For fans of rival schools and a selection of college football writers and analysts, Michigan's 2023 national title will come with asterisks, thanks to the cloud of the spygate scandal, which hovered over all of November.
Well, SP+ doesn't hand out asterisks. It knows only what happens on the field. And after Monday night's 34-13 win over Washington in the CFP National Championship, Michigan can add another title to the list: the 2023 SP+ title. Hang the spreadsheet in the trophy case!
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.
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.
* I will have to figure out how best to handle bowl results moving forward. While some bowls provided pretty accurate representations of the teams that competed in them, others, such as Georgia vs. Florida State (which had a material impact on the ratings of two top-10 teams), were obviously hit hard enough by opt-outs and transfers that the games themselves maybe shouldn't be given full weight in a system like this. I will fiddle with options for addressing this in the offseason.
Here are the full rankings:
Michigan vs. history
Not that this will dissuade any of the asterisk-minded people out there, but per the list above, Michigan beat the Nos. 4, 5, 7 and 13 teams in the country after the opponent spying program was revealed and, theoretically, quashed. The Wolverines were pretty incredible in 2023.
Naturally, when a team wins a title, we immediately begin assessing its place in history. SP+ is a pretty useful tool for such a thing. Here's where Michigan falls in three categories I found particularly interesting: best teams of the 2020s, best defenses since 2000 and best ever Michigan teams. (For these purposes, I'm using percentile ratings instead of the raw ratings above. Every year has its own bell curve, so this is the best way of gauging who genuinely stood out the most from the pack.)
Best teams of the 2020s
1. 2020 Alabama (99.7% percentile)
2. 2022 Georgia (99.4%)
3. 2023 Michigan (99.4%)
4. 2023 Georgia (99.4%)
5. 2021 Georgia (99.3%)
6. 2022 Michigan (98.9%)
7. 2022 Alabama (98.9%)
8. 2020 Clemson (98.6%)
9. 2023 Oregon (98.3%)
10. 2020 Ohio State (98.3%)
SP+ thinks the 2020 Alabama team was the best college football team that has existed since the 1970s. Obviously that season brings its own Covid-related asterisks to the table, but Alabama was absolutely unreal within this uncertain environment. Michigan basically grades out as well as anyone else -- the Wolverines are practically tied with last year's title-winning Georgia team and this year's Georgia team, which indeed got a solid bump for beating Florida State in the aforementioned opt-outs festival.
One other interesting note here: This year's Oregon team also makes the top 10. The Ducks finished third in SP+ this year, which is fun when you see where Washington, a team that beat them twice and made the national title game, ranked. The Ducks were ruthlessly efficient in 12 of 14 games in 2023 and had a dominant streak that almost no one else could match. That they lost two coin-toss games to the Huskies is one of the things that makes college football so rich and entertaining. SP+ would absolutely pick Oregon to win a seven-game series with Washington, but the Huskies are up two games to none.
Best defenses of the 2000s
According to ESPN Analytics, Michigan was the first team since 2009 (and only the fourth since 1995) to go unbeaten and not allow a single team to score 25 points in a game. Did the Wolverines play a murderer's row of offenses? Of course not. But the two SP+ top-10 offenses they faced (Alabama's and Washington's) scored a combined 33 points and averaged 4.3 yards per play against them, minuscule numbers. Washington averaged a season-low 4.2 yards per play against them a week after averaging 7.6 against Texas. This was a ridiculously strong unit. SP+ certainly thinks so, anyway.
1. 2011 Alabama (99.8% percentile)
2. 2023 Michigan (99.7%)
3. 2023 Ohio State (99.6%)
4. 2011 LSU (99.4%)
5. 2023 Iowa (99.3%)
6. 2012 Notre Dame (99.1%)
7. 2012 Alabama (99.0%)
8. 2023 Penn State (98.9%)
9. 2012 BYU (98.7%)
10. 2019 Iowa (98.7%)
Among Big Ten teams, Michigan's defense wasn't alone in its dominance. Even while adjusting for opponent -- and acknowledging that Big Ten offenses were in no way spectacular this season -- an incredible four Big Ten defenses made this list. The Ohio State defense nearly graded out as well as Michigan's. (That the Buckeyes held Missouri to a season-low 14 points and 4.7 yards per play in the Cotton Bowl certainly backs that notion up a bit.)
Best Michigan teams ever
All right, now let's think bigger. Michigan is the winningest team in college football history -- was this its greatest team?
No, not quite. But it's the best since the legalization of the forward pass.
1. 1902 Michigan (99.6%), 11-0*
2. 2023 Michigan (99.4%), 15-0*
3. 1947 Michigan (99.4%), 10-0*
4. 1904 Michigan (99.3%), 10-0*
5. 1948 Michigan (99.3%), 9-0*
6. 1905 Michigan (99.2%), 12-1
7. 1903 Michigan (99.1%), 11-0-1*
8. 2022 Michigan (98.9%), 13-1
9. 1978 Michigan (98.9%), 10-2
10. 1933 Michigan (98.9%), 7-0-1*
(* = claimed national titles)
Other national champions:
13. 1901 Michigan (98.4%), 11-0
33. 1932 Michigan (95.7%), 8-0
46. 1997 Michigan (93.1%), 12-0
55. 1918 Michigan (92.1%), 5-0
56. 1923 Michigan (91.6%), 8-0
Honestly, I'm shocked that the 1947 Wolverines only graded out in the 99.4% range. That Wolverines team obliterated nine regular-season opponents by an average of 38-6, then beat USC 49-0 in the Rose Bowl. But the Big Ten of this period was pretty dreadful, so opponent adjustments evidently hurt. Regardless, "best team the winningest college football program has had since the forward pass was legalized" is a pretty good nugget, Michigan fans. You should put that on a shirt or something.