What, you thought I’d let an SP+ ranking slip by without reporting on it? Maybe you thought I’d spare you the details of pre-pre-season rankings that come out before spring practice, spring portal roster changes, or any meaningful results on the field? Not a chance. I live for this shit. And if you’re being honest with yourself, you do too.

Anyway, this is only for fun. As with all preseason polls, the rankings are made up and the (SP+) points don’t matter. 

So let’s do this, shall we?

PRELIMINARIES

As Connelly notes, the SP+ preseason data are based on three components:

1. Returning production. The returning production numbers are based on rosters I have updated as much as possible to account for transfers and attrition. Combine last year's SP+ ratings and adjustments based on current returning production numbers, and you're pretty far down the projections road.

2. 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 past few years of recruiting rankings in reverse chronological order (the most recent class carries the most weight). Beginning last season, I also began incorporating transfers -- both the quality and the volume -- into the recruiting rankings part as well.

3. Recent history. Using a sliver of information from previous seasons (2-4 years ago) gives us a good measure of overall program health. It stands to reason that a team that has played well for one year is less likely to duplicate that effort than a team that has been good for years on end (and vice versa), right?

SP+ TOP 25 RANKINGS

Drumroll…

We bid a top 25 farewell to Washington. Has any team gone from runner-up in the CFB Playoff to unranked (currently #29) in the following preseason? 

And welcome to the era of the Power 2 conferences. The SEC and the B1G combined claim:

• all of the top 5 teams
• 9 of the top 10 teams
• 13 of the top 15 teams
• 15 of the top 25 teams

For anyone that wants to keep track at home, here’s the top 25 distribution by conference:

• SEC: 9
• B1G: 6
• Big 12: 5
• ACC: 4

And then there’s Notre Dame, the Switzerland of college football. I just don’t get it. Storied conferences have fallen as college football moves toward a new era of bipolarity. Teams have been left scrambling to find new conferences they can call home. Others attempt to rebuild a conference on the smoldering ashes of the one that just burned to the ground. And yet somehow Notre Dame survives as an independent. 🤷‍♂️ 

Anyway, back to the conferences that matter…

That's going to take some time to get used to.

Here’s a closer look at the new improved B1G for anyone that’s interested.

Congratulations, MSU! You have not only dethroned Iowa as the worst offense in the B1G, but you are also projected to be the worst P5 offense in the nation. You currently sit at #126 (out of 134 FBS teams), and your nearest P5 peers come in at #116, #115, #108, and #102. Those teams? Northwestern, Nebraska, Iowa, and Indiana. That’s right, the B1G is projected to have the 5 worst P5 offenses in the nation.

Thank God for USC, right?.

Here’s a graph showing the SP+ offense and defense ratings for all P5 teams. The standard interpretation applies:

• Top-right: Good at offense and defense
• Bottom-right: Good defense, below-average offense
• Top-left: Good offense, below-average defense
• Bottom-left: Not so good at football

Want to see something fun? Just look at all of that blue in the bottom-right quadrant. And then find USC. The B1G blue-bloods vs. the B1G new bloods in a nutshell. 

(Glancing at the bottom-left quadrant): Hey Big 12, how’d that expansion work out for you?

A LOOK AT B1G SCHEDULES

With the expanded B1G (B1Gger!), it might also be interesting to look at conference scheduling. The first graphs look at the average opponent SP+ rating for each B1G team. I’ve looked at this in two different ways to account for the non-FBS opponents on the schedules. 

• The left side takes into account only P5 opponents. 
• The right side attempts to adjust for non-FBS opponents. Since the current SP+ doesn’t have any rankings for non-FBS teams, I substituted Kent State’s SP+ rating in place of the FBS opponents. Kent St. is the #133 (out of 134) ranked team in SP+, and also happens to be the weakest FBS team on any B1G schedule, so using their SP+ rating seems like an appropriate penalty.*

Based on the unadjusted scores, Michigan has the 6th most difficult schedule in the B1G. After docking teams for playing FBS opponents, it moves up to #4. In either case, its average opponent has a rating of 7.7, which would be equivalent to the #35 team to SP+ (Kansas). OSU has either the 3rd (unadjusted) or 5th (adjusted) weakest schedule. Their average opponent would be the equivalent of the #46 team (Texas Tech). 

The next graphs show how the schedules shake out for each team. Horizontal lines are average opponent SP+ ratings using the adjusted values.

It looks like Iowa, Penn St., and Nebraska won the B1G scheduling lottery, only having to face OSU. Somehow, Rutgers is the only team that managed to skip all of the top B1G teams. And they have Akron and Howard as OOC opponents. 

 

* If you’re curious, the non-FBS opponents on B1G schedules are: E. Illinois (Illinois), Illinois St. (Iowa), Villanova (Maryland), Prairie View A&M (MSU), Rhode Island (Minnesota), N. Iowa (Nebraska), E. Illinois (Northwestern), Indiana St. (Purdue), Howard (Rutgers), Weber (Washington), and South Dakota (Wisconsin).

 

Hope you enjoyed. Anything you find interesting? 

Go Blue!