SP+ Trends Michigan, Alabama, Ohio State
IMHO SP+ is the best predictor of college football games with the sometimes exception of Vegas. SP+ is not a ranking by resume like the AP Poll, it's designed to make weekly predictions by looking at play by play success to filter out the effects of tempo & opponent variations.
The overall rating is how much better the team is than the average D1 team- Michigan's SP+ rating is 31.1 - Michigan should be the average team by 31.1 points. Alabama is 22.7 SP+ so on a neutral field Michigan should win by 8.4 points. But wait, this is Alabama we are talking about- how is this possible?
Well- this is not prime Alabama- Michigan played Alabama 2020 and lost 16-35 - that year, Michigan's SP+ rating was 10.7 while Alabama's was 28.3 a 17.6 point difference- Michigan lost by 19
Below are trend charts for Alabama and Michigan since 1990. This shows why Alabama dominated from 2010 to 2020: their SP+ rating was 29 or better from 2009-2019. Fortunately for Michigan Alabama has declined significatly from their peak of 36.3 in 2018.
The SP+ chart of Michigan and OSU very clearly shows the decade of pain for Michigan from 2010-2020: From an SP+ perspective, since 2010 the better team has won every year except 2016 (ref game & injured Speight) & 2021 (Snow : ).
Also, the Big10 average hasn't been very good since 2005 and is down about 3pts from last year.
December 5th, 2023 at 11:51 AM ^
I am banking on Alabama punching above their weight class in this one. They will be ready. We need to be prepared to face a well coached and talented team.
December 5th, 2023 at 12:03 PM ^
You are right DB. Our game plan should be first to 35 wins and plan accordingly. We are going to have to attack on offense.
December 5th, 2023 at 11:54 AM ^
UM is probably the better team, however
1) Saban in bowl games > Harbaugh in bowl games
Can't deny the history here when Saban has a month to prep
2) Games of equals or near equals comes down to coaching and matchups and often luck and momentum. We will need to scheme to stop Milroe as well as they scheme to stop us.
3) Our O-line needs to gel and improve with the loss of Zinter and injuries up front. This will be a challenge.
December 5th, 2023 at 12:33 PM ^
Judging by the Iowa game, the loss of Zinter was far greater than most thought.
Moving Barnhart to OG and putting Jones at OT seemed like it might cause the loss of Zinter to not be a big deal...losing Zinter is a big deal. I really big deal.
#GoBlue
December 5th, 2023 at 8:14 PM ^
Iowa is not the best team to deploy your new-configuration OL against, and Nugent was also dinged up.
Also Auburn ran for 300 on Bama. So I think with time to practice together and reduce mental errors, we’ll be fine.
December 5th, 2023 at 12:00 PM ^
Can't remember what thread it was in but someone said FEI rankings is the best prediction for matchups.
December 5th, 2023 at 12:07 PM ^
I also put a great deal of faith in SP+. For this Bama game, it feels like one has to add some "gut instinct" to decision-making: Will Michigan face the Bama team of the entire regular season, or will Michigan get the Bama team that outplayed Georgia? If Michigan gets regular-season Bama, Michigan will curb-stomp on Saban and co. If we get SEC-champ game Bama, we are in for a wild ride on January 1st.
I dont know the answer.
#GoBlue
#Bet
December 5th, 2023 at 8:12 PM ^
Georgia also took a major step back this year, and I think they played as badly as Bama played well.
But that said yeah, I expect Milroe to improve more over the bowl season than JJ, so that’s a little scary. On the other hand, Minter has a month to scheme tricky coverages for him and our OL will get a lot better with time to heal and practice together.
December 5th, 2023 at 12:21 PM ^
Besides the current team, and perhaps the 2006 team, Brady's 1999 team had the most talent I've seen in the past 40+ years.
Bama was favored in that game. Reflecting back upon that 2000 Orange Bowl, UM should have been favored, given the knowledge we now have.
#GoBlue
#Bet
December 5th, 2023 at 1:14 PM ^
Not to be a buzzkill, but I found the word "trends" misleading in this case, because we're all hungering to know the real degree of Alabama's improvement across the season, how it might bite Michigan in the yassyassyass. This is across several years, and shows a decline, which is nice. . . but already something we've internalized.
December 5th, 2023 at 1:59 PM ^
The current SP+ numbers show where SP+ thinks each team is now.
It attempts to be as accurate as possible in predicting a matchup by using all year to date drive data for each team and that data is opponent adjusted.
I showed the trends because it shows that things are changing for Michigan, OSU, & Alabama in terms of team ratings. Prior to the 2021 season most Mgoblog writers and readers thought that the recruiting advantages of OSU, Georgia, and Alabama could not be overcome. These trends show that this line of thinking was incorrect.
Michigan may lose to Alabama in the playoff but odds are with Michigan.
December 5th, 2023 at 2:53 PM ^
We ain’t winning with the game plan put out Saturday that’s a damn fact … our OL needs to be better in pass pro with Bamas outstanding ends and need to be better run blockers. Hopefully having Hinton back and Nugent healthy will help with that .. JJ needs to run and Edwards needs to be utilized in space with passes !!!
December 5th, 2023 at 4:26 PM ^
Do you really think they’ll have the same gameplan they had against Iowa? They knew the first FG was the winning score
December 5th, 2023 at 5:38 PM ^
"We ain’t winning with the game plan put out Saturday that’s a damn fact."
Thanks for this brilliant observation! :)
December 5th, 2023 at 5:59 PM ^
I don't think most people grasp how historically great this Michigan team and in particular the defense.
Sport Reference SRS has Michigan solidly number 1. It is the best Michigan team since the 1973 team. Sport Reference shows a similar gap between Michigan and Alabama as ESPN SP+.
lhttps://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/years/2023-ratings.html
The sports talk pundits do a terrible job using data to analyze how good a team.
December 5th, 2023 at 8:09 PM ^
Kinda shows how insane the blowout win over OSU was last year - that team had the talent to go toe to toe with Michigan (and did for a half) but the insane Knowles defense turned it into a laugher.
December 5th, 2023 at 8:50 PM ^
Three observations:
1. Saban’s arrival in Tuscaloosa has generated an amazing, sustainable improvement in SP+. Undoubtedly #1 recruiting classes almost every year is a critical element.
2. Harbaugh is surprisingly (to me) at the same level as Carr except the 2 most recent years. Maybe the valley of Rich Rod and Hoke just made 2015-2019 seem better.
3. All of us should overtly appreciate the last couple years. UM has been ELITE without anything close to #1 classes.