For most of the best teams in college football, Week 8 didn't move the needle all that much. Georgia and Michigan were idle, Tennessee played UT Martin, Alabama worked methodically through its annual post-loss blowout of Mississippi State, and Ohio State dominated an offense-less Iowa.
There were plenty of thrilling games, of course, but nothing that affected too much at the top of the SP+ rankings. And of the current SP+ top 10, Clemson was the only team to see its ranking move by more than one spot. (That's a bit of a surprise considering Ole Miss is in the top 10 and got blown out by LSU. Strangely, while LSU's rating jumped quite a bit, the Rebels' stayed about the same.)
Below are this week's SP+ rankings. 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.
SP+ is indeed 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.
This week's movers
Let's take a look at the teams that saw the biggest change in their overall ratings. (Note: We're looking at ratings, not rankings.)
Moving up
Here are the 10 teams that saw their ratings rise the most this week:
FIU: up 5.9 adjusted points per game (ranking rose from 130th to 126th)
Fresno State: up 4.7 (from 92nd to 83rd)
San Diego State: up 3.9 (from 117th to 103rd)
Alabama: up 3.8 (from third to second)
Colorado State: up 3.7 (from 128th to 124th)
LSU: up 3.4 (from 26th to 16th)
Wisconsin: up 3.2 (from 35th to 24th)
Oregon State: up 3.1 (from 44th to 34th)
Northwestern: up 3.1 (from 97th to 90th)
First things first: Florida International is showing signs of life! Mike MacIntyre's first season in charge started disastrously -- the Golden Panthers ranked 131st after a 73-0 loss to Western Kentucky in Week 4. But they have now overachieved projections by at least a touchdown in three of their past four games, and their 34-15 win over Charlotte on Saturday was their biggest win over an FBS opponent in more than three years. That may say pretty awful things about Charlotte (the 1-7 49ers are down to 122nd overall and fired their coach), but good for FIU all the same.
Elsewhere, the roller coaster continues in Baton Rouge. Brian Kelly's first Tigers squad rose to 13th in SP+ after a 3-1 start but underachieved projections by a combined 26.7 points against Auburn and Tennessee, and fell out of the top 25. Now they're back to 16th after overachieving by a decent amount against Florida (9.7 points) and by a ton against Ole Miss (30.6 points). Beat Bama and roll to 10-2? Lose three of four down the stretch? You can sort of talk yourself into either result at the moment.
Moving down
Here are the 10 teams whose ratings fell the most:
Minnesota: down 4.7 adjusted points per game (ranking fell from 10th to 23rd)
UCLA: down 3.1 (from eighth to 11th)
UCF: down 3.0 (from 25th to 36th)
West Virginia: down 2.9 (from 45th to 63rd)
Arkansas State: down 2.8 (from 89th to 96th)
James Madison: down 2.7 (from 27th to 37th)
ULM: down 2.4 (from 102nd to 113th)
New Mexico: down 2.4 (from 124th to 128th)
Iowa: down 2.2 (from 28th to 35th)
Georgia Tech: down 2.1 (from 86th to 89th)
Because of the way preseason projections are phased out of the ratings, SP+ was still giving Minnesota the benefit of the doubt after disappointing performances against Purdue and Illinois. Why? Because the Gophers' nearly perfect early-season performances, in which they began the season 4-0, were also carrying more weight in the ratings, and teams that play that well usually merit a high rating.
After Saturday's 45-17 blowout loss to Penn State, however, SP+ is evidently quitting on the terribly banged-up Gophers. It doesn't know that quarterback Tanner Morgan didn't play, obviously, but it does know that the defense is pretty quickly falling apart.
The way teams have risen (Illinois), fallen (Minnesota, Purdue, Iowa) and gone on an absolute roller-coaster ride (Wisconsin) of late, the Big Ten West has become a ratings logjam. Five of the division's seven teams currently rank between 23rd and 35th, and while Illinois is emerging as a clear favorite to win the West, it appears we've got lots of close games headed our way down the stretch.
Conference rankings
Here are FBS' 10 conferences, ranked by average SP+:
1. SEC: 13.6 average SP+ (34.3 average offensive SP+, 20.9 average defensive SP+)
2. Big 12: 12.0 average SP+ (35.7 offense, 23.7 defense)
3. Big Ten: 9.9 average SP+ (30.1 offense, 20.2 defense)
4. Pac-12: 6.1 average SP+ (32.4 offense, 26.3 defense)
5. ACC: 3.8 average SP+ (29.1 offense, 25.4 defense)
6. AAC: 0.8 average SP+ (28.9 offense, 28.0 defense)
7. Sun Belt: -0.1 average SP+ (26.8 offense, 26.9 defense)
8. Conference USA: -10.1 average SP+ (24.7 offense, 34.7 defense)
9. Mountain West: -13.1 average SP+ (17.5 offense, 30.6 defense)
10. MAC: -13.7 average SP+ (21.5 offense, 35.1 defense)
Because nonconference games are minimal at this stage in the season, there won't be cause for any major shifts in the conference ratings. But we did see the bottom three conferences close the gap a bit on the other Group of 5 leagues. The SEC's and Pac-12's averages rose a hair as well.
Résumé SP+
Since the College Football Playoff rankings are on the horizon, I'm also including Résumé SP+ rankings in this piece each week.
As mentioned above, SP+ is intended to be a power rating, not a résumé evaluation tool, but Résumé SP+ attempts to fill that latter gap. It is a look at two things: (1) how the average SP+ top-five team would be projected to perform against your schedule (in terms of scoring margin) and (2) how your scoring margin compares to (1). Throw in a seven-point penalty for every loss a team has suffered, and you can say that this is what the CFP rankings would look like if SP+ were in charge.
(Note: Because of the high bar teams have to clear in getting compared to an average top-five team, and because of the loss adjustment, almost every team here ends up with a negative score. It is what it is.)
Here is this week's Résumé SP+ top 15:
1. Ohio State (7-0): +10.8 PPG
2. Georgia (7-0): +7.7
3. Tennessee (7-0): +0.1
4. Michigan (7-0): -2.2
5. Alabama (7-1): -3.6
6. TCU (7-0): -6.5
7. Clemson (8-0): -9.9
8. USC (6-1): -12.9
9. Ole Miss (7-1): -14.3
10. Oregon (6-1): -14.9
11. Oklahoma State (6-1): -15.2
12. Penn State (6-1): -16.3
13. Illinois (6-1): -16.4
14. Syracuse (6-1): -17.4
15. Wake Forest (6-1): -17.7
In two weeks, we've gone from 15 unbeaten teams to six, all from power conferences, and while the CFP committee has not yet begun its weekly rankings, I'm pretty curious how it would judge undefeated TCU and Clemson next to one-loss Alabama at the moment. The Crimson Tide have been sloppy and inconsistent on the road, and their best wins are currently over 5-3 teams. But as Résumé SP+ suggests, they've still done a lot of damage against the schedule they've faced -- more so than either TCU or Clemson.
One last note: The highest-ranked Group of 5 teams, per Résumé SP+, are Tulane (17th), Cincinnati (20th) and, despite Saturday's blowout loss, UCF (24th). Barring a healthy dose of November funkiness, it appears the AAC champion will be a heavy favorite to snare the Group of 5's automatic bid for a New Year's Six bowl.