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.
Your SP+ College Football Playoff: pic.twitter.com/T02rbveujs
— Ben Kenney (@benzkenney) November 15, 2021
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