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College football updated SP+ rankings after Week 5

Four top-10 teams -- and nine ranked teams in all -- lost in week five of the 2021 college football season, and the wackiness and chaos levels are higher than they've been in years. As you would expect, week five's unpredictability has resulted in a lot of movement in the SP+ ratings. At the top, however, the top three remain the same: Georgia, Alabama, and a rapidly improving Ohio State lead the way, a few steps ahead of everyone else.

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.

It is, as always, 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.