Here's how SP+ has fluctuated overtime during the Pry era. In an effort remove the noise, I basically listed the rating for every 3 games (eg; a quarter season).
| FIELD1 | Overall | Offensive | Defensive | Special Teams | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 Preason | 61 | 90 | 31 | N/A | N/A |
| 2022 Game 3 | 61 | 106 | 19 | 18 | 2-1 |
| 2022 Game 6 | 86 | 118 | 44 | 30 | 2-4 |
| 2022 Game 9 | 91 | 116 | 48 | 49 | 2-7 |
| 2022 Post Season | 100 | 123 | 38 | 75 | 3-8 |
| 2023 Preason | 65 | 90 | 46 | N/A | N/A |
| 2023 Game 3 | 78 | 92 | 60 | 51 | 1-2 |
| 2023 Game 6 | 76 | 96 | 51 | 44 | 2-4 |
| 2023 Game 9 | 66 | 88 | 43 | 17 | 4-5 |
| 2023 Game 12 | 60 | 73 | 54 | 15 | 6-6 |
SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is intended to be predictive and forward-facing. It is not a résumé ranking that gives credit for big wins or particularly brave scheduling. 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.
In the beginning of the season, SP+ heavily considers preseason rankings (which include historical performances, number and quality of returning snaps, recruiting ratings, etc). With each week, the preseason rankings are less and less of a factor. SP+ is 'cumulative' over the course of the season; it looks at how a team has performed in all games in a given season, and suggests how well they will do in the next game.
Comments
Lots of interesting things to glean from this, but I think it's cool to see that we improved from 123rd on offense to 73rd. It didn't feel like that was possible 4 games into the season.
I figured for Bowen to keep his job we needed a minimum improvement into the 90's offensively. Very happy to have underestimated him and our players.
If we get some improved OL play next year, Bowen will be just fine- I was very impressed the last half of this season with the offense- some explosive plays, some crisp drives. Drones is a very solid QB.
The offense surprised me too. The OLine was bad all season (that part wasn't really surprising) and the coaches figured out a way to mitigate that weakness and find yards and points in spite of that fact. A ton of credit to all of the coaches and players for their efforts. There were a few stinkers but the team showed progress and growth and improvement over the course of the year, culminating in a devastatingly solid outing against our rival, on the road.
I hope that the coaches are able to continue bringing in the type of talent we need to be competitive in this league. Especially up front. But based on how this season went, I have faith that if we have better road-graders in the trenches, we're only going to get better offensively. Here's to hopin'!
The emergence of Drones, and with him an identity on offense, coupled with the multiple excellent portal additions at WR and RB worked out great. I think in order to break into the top half we need to improve the OL dramatically. OL is one of the premium portal positions, where there is a ton of competition for a group of guys that are mostly JAG's with only a couple truly plus-value guys... So there will be a lot of pressure on the offensive staff to develop who we have/have coming in as well.
Top half of FBS offenses or P5? I feel like if there was a way to 'filter out' the first 4 games of the season, this would be a top 65 (top half) FBS offense.
But, nitpicks aside, I agree, the line has to improve - it's pretty clear that the OL was the limiting factor preventing us from even hanging with FSU and UL. If we want to keep it close with a top 25 team, we need to improve OL.
I meant moreso as a P5, but that wasn't clear at all, and I think it would actually be more accurate to say something like top 40 offense, because that accounts for being about top half in the P5 + maybe behind those handful of highly rated G5 offenses each year.
Though while looking at some examples just now I was pretty shocked to see the VT offense is 41st in FPI offensive efficiency. This season has given me some pause in how FPI comes up with these offensive efficiency numbers though and there is no transparency for an attempted diagnosis... so I prefer SP+.
Yea - I know that SP+ focuses mostly on Success Rate, Explosiveness, and Starting Field Position. I conceptually understand how these building blocks result in predicted yards and thus predicted points.
FPI's Wikipedia Page is the best explanation I can find. Seems to me that FPI is heavily dependent on EPA, which I don't love... I think EPA is really good for analyzing how a team does in certain situations, but when it's attributed to either single players (some media members love to do this) or an entire game, the projections don't always match what I see.
Also, based on the wiki, it sounds like FPI was designed for NFL, and then retro-fitted for college (though that's not explicitly stated; just my interpretation given how many comments there were about using 4 years of past results in college due to the playing field being less level).
Stu Holt doing some work over the course of thise season
Peter Moore being the only player on the team to (i think?) garner any ALL-ACC consideration and then being the afterthought of our special teams unit was a nice surprise. We arguably had the best kicker, punt and kickoff returners in the league this year. Plus Lowe is excellent at kickoffs.
Not sure how SP+ handles onside kicks or fakes but we had a couple of those late too
That's mostly in field position or offensive success rate - really good punting flips the field. Really good returns flip the field in the opposite direction. Special teams SP+ is basically measures how much you flip the field between possessions.
One thing that I noticed is that Holloway almost always catches the punt. This is highly underrated. Every a fair caught ball saves you at least 5 yards.
Holloway also leads the conference in yards per PR (13.6 yards)
Tuten leads the conference in yards per KR (2 TD's as well).
Holloway gets us more than first down of field position every time he live fields a punt. Massive for a team who probably needs all the field position help they can get offensively.
STU HOLT!
Yes sir. I legit thought he was the worst special teams coach in the country last year
I mean the numbers are there, special teams did not end the year all that great so he really turned it around.