Last week, I made a pretty big deal out of the fact that the top five college football teams in the country, per SP+, were all within 1.8 points of each other. This week, they're within 1.3.
We've technically got a new No. 1 team -- Texas eases into the top spot after a lopsided win over ULM -- but congestion remains the story. SP+ is pretty confident that it knows who the five best teams in the country are, and it seems pretty clear on No. 6-11 too. There's interesting stratification among the top tiers, but at this point one thing is certain: It's Ohio State versus the SEC when it comes to the top of the college football hierarchy.
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
UConn: up 5.8 adjusted points per game (ranking rose from 116th to 97th)
Virginia: up 4.8 points (from 79th to 62nd)
Cincinnati: up 4.3 points (from 62nd to 50th)
South Alabama: up 4.2 points (from 84th to 71st)
Duke: up 4.2 points (from 52nd to 34th)
North Texas: up 4.2 points (from 99th to 88th)
Iowa State: up 3.9 points (from 33rd to 26th)
SMU: up 3.7 points (from 38th to 28th)
Jacksonville State: up 3.6 points (from 122nd to 112th)
Kentucky: up 3.6 points (from 31st to 23rd)
Once a team has played four games, the opponent and conference adjustments begin to get stronger and the weight of the preseason projections diminishes considerably. We therefore saw some teams (like Kentucky) move up or down based both on their Week 4 performance and all these other factors as well. But the teams that moved up the most did so because of particularly impressive Saturday performances. UConn was a slight underdog against FAU but won by 34 points, while South Alabama won by 34 as a road underdog. The Jaguars began the season poorly but have skyrocketed after back-to-back brilliant performances.
Moving down
Here are the 10 teams whose ratings fell the most:
USF: down 4.2 adjusted points per game (ranking fell from 77th to 90th)
Arkansas State: down 4.2 points (from 103rd to 117th)
FAU: down 4.1 points (from 107th to 118th)
Houston: down 4.0 points (from 78th to 89th)
Kansas State: down 3.9 points (from 14th to 22nd)
Appalachian State: down 3.9 points (from 80th to 92nd)
Marshall: down 3.3 points (from 91st to 99th)
Minnesota: down 3.1 points (from 32nd to 47th)
Middle Tennessee: down 3.0 points (from 126th to 131st)
USC: down 3.0 points (from 17th to 24th)
Maybe the most relevant teams on this list: Kansas State and USC. The Wildcats imploded in a road loss to what is now a nearly top-40 BYU team, while the Trojans blew a major opportunity to prove top-15 bona fides in falling to Michigan in the final minute in Ann Arbor.
Conference rankings
Here are FBS' 10 conferences, ranked by average SP+:
1. SEC: 17.3 average rating (36.5 offense, 19.4 defense)
2. Big Ten: 10.0 average (28.3 offense, 18.4 defense)
3. ACC: 7.6 average (31.2 offense, 23.8 defense)
4. Big 12: 7.1 average (31.7 offense, 24.6 defense)
5. Sun Belt: -7.6 average (25.4 offense, 33.0 defense)
6. Mountain West: -8.8 average (22.9 offense, 31.5 defense)
7. AAC: -8.9 average (24.1 offense, 33.0 defense)
8. MAC: -13.0 average (17.6 offense, 30.5 defense)
9. Conference USA: -15.1 average (19.5 offense, 34.4 defense)
It was a mostly excellent week for the ACC. Four league teams rose by at least 3.7 points, and eight teams rose by at least a point while only three fell by more than a point. (Somehow North Carolina only slipped by 1.5 points after a blowout loss to James Madison, which was a surprise. I guess SP+ likes Caroline blue.)
With a number of Big 12 teams losing ground, these changes were enough to bump the ACC into third place on the list. The league has the third-best offensive average and the third-best defensive average, while the Big 12 is second in the former and fourth in the latter.
SP+ projects the College Football Playoff
Here's what the new 12-team CFP would look like based on updated SP+ projections (and what the results would look like if the projected favorite won each game, even though that never actually happens).
FIRST ROUND
12 Boise State at 5 Ole Miss (Ole Miss by 25.9)
11 Missouri at 6 Alabama (Bama by 11.2)
10 Oregon at 7 Tennessee (Tennessee by 5.4)
9 Penn State at 8 Georgia (Georgia by 8.8)
QUARTERFINALS
Sugar Bowl: 1 Texas vs. 8 Georgia (Texas by 1.3)
Fiesta Bowl: 4 Utah vs. 5 Ole Miss (Ole Miss by 14.2)
Peach Bowl: 3 Miami vs. 6 Alabama (Bama by 6.7)
Rose Bowl: 2 Ohio State vs. 7 Tennessee (Ohio State by 5.0)
SEMIFINALS
Cotton Bowl: 1 Texas vs. 5 Ole Miss (Texas by 0.5)
Orange Bowl: 2 Ohio State vs. 6 Alabama (Ohio State by 0.2)
FINALS
1 Texas vs. 2 Ohio State (Texas by 0.3)
We could be in for a hell of a semifinal and final round.
