SP+ Prediction/Post-season Comparison

For all my analytics nerds out there, our season is over, so I thought it would be interesting to compare our post season standing against our preseason projections.

A quick definition for those unfamiliar:

In a single sentence, it's a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. [Bill Connelly] created the system at Football Outsiders in 2008, and as [his] experience with both college football and its stats has grown, [he has] 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.

Preseason Projection Current Standing
Overall 61 100
Offense 90 123
Defense 31 38
Special Teams N/A 75
Total Wins 6.6 3
Conference Wins 3.9 2

Here's a link to the 'final' preseason projections. And here is the link to the week 12 rankings. Obviously, other teams' seasons are not over, so our ranking may shift up or down, but nothing drastic.

Update to include some more miscellaneous tidbits:

  • If you're wondering, SP+ has picked the correct winner against the spread in 50.1% of FBS games this year.
  • VT is the third lowest ranked ACC team, in front of GT (106th overall, 105th offense, 73rd on defense) and BC (114th overall, 98th on offense, 95th on defense)
  • UVA is currently 98th overall, 115th on defense, and 45th on offense
  • Miami and Duke are 72nd and 57th, respectively. All other ACC teams are inside the top 50.
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