Big Ten Rankings and Projections After Week 1

Obviously one big game over the last week, but otherwise a relatively uneventful first weekend. All but two Big Ten teams won their games, and it wasn’t a surprise that those two teams lost-although the margin of defeat was a bit surprising. But let’s see if there are any significant changes in rankings or projections.

Polls

The two major polls were released today and there are 6 Big Ten teams ranked in both the AP Poll and in the Coaches Poll. (AP/Coaches)

In addition, there are 2 teams getting votes in both polls: USC (29/31) and Nebraska (35/37). Iowa, Nebraska, and Washington are also getting votes in just the Coaches poll (#34, 37, and #42 respectively).

Composite Ranking

There are two big caveats to the Composite Rankings this week. The first is that with just one game, many rankings are based at least partially on results from last season. The other caveat is that with some games being played on Sunday and Monday of this week, not all of the rankings have been updated at the time of this article. I expect that some Composite Rankings will change as more other rankings are added to the Composite, although they shouldn’t change by more than a few places among all teams.

As a reminder, the Composite Rankings are a combination of a number of different rankings including the two major polls along with some computer rankings (some of which were used in the days of the BCS rankings). You can find the current rankings here: https://masseyratings.com/ranks

Big Ten Composite Rankings After Week 1

The graph above shows how each of the Big Ten teams ranked among all FBS teams at the end of last season, then in the preseason this season, and now after the week 1 games.

The most notable change is with UCLA, which dropped considerably (-20 places) after their home loss to Utah. Northwestern also had a noticeable drop (-10) after their road loss to Tulane. Purdue was the only team that rose more than 5 places-going up 9 after their win over Ball State (although they are still ranked below #100).

The rest of the teams saw little change since the preseason rankings, although Indiana (down 4), Iowa (down 5), and USC (up 5) may be teams to watch in the coming weeks to see if their trends continue.

SP+

Bill Connelly has updated his SP+ rankings. Here is where the Big Ten teams are ranked among all FBS teams. The change since the preseason is also included ().

Maryland, USC, and Purdue all rose by more than 10 places. Indiana, Nebraska, Minnesota, Rutgers, UCLA, and Northwestern all dropped by more than 10 places; UCLA and Northwestern each dropped by 20 or more.

Five of UW’s Big Ten opponents are ranked above them and 4 are ranked below. UW plays at home against 3 of the 5 ranked above them.

ESPN FPI Win Projections

ESPN’s FPI has updated their win projections for all teams after the week 1 (and week 0) games. While we shouldn’t take much stock in the actual numbers, the changes can tell us about how each team looked in their games compared to what was expected.

Team	Preseason Wins	Current Wins	Change
Ohio St	10.0	10.8	0.8
Penn St	10.3	10.3	0.0
USC	8.7	10.0	1.3
Oregon	9.4	9.8	0.4
Michigan	8.8	8.1	-0.7
Indiana	8.1	7.9	-0.2
Nebraska	7.4	7.9	0.5
Washington	7.0	7.4	0.4
Illinois	7.0	7.0	0.0
Maryland	5.4	6.7	1.3
Minnesota	6.9	6.6	-0.3
Iowa	6.6	6.2	-0.4
Wisconsin	5.6	6.1	0.5
Rutgers	6.4	6.1	-0.3
Michigan St	4.8	5.2	0.4
Northwestern	4.7	4.0	-0.7
Purdue	2.9	3.9	1.0
UCLA	5.2	2.9	-2.3

Three teams improved their win projection by 1 or more wins: Maryland, Purdue, and USC. (Interesting that these are exactly the same 3 teams that increased by 1 or more wins after the first week last season.) All three teams won handily (by more than 30 points) over FBS teams (albeit, not good ones). Penn State was the only other Big Ten team to beat a FBS team by more than 20 points. Ohio State’s win projection went up by 0.8; since they were already at 10 wins before beating Texas, it was going to be hard to go up by more than that.

UCLA was the only team to have their win projection drop by more than one win. Michigan and Northwestern by dropped by 0.7 wins. In Northwestern’s case, they lost to a (good) G6 team on the road-but they weren’t very competitive. Michigan dropped despite their win because they didn’t dominate New Mexico as expected.

There are some other games where ESPN’s FPI flipped which team is now the favorite. Here are some of those games along with the previous and current win percentages:

Iowa at Wisconsin: Wisconsin 46.6% to 52.7%
Washington at Maryland: Maryland 47.3% to 52.7%
Maryland at UCLA: Maryland 30.1% to 58.2%
Maryland at Michigan State: Maryland 48.7% to 56.0%
Minnesota at California: California 42.2% to 55.1%
Wisconsin at Minnesota: Wisconsin 46.8% to 53.0%
UCLA at UNLV: UNLV 48.5% to 73.1%

Note that some of these win percentages may be different by the time you read this, but typically not by more than 1 percentage point.

In addition to the two games where UCLA’s win percentage dropped below 50%, they had one other games where their win percentage dropped by more than 20 points: UW at UCLA (UCLA from 46.8% to 25.2%). UCLA’s win percentage dropped by more than 10 points in every game except Penn State (18.0% to 8.9%) and Ohio State (7.1% to 2.8%), both games where they were already huge underdogs.

USC is nearly the opposite. Their win percentage improved by 10 or more points in 7 of their remaining 11 games-although they are still underdogs against Notre Dame (43.6%) and Oregon (41.6%)

Here’s how UW’s win percentage changed for their remaining games:

Week	Visitor	Home	Preseason	After Wk 1	Change
2	UC Davis	Washington	95.1%	96.1%	1.0%
4	Washington	Washington State	84.9%	87.2%	2.3%
5	Ohio State	Washington	22.4%	22.2%	-0.2%
6	Washington	Maryland	52.7%	47.3%	-5.4%
7	Rutgers	Washington	64.1%	70.7%	6.6%
8	Washington	Michigan	21.8%	28.0%	6.2%
9	Illinois	Washington	60.3%	61.2%	0.9%
11	Washington	Wisconsin	42.1%	42.2%	0.1%
12	Purdue	Washington	90.6%	86.4%	-4.2%
13	Washington	UCLA	53.2%	74.8%	21.6%
14	Oregon	Washington	27.0%	24.9%	-2.1%

UW’s win percentage did drop in 4 games. The only case where that switched the favorite is week 6’s game at Maryland, but it is still expected to be a close game. And, as noted above, UW’s win percentage increased 21.6 points versus UCLA; it also increased 6.6 points versus Rutgers and 6.2 points versus Michigan.

Week 2 Games

Here’s a look at win projections for the Big Ten teams for the week 2 games.

Date	Visitor	Home	SP+	ESPN FPI	Massey
Sep. 5	Northern Illinois	Maryland	84%	85.9%	93%
Sep. 5	Western Illinois	Northwestern	95%	97.9%	99%
Sep. 6	Michigan	Oklahoma	36%	46.5%	55%
Sep. 6	Akron	Nebraska	97%	96.4%	100%
Sep. 6	FIU	Penn State	99%	98.1%	100%
Sep. 6	Kennesaw State	Indiana	96%	94.6%	100%
Sep. 6	Northwestern State	Minnesota	100%	99.0%	100%
Sep. 6	Georgia Southern	USC	97%	98.1%	95%
Sep. 6	Grambling	Ohio State	100%	99.0%	100%
Sep. 6	Boston College	Michigan State	46%	47.5%	47%
Sep. 6	Miami (OH)	Rutgers	79%	80.8%	85%
Sep. 6	Southern Illinois	Purdue	83%	90.3%	90%
Sep. 6	Middle Tennessee	Wisconsin	98%	97.3%	99%
Sep. 6	UC Davis	Washington	91%	96.1%	96%
Sep. 6	Iowa	Iowa State	34%	34.6%	30%
Sep. 6	UCLA	UNLV	43%	26.9%	56%
Sep. 6	Oklahoma State	Oregon	91%	93.3%	88%
Sep. 6	Illinois	Duke	57%	49.4%	59%

The win projections are very similar except for 3 games; all of them are games where the Big Ten team is the visitor. The win percentage for Michigan in their game at Oklahoma varies from 36% to 55%. The win percentage for UCLA in their game at UNLV varies from 26.9% to 56%-that’s a large range! And there is a much smaller range for Illinois at Duke; it goes for 49.4% to 57%.

There is only one other game that is expected to be close, and that is Boston College at Michigan State.

Final Notes

As we saw with Alabama and Boise State already this season, rankings at the beginning of the season don’t guarantee that teams deserved those rankings or will stay ranked (although Alabama did stay ranked-so far). It is also true that one game is not enough to determine how good or bad a team is. There are some teams that have moved up or dropped more than they deserve. Such is the nature of polls-lots of overreactions. The good news is that there are more games which will provide more data until we get to the playoffs where polls will not be the deciding factor.

The rankings and stats show that Washington has improved since last year; currently they are in the middle of the Big Ten-and outside the top 25 nationally. Given the opponents for their first 3 games, it is unlikely that will change much in the next few weeks. By the time UW gets to conference play, however, they will have a chance to make some moves in the rankings-either up or down.

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