From Alabama to Vandy, where every SEC team ranks in ESPN’s SP+ rankings after Week 2
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Two weeks of SEC football in 2020 are in the books, and ESPN’s Bill Connelly has adjusted his SP+ rankings to reflect Saturday’s college football results.
The SP+ rankings are “a tempo and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency” created by Connelly. The rankings are “predictive” according to Connelly, taking how a team’s play will affect its future games into account more so than recent results.
Alabama is at the top of the SEC, and at No. 2 nationally having surpassed Clemson and sitting behind only Ohio State, who has not played a game in 2020. The Crimson Tide have a rating of 28.5 and are two spots ahead of Georgia, who is at No. 4 with a 25.6 rating following a dominant 27-6 win over Auburn.
Florida is the only other SEC team in the top ten at No. 8 with a rating of 21. Auburn comes in at No. 15, with LSU at No. 20 and Tennessee at No. 22 with a rating of 13.6.
Texas A&M sits as No. 29 after a being routed by Alabama on the road, and Kentucky is at No. 42. South Carolina and Ole Miss take the No. 43 and 44 spots, respectively. Mississippi State was riding high last week after the upset over LSU, but fell to Arkansas in Mike Leach’s home opener on Saturday, and are down to No. 47 in the SP+ rankings.
The SEC bottom-feeders in these rankings are Missouri at No. 65, Arkansas at No. 68, and finally Vanderbilt at No. 115. Vandy has a -12.7 rating, and sit behind several non-Power 5 schools such as Middle Tennessee, UTSA, South Alabama, and others.
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Lucas is a digital reporter for 104.5 The Zone in Nashville, and a high school play-by-play broadcaster. Lucas has been covering SEC football for Saturday Down South since 2018.
