Michigan Moves Up to #3 in S&P+ Rankings
Flipped spots with Oklahoma. Pretty big divide Michigan and Clemson (#2), so barring them losing a few, this might be the team's ceiling. Full list here
Individual team profiles haven't been updated yet, so can't give new win probability or projected margin numbers for the Ohio State game.
Other teams of note:
- Ohio State - 9 (down from 8 last week)
- Rutger - 126 out of 130 (down from 124 - who knew they could fall further)
- Indiana - 83 (down from 76)
- Penn State - 12 (down from 10)
Top 10 as follows:
- Alabama
- Clemson
- Michigan
- Oklahoma
- Georgia
- Notre Dame
- Fresno State
- Central Florida
- Ohio State
- Washington
Conference Rankings
- SEC
- Big 12
- Big Ten
- Pac-12
- ACC
- AAC
- Mountain West
- Sun Belt
- MAC
- Conference USA
November 4th, 2018 at 1:05 PM ^
Ohio State's defense is 45th. As a basis of comparison, PSU's defense is 20th. They're also 8 spots behind Maryland.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:06 PM ^
By my calculations, we should score 63 points against OSU since their defense is 2.25x worse than PSU's.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:29 PM ^
There's definitely something wrong with Ohio St. Michigan should win comfortably. Not a blow out. But comfortably. An enjoyable day for Michigan fans.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:33 PM ^
I know people will think I'm being a homer slappy (I am) and putting the cart before the horse, but I think we blow them out. Do you really think their offense will do anything? Their defense is terrible. We ran all over MSU's defense, which is on another planet than theirs, and probably should have scored at least 35 against them.
Plus you've got 17 years of payback building up. The only thing OSU really has going for them is that we are on the road, but we look so much better each week. I don't know if Patterson will even need to throw more than 15 passes.
It's going to be a bloodbath.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:50 PM ^
They still have a lot of weapons on offense capable of big plays. If a few things break against us early, it might get ominous. I see us winning, but something more like 27-21.
November 4th, 2018 at 2:55 PM ^
The one thing they don't have this year is a running QB. I don't think people quite realize just what a huge advantage that's been for them for a long, long time.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:54 PM ^
I think Dwayne Haskins will get his and we could very well suffer a few coverage busts against all their talented wideouts. They'll have some success moving the ball between the 20's and are good enough to get a few scores, even against us. Make no mistake, I'm still worried about this game until the clock strikes zero and Urban is asking Shelley what the number for Papa John's is since he forgot.
But when push comes to shove, we can run on them when we have to - which was all the difference between 2016 and now. Karan Higdon and Shea can conjure up the tough yards that De'veon and Speight couldn't. Instead of Raekwon MacMillan shutting down all our underneath stuff, you have... Pete Werner having to check Ben Mason. We saw what our D-Line did to their O-Line in 2016; their O-Line is even worse than it was then and ours is about as good now, and possibly even better. It'll be an even tougher test than the last 3 weeks, but even the world's biggest OSU homers would admit that this M team is up to the task. OSU... ask again later.
November 4th, 2018 at 2:04 PM ^
"Karan Higdon and Shea can conjure up the tough yards that De'veon and Speight couldn't."
You're talking about the Ed Warinner factor there. Though I agree, both are better players than 2 years ago.
November 4th, 2018 at 3:22 PM ^
IDK... That 2016 Drevno OL was straight up mashing people in the run game. But Speight was absolutely no threat on any kind of read play, draw, or any other run action. Aside from scrambling, he was just going to stand there and wait for someone to open up down field. And the only thing De'Veon could do better than Hidden is pick up a blitzer. Hidden and Shea would be running for these same numbers behind that 2016 OL. But overall, I like this teams ceiling a lot more than the 2016 ceiling!
November 4th, 2018 at 3:48 PM ^
The 2016 OL was decent but it was not mashing at this level. Against good defenses it absolutely could not get push when Michigan needed first downs; in contrast, Michigan was caving MSU’s top-rated rushing defense when it was late in a one-score game.
Remember how impotent the running game was at Iowa and OSU? This OL is better.
I do think Higdon is a bit of an upgrade. But we all agree that Shea is a step up from Wilton.
November 5th, 2018 at 12:08 AM ^
Since we're in the S&P+ thread, let's check the numbers:
2016 Rushing S&P+: 49th.
2018 Rushing S&P+: 11th.
So yeah, 2016 was entirely average, probably below average P5. We are very good this year. And to your point, mashing good run defenses like MSU and Northwestern. If only they were giving Shea the green light to pull it (or whatever was going on there) against ND, they probably would have been much better there, and probably would have won.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:59 PM ^
I appreciate your view. I hope it is that too. Win by 17 would be nice. That's about what I'm expecting. Ohio St puts a lot of time into preparing for Michigan. So domination would be hard to do. Looking like Alabama did yesterday against LSU is about what I'm expecting, only difference being Ohio St will probably score.
But yeah, total domination would be great.
November 4th, 2018 at 2:25 PM ^
I will take a one point victory and enjoy it. Please just win that game!!
November 4th, 2018 at 1:05 PM ^
Michigan #4 in Coaches Poll as well. We belong in the Top 4
November 4th, 2018 at 1:07 PM ^
They jumped Syracuse up 13 spots is what has my eyebrows raised...
November 4th, 2018 at 1:13 PM ^
Cue Joel Klatt. He's totally right about the polls subtly building in confirmation bias to prop up certain conferences. Now after beating a terrible Wake Forest team, Syracuse is suddenly great?
No, the playoff committee ranked them, so the 'coaches' ranked them even higher, which will justify the playoff committee moving them up, etc.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:15 PM ^
Yeah, its garbage. BC is 38th on S&P+ and Syracuse is is 58th. Purdue, Iowa and MSU are all higher than both of them. Don't trust humans. Trust computers!
November 4th, 2018 at 2:12 PM ^
Coaches Poll vs Sagarin Computer Ranking
November 4th, 2018 at 3:30 PM ^
Sagarin is pretty outdated at this point. S&P and FPI are much better team strength measurements than Sagarin.
November 4th, 2018 at 4:13 PM ^
Unfortunately, the good-not-great bug teams have too many losses piled up to rank them according to the computer rankings. That pesky "record" is in the way for now, and it's opposite is propping up several teams who have proven nothing (G5 andACC). Meanwhile, only SEC teams are still getting elevated in spite of their record. Give it two weeks, and look again.
November 5th, 2018 at 12:35 AM ^
And Purdue beat BC by 17!! I mean, come on. What has BC done? Literally nothing. Best win is home over 5-4 Miami? At 4-4 Virginia Tech which lost to Old Dominion?
Purdue has beaten a top 10 team, Boston College whom the voters think is good and now Iowa. That they're not ranked at this point is kind of ridiculous.
And I'll stump for MSU. How are they not ahead of Utah State and Penn State at this point? They won at PSU and have the same record. And it's not like they have any bad losses. Michigan (with dignity!), Northwestern and at ASU (who just beat Utah and has a winning record) Their last two wins over Purdue and at Maryland are solid wins. Plus Utah State. They should be in the 17-19 range.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:16 PM ^
You've got to love circular logic.
November 4th, 2018 at 2:00 PM ^
Exactly. I should mention NC State is only ranked because they're a "2-loss" team -- because they avoided playing West Virginia. Hurricanes help minimize losses.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:17 PM ^
Yeah. It's amazing how the coaches poll suddenly matches the playoff rankings far more than you'd have expected.
Also, look for one or two low-level SEC/ACC teams to sneak into the bottom of the rankings in a week or two so that Alabama and Clemson have more marquee wins.
November 4th, 2018 at 2:10 PM ^
They should just get rid of the "coaches" poll altogether. It's not like any real coaches take the time to vote in it. It's just some grad assistant 99% of the time.
Besides, the last time coaches actually voted in the coaches poll, they all screwed over Michigan.
November 4th, 2018 at 2:29 PM ^
It was another week where almost half the top 25 lost - LSU, Kentucky, Texas, Florida, Houston, Utah, Virginia, A&M, Iowa, PSU. If a team was ranked in the lower part of the top 25 they were going to move up.
November 4th, 2018 at 3:58 PM ^
They did it so that even if Notre Dame loses to them it will be a "good loss" like every SEC team always gets in November.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:15 PM ^
Hopefully they take out Notre Dame when they play them.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:20 PM ^
Well...I think there is some desire for that to be a big-time matchup since Florida State and USC have played like stankin' ass all year... I do think that Syracuse probably deserves to be Top 20...like 17-ish or something...and remember, overinflating the ACC helps ND as much as it helps Clemson...and Clemson doesn't need the halp
November 4th, 2018 at 1:33 PM ^
Syracuse suddenly moves up to #13. After beating up on Louisville this weekend, they'll move up to the Top 10, just in time for Notre Dame -- who will then either get a quality win or loss. I think we all know what's going on here.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:21 PM ^
Syracuse and BC both jumped 11 spots! Is that coaches hoping they knock off Clemson or something? I can't remember teams moving so much in 1 week!
November 4th, 2018 at 1:29 PM ^
Do they happen to play a team soon in a prime TV spot that might be running commercials they want people to watch?
November 4th, 2018 at 1:35 PM ^
Syracuse plays Notre Dame at Yankee Stadium on NBC in two weeks
November 4th, 2018 at 1:38 PM ^
Yes, that's the point.
November 4th, 2018 at 3:12 PM ^
Does the S&P factor in the soft schedules of Bama and Clemson?
November 4th, 2018 at 1:08 PM ^
Fresno State #7? What?
November 4th, 2018 at 1:18 PM ^
Fresno is legit. Not top 7 (Bill C has admitted that seems off), but top 15 no doubt.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:21 PM ^
But they lost to Minnesota.
It was at Minnesota, granted, so there was a bit of travel involved. But still.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:39 PM ^
Minnesota is really bad now. But they’ve lost a ton of key players off of a really young team due to injuries on both sides of the ball. Antoine Winfield Jr is one of them and he made the key play to seal the Fresno win. They’re playing their second-string freshman QB and scraping by with third and fourth string RBs. And their DL is terrible.
November 4th, 2018 at 2:51 PM ^
It was Week 1. For another example of how things changed, I'm pretty confident that Michigan would blow out Notre Dame if they played now. But that didn't happen in Week 1.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:11 PM ^
Numbers are nice, but they don’t change anything. It remains very simple. If they keep winning, they’re in the CFP. If they don’t, it won’t matter what number they were today. But it would be much better to draw Clemson in the semi-final than Alabama.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:14 PM ^
I agree. Clemson is beatable. Alabama might be the best college team since '95 Nebraska. Their QB is a cyborg. Best hope is to hold them to about 24 points.
November 4th, 2018 at 2:39 PM ^
I would rather have a month to prepare for Alabama.
November 4th, 2018 at 3:16 PM ^
I wouldn't want Saban to have a month to prepare for Michigan
November 4th, 2018 at 1:12 PM ^
i really don't understand what goes into these calculations, but i understand that they are a decent--albeit not end all be all--measurement of which the best teams are statistically. But fresno at no 7? i know that they are a very decent team (probably better than ucf) but are these based on how bad they're beating their competition or does it take into account the average fbs schedule as well?
November 4th, 2018 at 1:19 PM ^
Strength of schedule is indeed part of it. The thing that most confuses people about S&P is that S&P doesn't see actual W-L record (ex: Washington), it looks at expected W-L record. So the fact that Fresno lost a close game to mediocre Minnesota stands out to most casual fans, but if Fresno had won a close game there (with a similar box score, but w/o a great INT by Minny at the end), most fans would see the 9-0 record and thus, the S&P ranking would feel more justified.
S&P is not great for ranking teams according to resume, but it is very good at predicting overall quality of a team and predicting future outcomes and point spreads.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:23 PM ^
Yes. S&P+ looks at how you perform in a bunch of predictive measures (yards per play/successful plays, explosiveness, turnovers, drive finishing and filed position) and adjusts your performance for the week to how you would have performed facing an average team. The S&P+ score you see is how S&P predicts you would perform vs an average team based on your season long results.
Any system can have flaws or outliers but S&P+ this year is the second best predictive measurement against the spread of any predictive measurement. A team like Fresno probably gets a little overrated because they haven't played any good teams. They consistently destroy mediocre or bad teams (their loss at Minnesota is considered fluky so doesn't hurt them that much) so they are treated as a great team. In reality most people would be comfortable with calling them a top 20 or top 15 team, but not top 10. Until they play a really good team, which they may not, we won't know how good they actually are. That being said, a team like this is prone to free fall from one bad performance/loss to a team like Boise/SDSU while PSU can be wrecked by us but stay top 15 because they have enough quality data points.
November 4th, 2018 at 1:12 PM ^
S&P is this the stock index?
November 4th, 2018 at 1:13 PM ^
Just wait 'till we play the murderer's row of Wisconsin/MSU/PSU. THEN we'll see where this team is ranked.
Oh.