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Gators drop in ESPN College Football Power Index after ‘Bama loss

The offense is still elite for Florida, but the defense and special teams slipped this week.

Florida fell one spot to seventh overall in the latest College Football Power Index update by ESPN.

The Gators took on Alabama this weekend and came within a two-point conversion of sending the game into overtime. Florida keeping the game close helped close the gap between the Crimson Tide and every other team in college football, at least in terms of FPI. Going into the matchup, ‘Bama had nearly 10 FPI points more than Florida. Following the game, the difference is down to 8.1.

Florida’s offensive efficiency stayed at No. 3 after facing a good defense, but the defense fell from fifteenth in the nation to No. 33. The special teams efficiency was already poor for UF, but a muffed kick return (that fortunately resulted in a 99-yard touchdown drive) hurts the Gators overall. The win-loss projection stayed at 9.3-2.9 and ESPN gives the Gators a 3 percent chance to win out with Georgia still left on schedule.

Michigan claimed the No. 6 spot from Florida this week, and Alabama stayed at No. 1 with the win. Georgia is just 1.2 points behind the Crimson Tide in second, and Ole Miss cracked the top ten behind Matt Corral.

ESPN FPI Top 25

1. Alabama (3-0) 25.2
2. Georgia (3-0) 24.0
3. Oklahoma (3-0) 20.9
4. Ohio State (2-1) 19.5
5. Clemson (2-1) 19.2
6. Michigan (3-0) 18.2
7. Florida (2-1) 17.1
8. Oregon (3-0) 15.8
9. Ole Miss (3-0) 15.6
10. Penn State (3-0) 15.3
11. Auburn (2-1) 14.2
12. Texas (2-1) 14.2
13. North Carolina (2-1) 13.7
14. Texas A&M (3-0) 13.7
15. Iowa (3-0) 13.1
16. Iowa State (2-1) 12.7
17. Michigan State (3-0) 12.7
18. Cincinnati (3-0) 11.7
19. Wisconsin (1-1) 11.5
20. Arkansas (3-0) 11.2
21. Notre Dame (3-0) 11.2
22. Nc State (2-1) 10.1
23. Virginia Tech (2-1) 9.4
24. USC (2-1) 9.3
25. Pittsburgh (2-1) 8.7

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Where Penn State ranks in ESPN’s latest FPI update

ESPN’s updated FPI seems to give Penn State more of a shot to win the Big Ten after Ohio State went down in Week 2.

After a complete team performance in Week 2 against Ball State, Penn State remains in the top 10 of ESPN’s updated Football Power Index this week. Penn State ranks No. 8 in the updated FPI from ESPN as they head into their big Week 3 showdown with the Auburn Tigers on Saturday night.

According to the latest FPI, Penn State is still trending to a record of 9-3 this season with just a 1% chance of winning out the rest of the year. Already owning a win against Wisconsin, the most likely games Penn State could lose the rest of this season would seem to come in the group of games against Ohio State, Iowa, Michigan, and Auburn. It is interesting to see what a loss to Oregon did to the Buckeyes though, as Ohio State is also now trending to a record of 9-3 or 10-2 according to the FPI.

The loss to Oregon may not have been a conference loss for Ohio State, but the percentage chance to win the Big Ten was given a bit of a bump for Penn State. Ohio State still has a 42.8% chance to win the Big Ten, but Penn State now has a 14.2% chance. The gap has closed slightly. Iowa has a 22% chance, which makes sense. Iowa doesn’t have to get past Ohio State to reach the Big Ten championship game like Penn state does, and the Hawkeyes have already accumulated two impressive top 25 victories to start the season.

As for a national championship, well, it’s still a long shot for the Nittany Lions. Penn State’s national championship percentage is still just 1.8%. Ohio State has a 4.8% chance according to the same metric. The top four national title percentages belong to Alabama (31.6%), Georgia (20.9%), Oklahoma (19.7%), and Clemson (10.0%) for the sake of comparison.

But who knows what will change after Week 3? At least two teams ranked ahead of Penn State in the latest FPI are guaranteed to lose at least once (Florida faces Alabama this weekend and plays Georgia in division play, and the SEC Championship Game could come down to Alabama and Georgia). And Penn State still has a shot to beat Ohio State, and that doesn’t feel as far-fetched as it once did after Week 2’s developments.

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Gators just outside top 5 in latest College Football Power Index update

Florida’s offense has the Gators near the top of ESPN’s College Football Power Index

Florida is ranked sixth on ESPN’s College Football Power Index after two weeks of play. The Gators moved up two spots after Texas lost to Arkansas and Texas A&M struggled against Colorado.

ESPN gives a projected win-loss record of 9.3-2.9 for the Gators and gives Florida less than a 1 percent chance of going undefeated. That may have something to do with next week’s matchup against top-ranked Alabama. The Crimson Tide may be just five spots above the Gators in the rankings, but a closer look shows an FPI difference of over 10 in favor of Nick Saban’s squad.

Florida’s offensive efficiency is good for third in the nation, according to ESPN, but the defensive efficiency rating dips to fifteenth-best.

Georgia checks in at No. 2 on the list as it has on most rankings following a Week 1 victory over Clemson. Texas A&M didn’t fall too far, landing at ninth in front of Auburn to give the SEC five of the top 10 spots. Ole Miss and Arkansas make it seven in the top 25.

ESPN FPI Top 25

1. Alabama (2-0) 26.5
2. Georgia (2-0) 23.1
3. Oklahoma (2-0) 22.9
4. Clemson (1-1) 21.8
5. Ohio State (1-1) 19.6
6. Florida (2-0) 16.1
7. Oregon (2-0) 15.6
8. Penn State (2-0) 15.4
9. Texas A&M (2-0) 14.9
10. Auburn (2-0) 14.6
11. North Carolina (1-1) 14.3
12. Michigan (2-0) 13.7
13. Iowa (2-0) 12.7
14. Ole Miss (2-0) 12.3
15. Wisconsin (1-1) 11.4
16. Notre Dame (2-0) 11.3
17. Pittsburgh (2-0) 11.1
18. Texas (1-1) 10.7
19. Virginia Tech (2-0) 10.5
20. Miami Hurricanes (1-1) 10.5
21. Cincinnati (2-0) 10.1
22. Arkansas (2-0) 10.0
23. Iowa State (1-1) 9.8
24. Virginia (2-0) 9.5
25. UCLA (2-0) 9.0

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Oregon Ducks given 4th best odds to make College Football Playoff

Now sitting at No. 3 in their power rankings, ESPN gives Oregon a 41.5% chance to make the CFP, which are the 4th highest odds in the nation.

After a monumental win, it’s always fun to look ahead and see what can eventually come of it.

For the Oregon Ducks, who just shocked the world and upset the Ohio State Buckeyes on the road, 35-28, a new bar of success has been set for the current season, with legitimate aspirations for making the College Football Playoff now looking probable.

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According to ESPN’s Football Power Index, the Ducks should feel pretty confident about those expectations as well, where they now have the 4th best odds in the nation to eventually make the playoff. Here is how ESPN’s FPI broke down Oregon’s chances throughout the rest of the season:

Win-out: 11.8 %
Win Division: 82%
Win Conference: 60.5%
Make College Football Playoff: 41.5% (4th highest odds)
Make National Championship: 12.9 % (5th highest odds)
Win National Championship: 4.1% (6th highest odds)

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ESPN FPI updates Michigan football game-by-game predictions after Washington

Add another win to the predictions and one game thought unwinnable is now a toss-up!

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Now that Michigan football has the No. 3 rushing attack in the nation statistically and took down a once-highly thought of Washington by gashing it repeatedly, the advanced analytics are starting to look at the Wolverines’ 2021 outlook a little differently.

A little, but not completely.

While the maize and blue have long been projected by ESPN FPI to be an 8-4 team this season, even though Washington was considered a game where Michigan had a slight edge before the season, with the game having ended 31-10, the Wolverines are now projected to be 9-3. What’s more, some of the games that were looked at as ones where U-M had close to zero chance of winning are now in the toss-up column.

So what game is now one that the analytics suggest is a likely win? How much has Michigan closed the gap on some of the other big threats in the Big Ten? Here are the updated game-by-game predictions below.

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Upset on the horizon? Arkansas has 33 percent chance to beat Texas

The Razorbacks are underdogs against Texas, no doubt, but everyone not in burnt orange today will be hoping for that upset.

Arkansas may not be the favorite in its game Saturday against Texas, but the Razorbacks aren’t exactly massive underdogs, either.

ESPN’s Football Power Index gives Arkansas a 33 percent chance to know off its longtime rival.

That’s a much better chance than the FPI gave Rice to beat Arkansas last week. The Owls had less than a 6% to beat Arkansas in Fayetteville. And for a half, that six seemed to be coming up roses. So, the math works out that the Hogs have a five-times better chance to beat the Longhorns than Rice had to to beat the Razorbacks.

Too convoluted? Maybe. The game is ultimately played on the field, but algorithms and math have come to dominate the sport behind the scenes and, at times, out front.

The reality does, at least, remain that if Arkansas beats Texas, it’s a profound statement for coach Sam Pittman in his rebuild of the team on the field and its perception. Consider just about everyone who isn’t a Texas fan likely hopes Texas loses and Pittman and Hogs could be darlings for a week, anyway.

More importantly, they’d also be taken a lot more seriously as the tough part of their schedule hits full-bore in two weeks.

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Penn State moves up in ESPN’s updated FPI rankings

Penn State moved up a few spots in ESPN’s FPI but is blocked from entering the top 10 by an upcoming opponent

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After a big road win to start the year, Penn State is moving up in the polls and other rankings. The Nittany Lions moved up three spots in ESPN’s updated Football Power Index ratings for the 2021 college football season.

Penn State has moved up to No. 11 in ESPN’s FPI after securing a hard-fought 16-10 victory on the road against Wisconsin. Although Penn State started off lower in the top 20 of the two major polls, ESPN’s FPI was more optimistic about the Nittany Lions heading into the new season. Penn State started the year ranked ahead of Wisconsin, so the FPI wasn’t exactly shocked by Penn State winning in Week 1.

Penn State was blocked by getting into the top 10 of the FPI this week by an upcoming opponent. Auburn, who comes to Happy Valley in Week 3, jumped ahead of Penn State with their rise in the weekly FPI ranking. Auburn jumped up seven spots from their previous spot following a blowout win over Akron in Week 1. Interestingly, Penn State’s projected win total of 8.7 is still higher than Auburn’s 7.7 projection in the latest FPI. This is more an indication of how FPI ranks Auburn’s strength of schedule compared to Penn State’s.

Alabama remains the No. 1 team in FPI after their domination of Miami. The Hurricanes fell four spots, dropping them one spot behind Penn State in the updated ranking. Clemson actually holds on to the No. 2 spot despite losing a defensive battle with Georgia. Oddly, both Clemson and Georgia remained in their FPI ranking from the previous week, while Ohio State and Oklahoma swapped spots to move the Buckeyes up to No. 3 and dropping the Sooners to No. 4.

Michigan made a big jump up in the FPI by moving up 15 spots to No. 13 following its win against Western Michigan.

Penn State’s Week 2 opponent, Ball State, fell 19 spots in the FPI to No. 91 overall.

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ESPN FPI forecasts Chiefs’ 2021 win total along with playoff, Super Bowl chances

After 20,000 simulations of the NFL season, ESPN’s Football Power Index favors the #Chiefs once again.

The Kansas City Chiefs enter the 2021 NFL season reeling from their Super Bowl LV loss. According to ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI), the Chiefs also enter the season as the NFL team with the best chance of getting back to the Super Bowl and winning it.

Developed in 2015, FPI is a means to rank teams. But it’s also so much more. Here’s a quick rundown of how it all works:

FPI takes into account a number of different factors like previous team efficiencies, EPA per play, returning starters and injuries in order to predict offensive, defensive and special teams efficiency for a season. All of the different factors are accounted for in single-game projections, before each team’s season is simulated by ESPN a total of 20,000 times. The final simulations provide calculations for win totals, playoff and Super Bowl chances for each NFL team.

So where does FPI rank the Chiefs for the 2021 NFL season?

After simulations from ESPN, the Chiefs rank first by a lot with a 6.6 FPI. The next closest team is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with a 5.3 FPI. Kansas City is projected to finish the season an 11.5-5.5 record, basically meaning they could finish 11-5 or 12-6. That’d be good for the best record in the league according to their simulations. That record gives the Chiefs an 89.4% chance to make the playoffs, a 72.1% chance to win the division, a 71.4% chance to win the divisional round, a 49% chance to win the AFC title game, a 31.2% chance to make the Super Bowl and a 19.2% chance to win it. All of these are the highest possible percentages.

ESPN’s Seth Walder focused solely on simulation No. 13,330, for the purposes of his article on the FPI simulations this season. That outcome isn’t too great for the Chiefs. Kansas City starts out hot with a 5-0 record, but things go downhill as the season progresses. The Chiefs go 9-2 through Week 12, but lose four of their last six games of the season to close out with an 11-6 record in the NFL’s inaugural 17-game season. That record is only good for the No. 4 seed in the AFC. The result of this is the Browns knocking out the Chiefs in Cleveland in the AFC’s divisional round of the playoffs. The Browns get revenge for a Week 1 loss and also exact revenge for their divisional-round loss the year prior.

Now that’s only one result of 20,000 simulations, but it’s also a reminder of how tough it is to make it to the Super Bowl. Perhaps we’ve been a bit spoiled in recent years.

Some other nuggets related to Kansas City from ESPN’s FPI forecast:

The Chiefs face three teams ranked in the top 5 of the FPI forecast in the first five weeks of the regular season (Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Ravens and Buffalo Bills).
The Broncos have the second-best FPI ranking in the AFC West.

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What odds does ESPN’s FPI give Dolphins in playoff scenarios?

“Playoffs? You kiddin’ me?! Playoffs?”

The infamous Jim Mora line could be especially applicable for the Miami Dolphins given their lack of postseason appearances over the course of the last 20 years (three berths over that stretch and two in the last 19). But that is exactly where we sit with this Dolphins team entering into the 2021 season. Playoffs feel like the expectation for a lot of folks.

Brian Flores may not say it publicly. It flies in the face of the mantra he constantly serves to his team:

One day at a time. One practice at a time. One rep at a time.

But make no mistake: these Miami Dolphins are on the doorstep and the expectation is that the team manages to kick that door down after being left out of the 2020 tournament despite winning 10 games. But don’t just take our word for it: projections for the season have Miami routinely in the mix. The latest release of postseason forecasts comes from ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI). And the Dolphins are firmly in the mix.

How does FPI rank the Dolphins’ playoff probabilities? Better than a coin toss odds to make the playoffs, for starters. Here are FPI’s postseason odds for Miami:

Make the playoffs: 54.1% (2nd in AFCE behind Buffalo)
Win the division: 22.7% (3rd in AFCE behind Buffalo & New England)
Make the divisional round: 27.7%
Make the AFC Championship game: 12.2%
Make the Super Bowl: 5.1%
Win the Super Bowl: 2.3%

As a point of reference, nearly half of the league has less than a 1% chance to win the Super Bowl according to FPI and Miami has better odds of winning the Super Bowl this year than Carolina, Atlanta, New York (Giants), Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Jacksonville, Detroit, New York (Jets) and Houston do collectively combined in the same measure.

So yes. Playoffs. The Dolphins won’t dare discuss it to the world, but we all see the trend building entering Year 3 of the Chris Grier/Brian Flores era. And anything less would be a disappointment.

ESPN’s Football Power Index ranks Dolphins as 6th best team in AFC

NFL franchises will spend all offseason looking to piece together the right formula of new parts to add to their existing infrastructure; the hope being that they’ll stumble upon the magic blend of luck, skill and strategy to end the season atop the mountain. The science to winning a championship is an inexact one (with the exception apparently being having a Tom Brady on the roster) and as a result you’ll often see a wide array of preseason opinions on the talent and forecast for each team.

One of the most notable projections for an NFL season is ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI), which runs simulations of the season at any point throughout the season and spits out a forecast and a set of power rankings for the entire league.

FPI has not been kind to the Dolphins over the last two seasons — Miami has begun both of the last two years at or near the bottom of the league. But 2021 brings a new season and, in the case of the Dolphins and their FPI forecast, a new expectation.

FPI ranks the Dolphins in their Power Ranking as the 6th best team in the AFC, trailing the Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Ravens, Cleveland Browns and New England Patriots. The Dolphins are tied with the projected AFC South winner, the Tennessee Titans.

Should the FPI forecast come into reality, the Dolphins would be due to travel to Buffalo to play the Bills in the Wild Card round of the AFC Playoffs. Every Dolphins fan knows how that trip went in January of this past season. Miami’s aspirations in 2021 certainly include a ticket to the big dance — and if Miami has successfully closed the gap on the Bills in the AFC East, a potential third game between the two would be an exciting proposition.

The Dolphins do have some separation from the fringe playoff contenders in the AFC, too. FPI scores Indianapolis and Pittsburgh at nearly an equal to “average” team. Indianapolis (0.3) and Pittsburgh (0.1) are comfortably off the projection of both Miami and Tennessee (1.2 each). This, of course, is just a projection. It will definitely change. But the fact that these expectations exist for Miami is a good indication of what has the potential to come in 2021.