Where every SEC team ranks in ESPN’s SP+ rankings ahead of Week 6
By SDS Staff
Published:
The SEC landscape is certainly interesting ahead of Week 6.
Five SEC teams remain undefeated — Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia and LSU, while six teams have already lost three games — South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss and Arkansas.
The league is quite top heavy, with all five of those undefeated teams ranked in the top 10 of ESPN’s latest SP+ rankings. Seven teams are ranked in the top 25, while five teams are ranked above 50th. ESPN explains the SP+ rankings on their website as follows:
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 intended to be predictive and forward-facing. That is important to remember. 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.
Arkansas State (ranked 81st) is even ranked ahead of Arkansas this week.
Here are ESPN’s SP+ rankings ahead of Week 6:
1. Alabama
4. Georgia
5. LSU
9. Auburn
10. Florida
15. Missouri
23. Texas A&M
27. Mississippi State
34. South Carolina
54. Tennessee
58. Ole Miss
61. Kentucky
82. Arkansas
87. Vanderbilt
Saturday Down South reports and comments on the news around the Southeastern Conference as well as larger college football topics.
