College football’s post-Week 8 SP+ rankings
If you were a top college football team and you weren’t either on a bye week or named Michigan, you probably got a little nervous at some point Saturday. Lots of highly ranked teams struggled. Most of them avoided an upset — sorry, North Carolina — but we saw a decent amount of change in the updated SP+ rankings.
Only top-ranked Michigan remains in the same spot it was in a week ago — the Wolverines expanded their lead on the field following a ruthless blowout of rival Michigan State — and there are otherwise lots of ups and downs.
Below are this week’s SP+ rankings. What is SP+? In a single sentence, it’s a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. I created the system at Football Outsiders in 2008, and as my experience with both college football and its stats has grown, I have made quite a few tweaks to the system.
SP+ is indeed intended to be predictive and forward-facing. 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.
Here are the full rankings:
Post-Week 8 SP+ Rankings
TEAMRATINGOFFENSEDEFENSESPEC. TEAMS1. Michigan (8-0)28.739.6 (6)11.3 (2)0.4 (6)2. Georgia (7-0)24.038.4 (7)14.8 (7)0.3 (15)3. Alabama (7-1)22.836.1 (15)13.6 (4)0.3 (9)4. Ohio St. (7-0)22.135.6 (16)13.7 (5)0.3 (22)5. Oregon (6-1)21.442.7 (3)21.4 (31)0.1 (57)6. Texas (6-1)20.737.8 (8)17.3 (11)0.3 (27)7. Washington (7-0)20.740.7 (4)20.3 (24)0.3 (16)8. Notre Dame (6-2)19.834.6 (19)14.7 (6)0.0 (78)9. Oklahoma (7-0)19.540.0 (5)20.3 (23)-0.2 (95)10. LSU (6-2)18.943.0 (2)24.1 (47)0.0 (80)11. Florida St. (7-0)18.537.0 (12)18.8 (17)0.4 (1)12. Penn St. (6-1)18.531.4 (31)13.0 (3)0.1 (62)13. USC (6-2)17.743.6 (1)26.0 (65)0.1 (48)14. Kansas St. (5-2)15.637.1 (10)21.6 (32)0.1 (43)15. Oregon St. (6-1)15.437.1 (11)22.1 (35)0.3 (11)16. Tennessee (5-2)15.334.3 (20)19.1 (19)0.1 (51)17. Texas A&M (4-3)15.230.8 (36)15.3 (8)-0.2 (99)18. Missouri (7-1)14.935.0 (18)19.9 (22)-0.1 (92)19. Clemson (4-3)14.931.2 (32)16.3 (9)0.0 (74)20. UCLA (5-2)14.232.5 (26)18.0 (14)-0.2 (100)21. Ole Miss (6-1)13.835.4 (17)21.9 (34)0.3 (26)22. N. Carolina (6-1)13.437.4 (9)24.1 (46)0.0 (63)23. Miami (5-2)13.432.5 (25)19.5 (21)0.4 (4)24. Utah (6-1)12.530.0 (43)17.5 (12)0.1 (53)25. Kentucky (5-2)11.730.0 (42)18.7 (16)0.3 (18)26. Duke (5-2)11.630.5 (40)19.0 (18)0.1 (47)27. Louisville (6-1)10.731.1 (33)20.4 (26)0.1 (60)28. Wisconsin (5-2)10.527.8 (56)17.7 (13)0.3 (14)29. TCU (4-4)10.232.8 (24)22.4 (36)-0.2 (97)30. Florida (5-2)9.232.0 (28)23.1 (