Minnesota started the weekend off with a surprise win over Nebraska. Penn State continued its winless streak, this time losing at Iowa. UCLA continued its winning streak by beating Maryland. Ohio State and Oregon won on the road, but all of the other home teams won their games. So where does that leave all of the Big Ten teams in the rankings?
Polls
There were plenty of upsets across college football in week 8, and a total of 9 AP top-25 teams that lost. Two Big Ten teams dropped out of the top-25, and 2 moved back up into the top-25.
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Here are the 5 Big Ten teams in the polls (AP/Coaches):
-
Ohio State (1/1) Unchanged
-
Indiana (2/2) Up 1 in both polls
-
Oregon (6/6) Up 2 in the AP and 3 in the Coaches poll
-
Illinois (23/23) Up from unranked in the AP and up 2 in the Coaches
-
Michigan (25/24) Up from unranked in both polls
USC (#26) and Minnesota (#35) are getting votes in the AP poll. USC (#27), Iowa (#31), Washington (#36, and Northwestern (#43). That’s 2 new Big Ten teams (Minnesota and Northwestern) that are getting votes.
Composite Ranking
This week the Massey Composite (https://masseyratings.com/ranks) includes 83 different rankings (as of the writing of this article), including the AP and Coaches polls. The following “Cool Chart” shows the changes since the preseason for the teams in the Big Ten.
The same two teams have been at the top since week 4: Ohio State and Indiana.
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Northwestern has made the biggest jump since the preseason. They are now up 29 places. Purdue is up 21 places, but they are still the lowest-ranked Big Ten team. Indiana (+13) is the only other team up more than 10 places since the preseason.
Obviously Penn State is down the most since the preseason-50 places. But Wisconsin isn’t far behind; they are down 47 places. Rutgers (-28), UCLA (-21), Michigan State (-20), and Minnesota (-14) are other Big Ten teams down more than 10 places.
Despite the drop after their loss to Michigan, UW is still up 8 places since the preseason rankings.
Other Rankings
Now that all of the teams have played at least 6 games, the advanced stats should reflect how each of the teams is playing this season (and no longer have as much influence from how the teams played last season). The table below lists the rankings for each of the Big Ten teams in 6 different advanced stats rankings: SP+, FEI, ESPN’s FPI, and Kelly Ford (KFord). Also included in the table are some other popular rankings of all FBS teams along with the SRS rankings. (Sagarin includes all D1 teams, so FCS teams are included).
|
School |
Composite |
SP+ |
FPI |
FEI |
Sagarin |
CBS |
KFord |
SRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Illinois |
19 |
27 |
27 |
27 |
26 |
24 |
25 |
16 |
|
Indiana |
2 |
3 |
4 |
4 |
5 |
2 |
2 |
5 |
|
Iowa |
29 |
22 |
24 |
19 |
22 |
31 |
22 |
29 |
|
Maryland |
64 |
35 |
57 |
48 |
60 |
53 |
60 |
61 |
|
Michigan |
20 |
21 |
16 |
16 |
20 |
26 |
14 |
22 |
|
Michigan State |
83 |
74 |
72 |
83 |
70 |
69 |
68 |
88 |
|
Minnesota |
46 |
49 |
60 |
50 |
46 |
42 |
55 |
55 |
|
Nebraska |
34 |
26 |
31 |
34 |
40 |
35 |
29 |
49 |
|
Northwestern |
48 |
61 |
56 |
60 |
59 |
46 |
59 |
53 |
|
Ohio State |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
|
Oregon |
8 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
5 |
3 |
13 |
|
Penn State |
52 |
17 |
21 |
20 |
16 |
54 |
20 |
59 |
|
Purdue |
90 |
73 |
77 |
76 |
95 |
82 |
74 |
81 |
|
Rutgers |
75 |
67 |
63 |
65 |
68 |
72 |
62 |
71 |
|
UCLA |
70 |
68 |
65 |
61 |
61 |
63 |
65 |
78 |
|
USC |
16 |
16 |
8 |
11 |
15 |
25 |
10 |
9 |
|
Washington |
27 |
23 |
22 |
26 |
25 |
36 |
24 |
28 |
|
Wisconsin |
89 |
79 |
69 |
74 |
72 |
90 |
67 |
90 |
Minnesota and Northwestern are the teams that improved the most in the last week. Rutgers, Maryland, and Nebraska dropped in all of the rankings. UW dropped in a few of the rankings, including down 12 in the Composite, but they were unchanged in a couple despite the loss.
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Several teams are ranked higher in the Composite and the other rankings compared to the SRS rankings: Michigan State, Nebraska, Ohio State (Notre Dame is #1 in SRS), Oregon, and UCLA.
Penn State continues to be a strange case as 3 rankings have them in the 50’s while the other rankings have them in the top 25.
PPA
The graph below shows the Predicted Points Added (PPA) for both offense and defense for all of the Big Ten teams. If you are familiar with Expected Points Added (EPA), PPA is very similar.
There is a horizontal and vertical line representing something close to the average for all FBS teams. High PPA is good for offenses (to the right of the line); above average defenses have a small PPA (below the line).
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Six Big Ten teams are in both the ‘Above Average Defense’ and the ‘Above Average Offense’ group: USC, Oregon, Ohio State, Michigan, Indiana, and Washington. The difference between this and the AP ranking is that USC and UW are not ranked (although USC is getting votes) while Illinois is ranked.
Week 9 Games
There are 7 Big Ten games this week-all conference games. (There are only conference games within the Big Ten until the end of the regular season.)
|
Visitor |
ESPN FPI |
Massey |
KFord |
SP+ |
Home |
ESPN FPI |
Massey |
KFord |
SP+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Illinois |
38.4% |
37% |
38% |
41% |
Washington |
61.6% |
63% |
62% |
59% |
|
Michigan |
87.8% |
92% |
88% |
84% |
Michigan State |
12.2% |
8% |
12% |
16% |
|
Minnesota |
21.4% |
18% |
18% |
26% |
Iowa |
78.6% |
82% |
82% |
74% |
|
Northwestern |
24.9% |
20% |
23% |
23% |
Nebraska |
75.1% |
80% |
77% |
77% |
|
Rutgers |
54.4% |
58% |
62% |
54% |
Purdue |
45.6% |
42% |
38% |
46% |
|
UCLA |
3.8% |
6% |
3% |
4% |
Indiana |
96.2% |
94% |
97% |
96% |
|
Wisconsin |
2.8% |
2% |
2% |
2% |
Oregon |
97.2% |
98% |
98% |
98% |
There is consistency between the projections as to which team is the favorite in all 7 games, and the win percentages are consistent as well. There is a heavy favorite in 5 of the games; only the UW-Illinois and the Rutgers-Purdue games look like they could be close.
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Final Notes
Three Big Ten teams have already clinched bowl-eligibility. There are 8 more Big Ten teams that just need one more game. Between Illinois and Washington, one team will get to bowl-eligibility after this weekend. Likewise, Minnesota-Iowa and Northwestern-Nebraska are games featuring teams with 5 wins, so two more teams will get bowl-eligible after this weekend. Michigan is also favored to get their 6th win this weekend.
Wisconsin and Purdue still haven’t won a game since September 6th. Michigan State, Rutgers, and Penn State haven’t won since Sept. 13. Between Rutgers and Purdue, one of those teams will break their losing streak this weekend. Penn State may not break their losing streak until the middle of November since they are off this week and then play Ohio State and then Indiana (ouch!). After that, Penn State plays Michigan State, so one of them is guaranteed to break their losing streak by then. Wisconsin may not win another game this season since they play Oregon, UW, Indiana, Illinois, and then Minnesota. They are currently underdogs in every one of those games. If Purdue doesn’t beat Rutgers this weekend, they may not win another game since they play Michigan, Ohio State, Washington, and Indiana in their remaining games.
After dropping their first 4 games, UCLA has surprised and won their last 3. But that streak will be tested this weekend as they play at Indiana. After that they have to play Nebraska, at Ohio State, UW, and then at USC. They aren’t favored in any of their remaining games-but then again, they weren’t favored in their last 3 games. We’ll have to see if their luck runs out or if they still have some surprises left this season.
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UW is now projected to win at least 8 (regular season) games this season. None of the (FBS) teams that UW has beaten so far is expected to finish the season with a winning record. Maryland is the only FBS team that UW has beaten that currently has a winning record (4-3), but they are only projected to win no more than 2 of their remaining games-they will likely end up 6-6 at best. Three of UW’s future opponents (Wisconsin, Purdue, and UCLA) currently have losing records and are projected to end the season with losing records. If UW can beat Illinois this weekend, it will all but guarantee that they will beat a team that will end up with a winning record since Illinois is favored in all of their games after the UW game (Rutgers, Maryland, Wisconsin, and Northwestern).
