Alabama may not have played this week, but it moved into the top spot — not only in the AP Top 25 poll, but also in another set of rankings.
Each week, ESPN’s Bill Connelly releases his SP+ rankings, which he describes as “a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency” that are determined by a computer. It largely takes into consideration how impressive a team is in a given week, not considering strength of opponent.
In the latest edition, Alabama moved into the No. 1 spot. Ohio State fell to No. 2 despite notching a 49-27 home win over Rutgers. As Connelly noted, “the bar for dominance is awfully high among the 99th-percentile teams,” which led to the Buckeyes slipping a spot.
Clemson is at No. 3 despite losing to Notre Dame, which is ranked at No. 8. Also worth noting is that Florida is at No. 5 after its big 44-28 win over Georgia.
Here’s where every SEC team sits in the latest edition of the SP+ rankings:
1. Alabama — 28.4
5. Florida — 21.3
9. Georgia — 19.1
13. Texas A&M — 16.4
22. Auburn — 12.3
44. LSU — 5.8
47. Ole Miss — 5.1
58. Kentucky — 1.2
60. Arkansas — 0.8
65. Tennessee — 0.5
75. Missouri — minus-1.5
77. Mississippi State — minus-1.8
79. South Carolina — minus-2.0
120. Vanderbilt — minus-16.7
Jake Rill contributes to news coverage for Saturday Down South. He has covered the SEC since 2016.
