It seems like it's a pretty good year to have a bigger College Football Playoff, as SP+ sure can't decide who the best team is.
For the third straight week, the No. 1 spot in the SP+ rankings changed: Ohio State retakes the lead after previously top-ranked Texas struggled more than expected against Mississippi State. And with Georgia slipping once again after Saturday night's devastating loss to Alabama, Tennessee eases into the top five as well.
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.