College football's 14th weekend was the kind of wild we've come to expect at this point: lots of weird, unexpected results down the totem pole and very little at the top. Notre Dame, Clemson and Ohio State all won with ease, and, as has been the case for a few weeks now, Alabama kept inching away from the pack.
Following a 55-17 win that felt like it could have been much worse -- Alabama threw only 10 passes in the second half, and DeVonta Smith caught his last ball with 25 minutes remaining -- the Tide not only remained No. 1 in SP+ this week but extended their lead. They are now 4.3 adjusted points per game ahead of No. 2 Clemson (translation: SP+ would see Bama as a 4.3-point favorite over the Tigers), 6.6 ahead of No. 3 Ohio State and 10.2 ahead of No. 4 Notre Dame. They are further ahead of the Irish than the Irish are ahead of No. 19 Texas.
The Bama offense remained dominant on Saturday, and the defense continued its improvement -- LSU generated nearly one-third of its yardage on two plays (a 54-yard run and 43-yard pass in the second quarter) and otherwise did next to nothing. This is increasingly looking like the best Nick Saban team yet on paper, though as I wrote last week, the last time we were here Bama stumbled at the finish line.
The work's not over, but this Alabama team is all sorts of ridiculous.
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.
More than ever, it's important to note that SP+ is 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.
(Those last few sentences are particularly important to remember as we gaze upon a set of rankings that has five teams with losing records among its top 30. Everything is possible in 2020, friends.)
