College football’s Week 2 SP+ rankings takeaways

The last time USC finished as high as sixth in SP+ was 2008, when the Trojans were denied a shot at another national title with a classic upset loss at Oregon State. The last time Texas finished in the top 10: 2009, when the Longhorns were denied another national title by Colt McCoy’s injury.

The last time Florida State finished as high as eighth? 2013, when the Seminoles won the national title. The last time Penn State finished as high as fourth or Washington finished as high as ninth? 2017, when the two faced off in a delightful Fiesta Bowl.

The last time Alabama finished as low as fifth? 2008, when Nick Saban’s run was just beginning.

We’re not exactly turning the clock back to the 1950s or anything, but we’ve got some awfully interesting developments in 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.

Here are the full rankings:

Colorado watch

Last year, it took about three weeks for SP+ to figure out Lincoln Riley’s transfer-heavy USC Trojans. This season, Deion Sanders and Colorado completely shifted the definition of “transfer-heavy” by bringing in over 50 players via the portal. It’s still probably going to take longer than three weeks to figure them out. The Buffaloes once again moved up following a strange but comfortable 36-14 win over mistake-prone Nebraska. Their offense rose only slightly after an inconsistent performance, but this time their defense moved up the ladder a good amount.

Colorado was projected to improve more than any team in the country this season, but because the Buffaloes were so abjectly awful in 2022, that improvement meant they were still starting 2023 ranked only in the 80s. Now they’re up to 76th … but that’s clearly not quite right. I don’t know whether this is a top-30 team, but it’s obvious that SP+ still hasn’t caught up. We’ll see how many more weeks it takes.

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

Here are the 10 teams that saw their ratings rise the most this week:

• Army: up 8.7 adjusted points per game (from 106th to 86th)

• Northwestern: up 8.2 points (100th to 81st)

• New Mexico: up 6.3 points (132nd to 123rd)

• Louisville: up 5.9 points (51st to 27th)

• Oregon State: up 5.5 points (29th to 17th)

• Old Dominion: up 5.3 points (128th to 112th)

• Liberty: up 4.9 points (91st to 78th)

• Miami (Ohio): up 4.8 points (122nd to 106th)

• USF: up 4.6 points (121st to 104th)

• San Jose State: up 4.6 points (108th to 95th)

That’s a pretty mid-major heavy list, obviously, and it includes a bunch of teams that perhaps fell a bit too far after a poor showing in Week 1. Regardless, Northwestern makes an appearance after blowing out UTEP as a mere one-point favorite, per the sportsbooks, and Louisville and Oregon State both show up after blowing out FCS opponents more comfortably than expected. (Oregon State dominated a downright solid UC Davis team.

Here are the five offenses that improved the most:

• Northwestern: up 5.3 points

• Old Dominion: up 5.0 points

• Army: up 4.6 points

• Miami (Ohio): up 4.2 points

• Virginia: up 3.9 points

It’s strange to say that Virginia’s loss to James Madison was encouraging, but that’s where the bar is for the Cavaliers at the moment. But freshman quarterback Anthony Colandrea went 20-for-26 for 377 yards and two touchdowns as UVA went on a 28-7 run to seemingly take control of the game before a late Dukes charge. The Hoos lost, but they at least scored more points than they had since late 2021.

And here are the five defenses that improved the most:

• Army: down 4.1 points (falling = good)

• Louisville: down 3.5 points

• New Mexico: down 3.3 points

• Kent State: down 2.9 points

• Northwestern: down 2.9 points

Kent State still can’t score — the Golden Flashes have scored 12 points in two games — but a nice defensive performance kept them close to Arkansas for a while in an eventual 28-6 loss. That’s something.

MOVING DOWN

Here are the 10 teams whose ratings fell the most:

• Nebraska: down 6.7 points (55th to 72nd)

• Alabama: down 6.4 points (first to fifth)

• Southern Miss: down 6.3 points (88th to 105th)

• UTEP: down 6.1 points (94th to 118th)

• Stanford: down 5.6 points (83rd to 98th)

• Houston: down 5.0 points (57th to 67th)

• Tulane: down 4.5 points (32nd to 48th)

• Texas A&M: down 4.3 points (15th to 20th)

• NC State: down 4.2 points (50th to 57th)

• Tennessee: down 4.1 points (sixth to 12th)

That Nebraska lost to Colorado wasn’t a surprise, but the Huskers’ deluge of mistakes, mostly on offense, was still noteworthy. They lost three fumbles and threw a bad interception, and they basically handed the Buffs a 10-0 lead despite playing excellent defense. Eventually the Huskers’ defense wilted, too.

Also, hello there, Alabama! The Crimson Tide indeed dropped to fifth following a dispiriting loss to Texas. They fell in the ratings more than Texas rose. I never know quite what to expect in that regard.

Offenses

Auburn and Cal, you disappointed me greatly. I expected a dynamite 44-40 game. I got a 14-10 game full of missed field goals instead.

Defenses

Thank you to Texas A&M and Miami for scoring the points Cal and Auburn did not. I doubt the Aggies are too happy about that, though. They made Miami’s Tyler Van Dyke look like Joe Burrow — the last time they had given up as many as 48 points was against Burrow and LSU in 2019.

Conference rankings

Here are FBS’ 10 conferences, ranked by average SP+:

1. SEC: 15.4 average adjusted points per game (34.8 offense, 19.5 defense)
2. Big 12: 10.1 average (33.0 offense, 22.9 defense)
3. Big Ten: 10.1 average (27.8 offense, 17.8 defense)
4. Pac-12: 10.0 average (33.6 offense, 23.7 defense)
5. ACC: 8.0 average (29.6 offense, 21.6 defense)
6. Sun Belt: -7.5 average (22.3 offense, 29.8 defense)
7. AAC: -7.5 average (23.5 offense, 31.0 defense)
8. Mountain West: -10.1 average (18.7 offense, 28.8 defense)
9. Conference USA: -13.0 average (19.4 offense, 32.3 defense)
10. MAC: -14.3 average (17.9 offense, 32.1 defense)

Alabama’s slide toward mortality, along with disappointing performances from Texas A&M and Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky and, to an extent, Auburn, dropped the SEC’s average by 1.4 points this week, by far the most. It still leads the way here — it has 10 top-30 teams, after all — but it slid toward the pack a bit. Meanwhile, the next three conferences on the list are in a virtual tie, and after a mostly disappointing performance from some of the best Group of 5 teams, there’s now a 15.5-point gap between the worst Power 5 conference (the ACC) and the best of the G5 (the Sun Belt, now slightly ahead of the AAC).