Penn State being third in ESPN’s SP+ rankings shouldn’t come as a surprise.
The fact that Alabama is one of the two teams ahead of it is a little more intriguing.
In ESPN’s updated SP+ rankings post spring football, Penn State is behind only top-ranked Ohio State and Alabama.
Ohio State being ahead of Penn State isn’t a surprise. After all, the Buckeyes are the reigning national champs and are 13-2 against Penn State since the start of 2010. Alabama is a little more surprising. Yes, ‘Bama is the most successful program of the 21st century, what with its six national titles under the iconic Nick Saban from between 2009 and 2020.
But the Saban era is over, and Alabama is coming off a 9-4 campaign.
HOW SP+ WORKS
A big part of why Alabama is ahead of Penn State is that this is not a typical ranking, so here’s how SP+ works, as written by ESPN’s Bill Connelly.
1. Returning production. The returning production numbers are based on rosters I have updated as much as humanly possible to account for transfers and attrition. The combination of last year’s SP+ ratings and adjustments based on returning production makes up about two-thirds of the projections formula.
2. Recent recruiting. This piece informs us of the caliber of a team’s potential replacements (and/or new stars) in the lineup. It is determined by the past few years of recruiting rankings in diminishing order (meaning the most recent class carries the most weight). This is also impacted by the recruiting rankings of incoming transfers, an acknowledgment that the art of roster management is now heavily dictated by the transfer portal.
3. Recent history. Using a sliver of information from the previous four seasons or so gives us a good measure of overall program health.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.(One other reminder: SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and along those lines, these projections aren’t intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the season. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather.)
Based on these metrics, the top four are:
- Ohio State
-
Alabama
-
Penn State
-
Georgia
WHAT THE OTHER POST-SPRING RANKINGS SAID
Photo by Matt Lynch, Nittany Sports Now
Here’s where some other post-spring rankings have Penn State and Alabama.
On3’s Ari Wasserman has Penn State No. 1 and Alabama No. 8.
ESPN itself recently named Penn State No. 1 in a more traditional ranking.
Fox’s Joel Klatt also ranked Penn State No. 1. while not even having Alabama in the top 25.
Penn State opens its season Aug. 30 against Nevada at Beaver Stadium.
