Rankings Roundup after Week 13: CFP, SP+, FEI

Let’s do this.

COMPARING CFP, SP+, AND FEI (RANKINGS)

The penultimate CFP rankings are out and Michigan is in at #2 after beating the toughest bunch of tough bastards…Oh never mind, I’m not doing that shit anymore. Ryan Day* showed us who he is in the 1+ month leading up to The Game. And he turned out to be exactly who we thought he was. 

*[This toughness ranking is purely for Ryan Day. I don’t hold any real animosity toward the OSU players. Of course I hope they lose every game forever, but as far as I know, they haven’t said shit and there was minimal trash talk before the game. But correct me if I’m wrong.]

Anyway, the advanced stats are really liking Michigan. Want to see something beautiful? Here’s a look at the combined SP+ and FEI scores (not rankings) for the CFP top-25 teams.

FEI has two tiers at the top: Michigan/Oregon with UGA/OSU/PSU below them (or to the left). SP+ has Michigan/UGA in the first tier, with OSU/Oregon/PSU one tier below.

Here are the SP+ offensive and defensive rankings for the CFP top 25: 

And here are the FEI offensive and defensive rankings for the CFP top 25:

Look at them Bayou Bengals! Bless their hearts. It looks like they’re trying to pull off the AWOI. 

 

B1G AND MICHIGAN OPPONENT SP+ AND FEI RANKINGS

Meanwhile, in the B1G…Nah, I’m not doing that shit anymore. Fuck ‘em.

SP+ & FEI OFFENSE AND DEFENSE (RAW SP+ SCORES)

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

Recall that these are standardized coefficients, not raw SP+ scores. Each team’s offensive and defensive score represents the number of standard above/below the mean that category. For example, Michigan is 1.25 standard deviations above the the average SP+ offense, and 2.27 standard deviations below (this is good) the average SP+ defense.   

And the same graph for FEI

FEI is a bit more forgiving than SP+ of the B1G offenses. Apparently it doesn’t watch B1G games (except for Michigan. I like Michigan’s offensive FEI score). 

SP+ & FEI RANKINGS BY CONFERENCE (RAW SP+ SCORES)

Who’s ready for the old Box and Whiskers? (I’m talking about the graph, perverts). The box is the interquartile range with the median value marked. The whiskers are the lower and upper extremes. Anything outside the whiskers is an outlier observation.

Spoiler alert: Michigan is an outlier.

Sorry, no snarky remarks from me this time. I’m burnt out and can only think of so many ways to say the B1G sucks ass. 

Go Blue!