Even after a big victory over Michigan State on Saturday night, Michigan dropped a few spots in the latest edition of ESPN’s SP+ rankings. Here’s where the Wolverines stand at the conclusion of Week 9:
The Michigan Wolverines got back in the win column on Saturday night, picking up a 24-17 victory over in-state rival Michigan State . The win came at a badly needed time for a Michigan team that had been reeling in recent weeks, but even after advancing to 5-3 on the year, the Wolverines dropped a few spots in the latest edition of ESPN and Bill Connelly’s SP+ rankings , and now stand as the No. 27 team in the country.
For those of you who might be new to 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 9 is 11.9, meaning the Wolverines should defeat the “average” college football team by 11.9 points on a neutral field.
Michigan’s new ranking at No. 27 is a drop from where it was last week at No. 24, but Michigan’s rating of 11.9 is actually a slight improvement from a mark of 11.4 last week. In other words, the Wolverines got better in the eyes of the SP+, but too many other teams around them improved as well.
As for the rest of the field, Texas reclaimed the spot as the No. 1 team in the country after a road victory over Vanderbilt . Meanwhile, Ohio State dropped down to the No. 2 spot after narrowly defeating Nebraska at home on Saturday. Interestingly, Ole Miss also makes an appearance in the top three this week after defeating Oklahoma 26-14 on Saturday.
In the Big Ten, there are still six teams ranked ahead of Michigan. As previously mentioned, Ohio State is the No. 2 team in the country, while Oregon comes in at No. 4, and Penn State at No. 8. Further down the rankings, undefeated Indiana won at home without Kurtis Rourke and checks in at No. 13, while Iowa (No. 18), and USC (No. 19) are also ranked ahead of Michigan.
Looking ahead to next weekend’s game against Oregon, the Ducks are coming in hot after a 38-9 drubbing of Illinois on Saturday. Oregon’s SP+ rating is 26.9, which suggests that it should defeat Michigan by about two touchdowns. We’ll wait and see what happens though when the teams take the field in Ann Arbor at 3:30 p.m. eastern on CBS.