Despite Michigan’s most recent loss coming to an elite opponent, the Wolverines slid a few of spots in the latest edition of ESPN’s SP+ rankings. Here’s a look at where Michigan stands after Week 10:
Michigan dropped to 5-4 on the season after a 38-17 loss to the Oregon Ducks on Saturday. Despite the loss being hard fought and against an elite opponent, Michigan still slid a few spots in the latest edition of Bill Connelly and ESPN’s SP+ rankings . After Week 10, the Wolverines are now listed as the No. 30 team in the country, three spots lower than their ranking last week.
For those of you unfamiliar with SP+, it’s a metric that can be used as an alternative form of ranking college football teams. Connelly describes it as “a tempo and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency” that takes into account a team’s efficiencies on offense, defense, and special teams.
These efficiencies are boiled down to one metric that is used to predict how many points a given team would beat (or lose to) the “average” college football team by. For example, Michigan’s new rating after Week 10 is 9.5, meaning the Wolverines should defeat the “average” college football team by 9.5 points on a neutral field. This represents a 2.4 drop from where Michigan was last week.
Additionally, according to SP+, Michigan has the No. 77 offense, No. 14 defense and No. 14 special teams in the country.
As for the rest of the field, Ohio State comes in as the No. 1 team in the country after defeating Penn State on the road by a score of 20-13. Texas checks in as the No. 2 overall team, while Georgia is now No. 3 after beating Florida on Saturday.
Michigan is the seventh-best team in the Big Ten according to SP+. As previously mentioned, Ohio State is at the top of the rankings, while Oregon (No. 5) and Penn State (No. 9) are included in the top-10. Indiana just missed out on a top-10 spot and comes in at No. 11. Meanwhile, Iowa (No. 17) and a five-loss USC team (No. 23) are also ranked ahead of Michigan.
Looking ahead to next week, Michigan will be facing off against a 9-0 Indiana squad. The Hoosiers are ranked No. 8 in the country by the AP, but are 11th nationally according to SP+. Indiana has an SP+ rating of 19.5, which suggests it should defeat Michigan by about 10 points. Michigan is a 13.5-point underdog , but we’ll have to see how it pans out when the teams take the field at 3:30 p.m. on CBS on Saturday.