Do you think the Tigers are being slept on this year?
Analytics are becoming an increasingly larger part of sports as a whole, and one of ESPN’s college football stats has released its final rankings before the beginning of the college football season.
Writer Bill Connelly’s posted the final rankings (subscription required) on Sunday for ESPN’s SP+ stat, which he frames as a “tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency.” The stat takes “recent production, recent recruiting and recent history” into account in an attempt to statistically rank college football teams.
The Tigers landed at No. 21 in the rankings, which Connelly noted makes them one of the teams that could play potential sleeper in the SEC this season:
Tennessee, Mississippi State and Auburn are all 15 spots higher in SP+ than in the AP poll. Florida is 12 spots higher, Ole Miss 11 and Kentucky nine. Two main things to take from this: First, SP+ really likes the SEC this season (as we’ll see below). The combination of quality returning production averages and high-level recruiting and transfer portal usage should make for strong output in what is generally college football’s strongest conference.
Connelly also ranked teams by returning production, where the Tigers did not fare so well — they were ranked No. 55 on the list with an estimation of 65 percent returning production.
Auburn will have a chance to put the statistics to the test when it kicks off its season against Mercer on Sept. 3.
The Gators have a new head coach and are ready to bounce back from what was a pretty disastrous 2021. What chances does ESPN give UF to improve?
The Florida Gators were one of 13 Division I college football teams that had their average points per game decrease by more than 10 in 2021, but ESPN thinks UF is primed to bounce back under first-year head coach Billy Napier.
In a breakdown of teams likely to improve in 2022, ESPN’s Bill Connelly has the Gators improving by 2.9 points per game (11.0 to 13.9) and finishing 23rd overall in SP+ with a 7-5 record. That’s a far cry from the Gators’ monstrous average of 23.9 points per game in 2020, when the team ranked sixth in SP+.
But improvement takes time, especially when Dan Mullen left Napier a rather empty talent cupboard. Connelly notes the Gators still have plenty of players brimming with potential that could make things go right.
As is always the case when a coach takes over a job in which their predecessor was fired, there are potential stumbling blocks in Gainesville. The skill corps is very thin outside of receiver Justin Shorter and transfers [autotag]Montrell Johnson[/autotag] (Louisiana) and [autotag]Ricky Pearsall[/autotag] (Arizona State), and the defense wasn’t nearly disruptive enough last fall. But quarterback [autotag]Anthony Richardson[/autotag] has flashed immense potential, key defenders [autotag]Ventrell Miller[/autotag] (linebacker) and [autotag]Jaydon Hill[/autotag] (cornerback) return from injury, and the schedule includes only a couple of truly likely losses (vs. Georgia, at Texas A&M).
As it stands, the Gators have a 69% chance of improving their record, and Richardson reaching his full potential (or maybe even just some of it) would increase that number by a lot.
Florida isn’t expected to bounce back nearly as strongly as some other programs, such as USC, but the Gators should be better than last year.
It might be a little bit longer than most Gator fans would like until UF wins the SEC East again, but Billy Napier has a ton of talent at Florida to work with.
ESPN’s Bill Connelly previewed the SEC East on Monday, and he had quite a bit to say about the Florida Gators, as one may expect.
Connelly tackled several big questions surrounding the top programs in the conference, and one of them was how long Gator Nation could expect it to take for Billy Napier to succeed in Gainesville? The answer isn’t so simple, but he’s expecting it to take a bit longer than most that fill the Swamp on Saturdays would like to hear.
“The Gators could indeed be positioned to make a leap next year. This year? Hard to say,” Connely said.
Florida’s offense might actually be in a better spot right now than it was last year at this time, but the defense has much to prove. Eight of the twelve returning players on defense were freshmen last year, and the youth showed on the field. Connelly pointed to [autotag]Ventrell Miller[/autotag] and [autotag]Jaydon Hill[/autotag] returning as difference makers for this year, but he also said that the sophomores need to take a big leap for the team to be competitive against the conference’s best.
If [autotag]Gervon Dexter[/autotag] and Co. can shake off the Todd Grantham funk quickly enough, Florida could impress quicker than expected. Offensively, the line is in better shape than it was last year. Napier brought in [autotag]O’Cyrus Torrence[/autotag] from Louisiana to help lead that front and has [autotag]Montrell Johnson[/autotag] to lead the running backs room. Of course, [autotag]Anthony Richardson[/autotag] has the biggest ceiling of anyone on the team, and Napier’s job is to help him control his raw talent and turn it into something consistent. If Richardson gets it together, Florida should be able to put up some gaudy numbers.
Napier lost three of his first four with ULL, but the Ragin’ Cajuns won six of the next eight and wound up winning the Sun Belt West title that season. Florida’s got far more talent to work with, but the SEC East isn’t exactly a walk in the park.
Connelly’s SP+ projections have Florida finishing third in the East this year, ahead of Kentucky and behind Tennessee.
The Gators rank 18th in the preseason SP+ projections from ESPN’s Bill Connelly.
It’s hard to know exactly what the expectation should be for coach Billy Napier in his first season at UF in 2022. He inherits a team that went 6-7 last year and has some major recruiting deficiencies that he’s only just begun to rectify.
At the same time, the Gators had a losing record in 2017, as well, before former coach Dan Mullen took over, and the culture change and excitement in the building was enough for Florida to win 10 games in Mullen’s first season.
Expecting a similar jump for Napier may be unfair, given he takes over arguably a worse situation talent-wise than Mullen did, but fans also expect to see at least some signs of progress in Year 1.
The preseason SP+ rankings from ESPN’s Bill Connelly see UF having a bounce-back season as it ranks 18th in the projections heading into 2022. According to Connelly, these projections take into account returning production, recent recruiting and recent history.
Napier is an offensive mind and Florida’s offense was overall solid last season despite some issues at the quarterback spot, and as a result, the unit is expected to be much better than the defense. Offensively, the team ranks 13th in the preseason projections but just 39th on defense, where it struggled a lot in 2021 and has to replace a number of outgoing starters.
The Gators will hope these predictions hold true and the team is at least competitive against SEC competition next year after a 2-6 finish in conference play.
These rankings take into account three major factors that yield a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football. He emphasizes that these are not intended to predict what the rankings will look like at the end of the season but are early offseason power rankings based on the following information, as outlined by Connelly:
Returning Production
The returning production numbers are based on rosters I have updated as much as possible to account for transfers and attrition.
Recent Recruiting
This piece informs us of the caliber of a team’s potential replacements (and/or new stars) in the lineup. It is determined by the last few years of recruiting rankings in diminishing order (meaning the most recent class carries the most weight).
Recent History:
Using a sliver of information from previous seasons (two to four years ago) gives us a good measure of overall program health. This is a minor piece of the puzzle, but the projections are better with it than without.
Georgia will have a lot of talent to replace this offseason
The 2022 Georgia Bulldogs will enter the season as the defending national champions but will have a very new look after losing a huge number of guys to the NFL draft and the NCAA transfer portal.
ESPN’s Bill Connelly recently released his returning production rankings, which takes a look at which programs return the most production from last year’s teams. This category is one of the three factors that go into his SP+ rankings and account for a majority of the formula.
Georgia checked in at No. 96 in the rankings, returning 59 percent of its production from last season. Connelly breaks it down even more – by offensive and defensive production. Georgia returns 73 percent on offense (43rd nationally) and 44 percent on defense (122nd nationally).
To put this in perspective, Georgia ranked No. 92 in last year’s rankings, yet still managed to win the College Football Playoff. Georgia beat Alabama, which ranked No. 110 going into the 2021 season, showing just how important Kirby Smart and Nick Saban’s recruiting efforts have been over the last few seasons.
Georgia DB Christopher Smith breaks up a pass to Alabama WR Ja’Corey Brooks (7) in the national championship game. Marc Lebryk-USA TODAY Sports
For comparison purposes, Tennessee ranks No. 33 with 74 percent production returning. Florida (No. 62), Kentucky (No. 63), Alabama (No. 65), Auburn (No. 62) and Missouri (No. 68) all return 65 percent production from last year’s teams. Georgia’s Week 1 opponent, Oregon, ranks No. 76 with 63 percent. Ohio State ranks No. 24 with 76 percent, putting it as the highest legitimate title contender on the list.
Connelly explained how he got these numbers for the offensive side of the ball:
Percent of returning WR/TE receiving yards: 37% of the overall number
Percent of returning QB passing yards: 29%
Percent of returning OL snaps: 28%
Percent of returning RB rushing yards: 6%
Broken out by position/player, you’re looking at approximately 29% for the quarterback, 9% for each of four wide receivers and/or tight ends and 6% for the running back and each offensive lineman.
And here he explained how he equated the returning defensive production:
Percent of returning tackles: 59%
Percent of returning passes defensed: 28%
Percent of returning tackles for loss: 8%
Percent of returning sacks: 5%
Perhaps surprisingly, turnover in the back of the defense causes far more of a shift in a team’s SP+ rating from year to year than turnover up front. By position, defensive backs make up about 51% of the defensive formula, while linebackers are at 32% and the defensive line is at 17%.
I’m not even going to pretend Georgia is in any sort of danger zone this season — recent history and recruiting rankings are going to keep the Dawgs easily in the top three in the SP+ projections. But it’s worth noting that they rank 96th in returning production while last year’s two other top-three teams rank 65th (Alabama) and 24th (Ohio State).
The factors that go into the full SP+ projections, which will be released this week include: How good has the team been recently? How well has it recruited? Who returns from last year’s roster (returning production)?
Wisconsin would be part of a theoretical ESPN SP+ College Football Playoff
If you follow this site of any of my work, you know how closely I follow Bill Connelly’s SP+. It is unlike the AP Poll or College Football Playoff Top 25 (rankings which are purely reactionary…sometimes to a fault), as the ranking tries to be “predictive and forward-facing.”
As described before every ranking is released, SP+ is a “it’s a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency…It is not a résumé 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. It is a look at how teams should likely perform moving forward.”
Well if we’ve learned one thing from the Wisconsin Badgers this season: the final score often doesn’t tell the full story of the contest. The Badgers lost 16-10 to Penn State after handing the ball away on the goal line several times, lost 41-13 to Notre Dame after leading 13-10 entering the fourth quarter and lost 38-13 to Michigan after Graham Mertz went out with an injury. Since that string of losses? The Badgers have won six straight and have silenced nearly every doubter.
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ESPN SP+ has always believed in Wisconsin. It has included the Badgers in the top 10 for much of the season.
Now with the College Football Playoff Top 25 making waves around the college football world, SP+ has Wisconsin as the No. 4 team in its ranking system.
So, if there was a SP+ CFP–the Badgers would make the cut.
ESPN SP+ predicts the final score of every Big Ten Week 3 contest
Week 3 of the Big Ten football season is here, and it unfortunately does not include the Wisconsin Badgers.
Wisconsin is on their bye this week as they get set for next weekend’s Windy City showdown with Jack Coan and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
The Big Ten slate is loaded this weekend, even without the Badgers. We have a ranked matchup in Pennsylvania with No. 22 Auburn vs. No. 10 Penn State, a preview for next weekend with No. 12 Notre Dame at Purdue and a few other big-time out-of-conference contests—Nebraska at No. 3 Oklahoma, No. 8 Cincinnati at Indiana and Michigan State at No. 24 Miami.
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ESPN’s Bill Connelly and his SP+ metric predict the final score of every college football game. Here is his projected final score for every Big Ten game this weekend:
The metric ESPN uses to project win totals has Notre Dame slipping down a rung this fall.
Since the disastrous 2016 season which saw Notre Dame stumble to a 4-8 record, Brian Kelly vowed to turnaround the program. That’s exactly what he has done, winning no less than 10 games in the four years following, leading the Irish to a sparkling 43-8 record. Two berths into the College Football Playoff and an odd ACC regular season title included also.
This impressive run still doesn’t give the computers at ESPN much confidence that the Irish can replicate what they’ve done over that time frame, as they expect them to take a dip this fall. Their SP+ is projecting the Irish to finish with just 8 wins, their lowest total since the 2016 season.
It’s just a project and we have all seen the Irish outperform this metric. Should you be worried? Maybe a little, with a brand new quarterback, 4 of 5 offensive line positions gone from last year, and questions surrounding the pass catchers.
Why shouldn’t you worry, well the new quarterback, Jack Coan, has experience that none of the others have in his position group. Cain Madden was added to the offensive line group via the transfer portal and Brian Kelly has recruited extremely well on the line. Same with the receivers, they’re just green.
We haven’t even touched the defense, where Marcus Freeman takes over for Clark Lea and that group shouldn’t miss a beat. It might even be better than last years group, that held the national champions, Alabama, to their lowest point total of the season.
Will there be games that are closer than expected, sure, but that doesn’t mean the Irish can’t pull out those wins. If I had to bet, Notre Dame outperforms ESPN’s SP+ and get’s to the double-digit win threshold for the fifth season in a row.
ESPN’s SP+ rankings system projects Florida football’s record for the 2021 season.
Analytics in sports have varying degrees of success, but when implemented properly, they can give you a very good idea of how and why what you see on the field is happening. ESPN’s SP+ is a generally very good system for analyzing the quality of different college football teams.
Unlike most rankings, the SP+ has no human element and doesn’t take the final score into account. Rather, it’s based around how well a team plays and, given that information, how likely they would be to win a game delivering that performance.
It isn’t perfect, but it’s a system that can shed a lot of light on college football teams.
ESPN’s Bill Connelly, who created the SP+, recently updated his rankings to include projected win totals for all 130 FBS teams, and for Florida, he predicts another season relatively in line with coach Dan Mullen‘s success so far.
The SP+ predicts 9.1 wins overall for the Gators and 5.5 in the SEC. That roughly corresponds with a projected 9-3 overall record and 5-3 record in the SEC. Considering Florida has games against Alabama, Georgia and on the road against LSU, it’s easy to see how the team could drop three games on the regular season.
According to the SP+, Florida’s odds of going over the projected total and winning 10 or more games is 31 percent. It gives the Gators a 30% chance of hitting nine wins exactly.
UF has some doubters this season, and it seems the numbers aren’t particularly favorable to Florida, either. But fans will hope this team is able to surprise some people with veteran backup Emory Jones finally stepping into the starting quarterback role.
