single, nearly perfect data point for 2020 — the Tigers fell to fourth.”

 

The Badgers are scheduled to be back in action on Saturday against Purdue, though that game is still in question with Wisconsin continuing to announce more positive COVID-19 tests.

When they do return to the field all eyes will be trained on their performance, as across the Big Ten we’ve seen huge upsets, new programs in first place and overall pandemonium. If Wisconsin can bring the consistency they’re so well known for, the Big Ten West is theirs for the taking.

I won’t talk about the playoff just yet, but the path is there if the Badgers are able to return to the field at full strength sooner rather than later.

ESPN’s SP+ ranks the Badgers higher than their current AP Poll slot

On September 1 ESPN released their updated SP+ rankings and opted to include every FBS team, even if their fall season had been postponed….

On September 1 ESPN released their updated SP+ rankings and opted to include every FBS team, even if their fall season had been postponed.

The metric projects team success based off three main factors: each program’s returning production, recent history and recruiting. It then quantifies those factors for both offense and defense and creates an SP+ number for each team.

The metric also gives a team their chance to win each game and adds them up to create a win total, with an 80 percent win chance for a given game equaling 0.8 wins–the Badgers and fellow Big Ten schools obviously not included in that aspect of the ranking.

So, coming in at the No. 8 slot in the updated rankings are the Wisconsin Badgers–four slots higher than their No. 12 ranking in the AP Poll.

No. 8 is good for third-best for a Big Ten team with Ohio State up top at No. 1 and Penn State one spot ahead of the Badgers at No. 7.

Specifically, Paul Chryst’s team was given a “projected SP+” of 21.6–just 0.7 behind No. 7 Penn State. Divided between offense and defense now, their 35.9 offensive rating was good for No. 17 in the nation and 14.3 defensive rating good for No. 5.

It’s hard seeing metrics and polls including ESPN FPI, SP+ and the AP Poll showing preseason love to Chryst and the Badgers with the team not set to play this season. The future is no doubt looking like a bright one for the program, but by all accounts this season was shaping up to be a special one in Madison and still could be come kickoff, whenever that day comes around.