Tag: Power Index

The Bucs see biggest move in ESPN’s Football Power Index after Week 6

Entering Week 6 as ESPN’s 15th-ranked team on its Football Power Index, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers saw the most significant move up the ranks.

Entering Week 6 as ESPN’s 15th-ranked team on its Football Power Index, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers saw the most significant move up the ranks and landed in the Top 10 following their 51-27 win over the New Orleans Saints.

The Bucs put together a complete game on both sides of the ball, despite allowing 20 unanswered points in the 2nd quarter. Putting 51 points on the scoreboard against a division opponent on the road and being displaced much earlier in the week due to Hurricane Milton, it was no surprise to see the upward movement on ESPN’s FPI.

Not only did the Bucs beat the Saints by 24 points, but the dominating victory caused the Saints to slide 19 spots. At the same time, the Carolina Panthers remained in position, and the Atlanta Falcons jumped up two positions after beating the Panthers in Charlotte 38-20. With the Falcons taking the first game in the series with the Bucs and currently having the same record, the Bucs sit in second place in the NFC South standings- making their Week 8 rematch in Tampa much more important.

  • Buccaneers: 10 (15)
  • Falcons: 15 (17)
  • Saints: 29 (10)
  • Panthers: 30 (30)

How ESPN’s Football Power Index is determined

The Football Power Index (FPI) is a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team’s performance going forward for the rest of the season. FPI represents how many points a team is above or below average. Projected results are based on 10,000 simulations of the rest of the season using FPI, results to date, and the remaining schedule. Ratings and projections are updated daily.

See where Penn State lands in ESPN’s latest power index rankings

The Nittany Lions are in a position to make some noise this season after a disappointing 2020 campaign.

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We are still months away from opening kickoff for Penn State football, but according to ESPN’s latest power index rankings, the Nittany Lions could surprise some people this season. Penn State came in at No. 10 on the rankings list that was released on Tuesday.

It should come as no surprise that the defending champion Alabama Crimson Tide rank at the top of the list. Oklahoma and Clemson round out the top three.

Ohio State is the only other Big Ten program in the top 10, coming in at No. 5. Wisconsin (15th), Iowa (23rd), and Indiana (25th) finish out the rest of Big Ten teams that were put in the top 25.

You might be asking yourself, what in the world is a power index?

Developed in 2013, it was designed to “measure team strength and predict game and season outcomes going forward.” The goal of this index isn’t necessarily to rank each team, according to ESPN, but rather be used as a predictor for games and season outcomes.

According to this year’s preseason rankings, the index predicts the Nittany Lions to win 8.6 games this season and gives them a 10.5-percent chance to win the Big Ten Conference and a 7.3-percent chance to make the College Football Playoff.

ESPN acknowledges that preseason rankings can have their flaws since there’s so many components built into making the preseason list. In 2020, Penn State was ranked No. 5 on the preseason index. After a brutal 0-5 start, the Nittany Lions salvaged their season by winning their last four games and ended up finishing 24th in the FPI rankings.

If we take the total wins for Penn State from 2016-2020, the average will tell you this team could surpass that expected 8.6 game win mark. Penn State is averaging 9.2 wins over the last five seasons, which includes the outlier from last season of only four wins.

Head coach James Franklin has said that the COVID-19 pandemic played a huge factor in their struggles throughout the 2020 season, so perhaps a full offseason of spring practices and a bit more normalcy will get Penn State back on track as one of the top programs in the country.

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