With three weeks to go in college football's 2021 regular season, the College Football Playoff chase remains a bit uncertain (outside of Georgia's nearly guaranteed spot, anyway). But from a power ratings perspective, the hierarchy remains unchanged. In this week's SP+ ratings, Georgia still holds a solid lead in the top spot, followed by Ohio State, Alabama and, after a pretty significant gap, everyone else. No. 3 Bama is 4.5 points ahead of the No. 4 team -- the same distance that separates No. 6 from No. 15.
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.
This week's top five is unchanged from last week, which makes sense -- the top three have all separated nicely from the pack, and No. 4 and No. 5, Wisconsin and Michigan, more than looked the part in Week 11.
We did still see a little bit of change in the top 10, however. Cincinnati and Texas A&M basically switched places -- Cincy controlled USF more than the final score suggested on Friday night (and benefits from the continued phasing out of preseason projections), while A&M didn't quite live up to projections in its road loss to Ole Miss. Meanwhile, Oklahoma fell two spots to 11th and was replaced in the top 10 by Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish have rounded nicely into form and have risen from 20th after five weeks to 10th now.
Largest jumps
When the sample size grows, it gets more difficult for teams to rise or fall by great amounts. But nine still managed to rise at least nine spots this week:
Oklahoma State: up 10 spots from 26th to 16th
Army: up 10 spots from 77th to 67th
SMU: up nine spots from 42nd to 33rd
Louisville: up nine spots from 46th to 37th
Houston: up nine spots from 47th to 38th
Kentucky: up nine spots from 51st to 42nd
WKU: up nine spots from 64th to 55th
Oregon State: up nine spots from 66th to 57th
Toledo: up nine spots from 70th to 61st
Largest stumbles
Ten teams, meanwhile, fell by at least eight spots.
TCU: down 13 spots from 59th to 72nd
Maryland: down 11 spots from 45th to 56th
Buffalo: down 10 spots from 95th to 105th
Syracuse: down nine spots from 56th to 65th
Florida: down eight spots from 14th to 22nd
Virginia: down eight spots from 35th to 43rd
Texas: down eight spots from 38th to 46th
SDSU: down eight spots from 39th to 47th
Purdue: down eight spots from 43rd to 51st
UCF: down eight spots from 54th to 62nd
Oklahoma State's rout of TCU shifted each team's fortunes by quite a bit. And it made the end of the Big 12 season even more tantalizing -- four conference teams now rank between 11th and 16th (No. 11 Oklahoma, No. 12 Iowa State, No. 13 Baylor, No. 16 OSU), and we've got three games remaining between the teams in that range: ISU at OU this Saturday, OU at OSU the week after and a potential Bedlam rematch (with Baylor perhaps getting involved) in the Big 12 Championship.
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 +10.6
2. Ohio State +4.5
3. Alabama +2.2
4. Michigan -2.4
5. Pitt -5.9
6. Notre Dame -6.2
7. Ole Miss -6.4
8. Cincinnati -6.5
9. Oklahoma State -7.1
10. Penn State -7.8
Here are a few other relevant unbeaten or one-loss teams:
13. Michigan State -8.8
14. Wake Forest -9.1
22. Oklahoma -12.3
23. Oregon -12.6
38. UTSA -16.2
Both Oklahoma State (up from 16th) and Notre Dame (up from sixth) saw their stock rise quite a bit following impressive wins on Saturday.
I've found that taking Résumé SP+ and adding a seven-point penalty for each loss is as close as I can get to a formula that replicates how my brain thinks the CFP rankings should go. It's a solid way of combining how you have performed with the simple fact that losses should matter. Here's the loss-adjusted Résumé SP+ top 12:
