If you've been following the SP+ rankings week-to-week this season, you've noticed how the tiers have taken shape of late: Georgia and Ohio State in some order, then a gap, then Alabama, then a big gap, then everyone else.
None of that changed after Week 10, but the gaps got a little more pronounced. Georgia hopped back ahead of Ohio State for the top spot, while the gap between the Dawgs and third-ranked Alabama expanded to more than four points. The gap between Bama and the rest of the field, though? Still huge. The Crimson Tide are 5.2 points ahead of the No. 4 team -- the same gap separating No. 4 and No. 13.
There was some shuffling among that No. 4-13 cluster, however. Let's take a look!
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. It is a look at how teams should likely perform moving forward.
We had some fun movement in the top 10 this week, thanks to both some interesting results and the fact that, with each passing week, the weight of preseason projections continues to diminish.
* The diminished preseason projections finally knocked Clemson from the No. 4 spot. The Tigers still rank a healthy seventh, thanks to elite defense, slightly less awful offensive production and the fact that the preseason priors are never fully removed from the algorithm. (Why aren't they removed entirely? Because priors make SP+ and all predictive systems more accurate.)
* Your new No. 4? Wisconsin, baby! SP+ has been stubborn in its approval of the Badgers, even when they started the season out poorly, and if it liked them when they were starting the season 1-3, it certainly wasn't going to stop liking them after they beat Purdue, Iowa and Rutgers by a combined score of 109-23.
* Texas A&M and Cincinnati both moved up -- the Aggies because of an excellent performance against Auburn, the Bearcats primarily because of the diminished preseason weight.
* Florida's dreadful performance against South Carolina knocked the Gators out of the top 10 -- they remained high in the ratings after three nip-and-tuck losses that could have easily been wins, but they have dropped nine spots in two weeks with a pair of genuinely poor performances.
* Pitt returned to 10th thanks to an easy win over Duke and Florida's swoon.
Largest jumps
Seven teams rose at least 10 spots this week.
Houston: up 16 spots from 63rd to 47th
BYU: up 14 spots from 54th to 40th
UTSA: up 14 spots from 67th to 53rd
Arizona State: up 13 spots from 29th to 16th
Appalachian State: up 11 spots from 52nd to 41st
UAB: up 11 spots from 66th to 55th
Western Kentucky: up 10 spots from 74th to 64th
Largest stumbles
Nine teams, meanwhile, fell by at least 10 spots.
Indiana: down 15 spots from 61st to 76th
Georgia Tech: down 14 spots from 58th to 72nd
West Virginia: down 13 spots from 48th to 61st
Auburn: down 12 spots from 15th to 27th
Minnesota: down 12 spots from 17th to 29th
Texas: down 11 spots from 27th to 38th
Florida State: down 11 spots from 37th to 48th
Virginia Tech: down 11 spots from 39th to 50th
Rutgers: down 10 spots from 69th to 79th
Résumé SP+
Each week for the rest of the season, I'll also share my résumé SP+ ratings. It's a look at your actual results vs. what the average top-five team would be expected to do against your schedule. I look at how SP+ would project the average top-five team -- crafted from a literal average of the top five SP+ ratings -- to perform against a given team's schedule, and I compare that to a team's actual results. Your scoring margin minus this projected scoring margin equals your résumé SP+ rating.
Résumé SP+ is an attempt to look at how frequently teams are posting top-five-caliber results and emphasize that how you play should matter as much as or more than who. This week's top 10:
1. Georgia (+10.8 PPG over what the average top-five team would have produced against its schedule)
2. Ohio State (+4.8)
3. Alabama (+3.1)
4. Michigan (-1.7)
5. Cincinnati (-4.9)
6. Pitt (-5.2)
7. Penn State (-7.0)
8. Ole Miss (-7.3)
9. NC State (-7.8)
10. Notre Dame (-8.0)
Some other key CFP contenders:
15. Michigan State (-9.3)
16. Oklahoma State (-10.3)
20. Oklahoma (-10.7)
25. Oregon (-12.8)
The main takeaways? Oregon's entire résumé is built on the Ducks' win at Ohio State, and they have otherwise failed to produce top-five caliber results. Oklahoma has some catching up to do in that regard, as well, and while Cincinnati's résumé has taken a slight hit in recent weeks, with closer-than-projected wins over Navy and Tulsa, it's still as strong as almost anyone's outside of this year's Big 3.
