The 2022 recruiting class is in the books, transfer portal activity has slowed down at least a hair, and coaches are taking brief vacations before gearing up for spring football. That must mean one thing: It's time for SP+ projections!
Here's how SP+ saw the world at the end of 2021. Now let's see what's changed since then. I base these projections on three primary factors, weighted by their predictiveness:
1. Returning production. The returning production numbers are based on rosters I have updated as much as possible to account for transfers and attrition. The combination of last year's SP+ ratings and adjustments based on returning production make up more than two-thirds of the projections formula.
2. Recent recruiting. This piece informs us of the caliber of a team's potential replacements (and/or new stars) in the lineup. It is determined by the last few years of recruiting rankings in diminishing order (meaning the most recent class carries the most weight). Beginning in 2022, this category also is impacted a bit by the recruiting rankings of incoming transfers. This is a new thing, and I'm not giving it much weight right away, but it will have a slight impact. This piece makes up about one-fifth of the projections formula.
3. Recent history. Using a sliver of information from previous seasons (two to four years ago) gives us a good measure of overall program health. It stands to reason that a team that has played well for one year is less likely to duplicate that effort than a team that has been good for years on end (and vice versa), right? This is a minor piece of the puzzle, but the projections are better with it than without.
I will update these numbers in August, once further transfers, injuries and more can be taken into account. But these are the estimates to date.
A reminder on SP+: It's a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and, along those same lines, these projections aren't intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the year. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather to date.
Here are the full rankings:
Conference-by-conference breakdown
The SEC ruled recruiting once again in 2022, and from the perspective of returning production, the AAC (70% average returning production per team), ACC (68%) and Conference USA (68%) are starting out in excellent shape, while the Mountain West (58%) and Big 12 (62%) have seen some of their depth charts roughed up. What does that mean for the conference hierarchy this coming fall?
Average SP+ rating by conference
1. SEC (13.6, up 2.0 from 2021)
2. Big Ten (11.2, up 1.7)
3. ACC (7.5, up 1.4)
4. Big 12 (7.5, down 0.3)
5. Pac-12 (4.4, up 1.8)
6. AAC (1.7, up 0.8)
7. Mountain West (-4.6, down 4.5)
8. Conference USA (-5.7, down 0.4)
9. Sun Belt (-6.6, down 1.7)
10. MAC (-8.3, down 1.5)
The Mountain West has five of the bottom 20 teams in returning production and therefore sees its projected SP+ average fall the most. The Sun Belt takes a bit of a hit as well, thanks to its heavyweights getting hit by attrition. Meanwhile, teams in good shape in terms of both recruiting and experience look to rise.
Here are the three teams with the highest rankings in each conference:
AAC: No. 11 Cincinnati, No. 35 Houston, No. 37 UCF. SMU is also in the top 40, and this will start out as a four-team conference race. But Cincinnati played at such a high level last season that the Bearcats get the benefit of the doubt.
ACC: No. 5 Clemson, No. 13 Pittsburgh, No. 15 NC State. I thought NC State might end up projected in the top 10, but regardless, this title race will have three pieces: longtime heavyweight Clemson vs. upstarts NC State and Pitt (the defending champ) vs. two former heavyweights desperately trying to get their acts together (No. 20 Miami, No. 24 Florida State).
Big 12: No. 7 Oklahoma, No. 30 Baylor, No. 33 Texas. SP+ tends to assume that heavyweights that suffer one-year missteps will quickly bounce back. OU fits that bill, though SP+ isn't designed to take coaching changes into account. The Sooners will get a boost from key player turnover at Baylor and Oklahoma State.
Big Ten: No. 1 Ohio State, No. 4 Michigan, No. 10 Wisconsin. Ohio State ranking in the top 25 in returning production is pretty unheard of -- the bluest of bluebloods tend to lose tons of production to the NFL each year -- and clinched the Buckeyes' February top spot. But Michigan, Wisconsin, Penn State and Michigan State are all within reach if Ohio State proves mortal.
C-USA: No. 53 Western Kentucky, No. 55 UTSA, No. 56 Marshall. With UAB also at 57th, this shapes up to be a fantastic race. SP+ is giving WKU the benefit of the doubt, though the Hilltoppers have so much to replace both on offense and at offensive coordinator.
Indies: No. 8 Notre Dame, No. 23 BYU, No. 69 Liberty. Marcus Freeman's first team in South Bend will be a projected favorite in every game after the season opener at Ohio State, while BYU is merely the slightest of underdogs against the Irish and at Oregon. Either team could have a huge year.
MAC: No. 51 Toledo, No. 80 Miami (Ohio) Red Hawks, No. 87 Central Michigan. Toledo has lost eight of its last nine one-score finishes. That suggests poor game management, but it also screams "Regression to the mean is coming!" Major disruption on defense and experience at QB could be a fantastic combo for the Rockets.
MWC: No. 39 Fresno State, No. 43 Boise State, No. 65 Air Force. With defending champ Utah State ranking 113th in returning production (and with the Aggies going 4-0 in one-score games in 2021), SP+ thinks a repeat is unlikely. Fresno State, with new/old coach Jeff Tedford, starts out in front.
Pac-12: No. 14 Utah, No. 31 Arizona State, No. 32 Oregon. The Pac-12 was a huge disappointment in 2021, and Utah seems like the only genuinely trustworthy team out of the gate. But odds are good that either Oregon, Arizona State or, if it gets its defense in order, UCLA could mount a charge. (Don't ask me about USC. I'm in total wait-and-see mode there.)
SEC: No. 2 Georgia, No. 3 Alabama, No. 6 Texas A&M. That these three teams are in the top six is no surprise. Maybe the biggest surprise is at No. 9: Tennessee overachieved projections last year and now enjoys sturdy returning production numbers. Could the Vols establish themselves as No. 2 in the East?
Sun Belt: No. 60 Appalachian State, No. 72 Louisiana, No. 73 Coastal Carolina. These three programs are all dealing with quite a bit of turnover, and that could open the door for a usurper like No. 75 Georgia State. Also, James Madison begins its FBS expedition with an extremely respectable top-90 projection.
SP+ vs. conventional wisdom
I'm always excited to see which programs are projected to rise and fall from year to year, but the most intriguing piece of these projections -- at least based on my Twitter mentions -- comes at the top. Stats and eyeballs tend to agree most of the time, but SP+ usually comes up with what we'll call "polite disagreements" with the conventional wisdom at hand.
Let's compare the rankings above to ESPN colleague Mark Schlabach's Way-Too-Early 2022 top 25 to see where the biggest disagreements lie at this point in the offseason.
Buy, buy, buy!
No. 1 Ohio State (second in the Way-Too-Early top 25). There obviously isn't much disagreement here, but the Buckeyes' huge experience levels might make them a safer bet than Georgia or Alabama in the title race.
No. 5 Clemson (11th in the Way-Too-Early top 25) and No. 7 Oklahoma (17th in the Way-Too-Early Top 25). While we tend to overreact to a single poor season, SP+ almost underreacts to one. Clemson and Oklahoma each fielded their worst teams since 2014 last fall, but on paper both have enough experience to bounce back. I figure SP+ will be right about at least one of the two, though both are dealing with loads of coaching turnover.
No. 10 Wisconsin (24th in the Way-Too-Early top 25). SP+ will never, ever quit the Badgers, who do the Big, Burly Manball thing as well as anyone and whose defense remains absolutely dynamite. But if you think an experienced Iowa squad has a good shot at a Big Ten West repeat, I might not disagree.
No. 11 Cincinnati (19th in the Way-Too-Early top 25). Luke Fickell did a lovely job of addressing immediate needs (QB, WR) in the transfer portal, though turnover at cornerback could be tough to overcome.
Sell, sell, sell!
While SP+ indeed usually leans on history to tell you who it thinks is underrated, it also tends to do a better job of telling you who might be overrated. For whom are we overreacting to a single good year or a single stellar recruiting class?
No. 30 Baylor (16th in the Way-Too-Early top 25). Here's a reminder that the returning production formula puts heavy emphasis on turnover at receiver and defensive back, and Baylor is dealing with a ton of that. But an experienced quarterback and fantastic lines still could take Dave Aranda's Bears pretty far.
No. 32 Oregon (12th in the Way-Too-Early top 25). SP+ never saw the Ducks as serious contenders last fall, but it still had them at 14th after 10 games before dropping them all the way to 38th with their dismal 1-3 finish. With a new coach and the QB position still unsettled, they aren't projected to immediately surge back.
No. 35 Houston (13th in the Way-Too-Early top 25). After their first top-40 finish in five years, the Cougars are expected to stay there, though it's always tricky to attempt a second straight leap year. Maybe top 40 is more realistic than top 15.
No. 36 Oklahoma State (ninth in the Way-Too-Early top 25). The Cowboys will still have experience at quarterback and a dynamite defensive line, but turnover in the defensive back seven and at defensive coordinator (Jim Knowles left for Ohio State) might be a bit too much to overcome.
No. 47 Wake Forest (14th in the Way-Too-Early top 25). SP+ undersold the Demon Deacons last year thanks in part to their incredibly untrustworthy defense. Quarterback Sam Hartman is back, which is exciting, but our system is not going to suddenly fall in love with Wake's defense now that it loses big chunks of its secondary and line.
No. 49 South Carolina (25th in the Way-Too-Early top 25). Just by finishing 66th, the Gamecocks overachieved massively in Shane Beamer's first season. But they would have to overachieve even more to leap all the way into the top 25. Anything's possible, but that's asking a lot.
No. 64 USC (22nd in the Way-Too-Early top 25). The great mystery of the 2022 offseason. The Trojans underachieved, lost their head coach, then collapsed to 82nd in SP+, their worst ranking since 1961. That they surged all the way to the national title in 1962 is a reminder that USC's upside is always higher than most teams', and transfers such as former Oklahoma quarterback Caleb Williams could obviously facilitate a surge. It's just hard to predict such a thing, especially with how poor the USC defense was last year (106th in defensive SP+). My approach this offseason: have no expectations, good or bad, for this team.