Scarlet Sunrise: ESPN’s SP+ illustrates Buckeyes perennial national relevance
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ESPN’s SP+ illustrates Buckeyes perennial national relevance
The College Football Playoff is expanding from four to 12 teams in 2024. Will that fix college football’s parity problem? Alabama has won six national titles in 12 years under Nick Saban, and Georgia has won back-to-back national championships.
The CFP has been around since 2014, and only 14 different teams have made the four-team field. And, of those 14 teams, five have been in the running three or more times.
ESPN’s Bill Connelly turned to SP+, his “tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency,” to determine if the top-heavy nature of the sport has always existed.
Normally, SP+ is is a forward-facing, predictive model that uses five factors — efficiency, explosiveness, field position, finishing drives and turnovers — and is portrayed in the adjusted points per game format (how many points better, positive, or worse, negative, a team is than the average college football team in the current season).
For this exercise, however, Connelly created a version of SP+ “based solely on points scored and allowed that, at the lower levels of the sport, can serve to make solid projections.”
He applied that new version of the metric to every season since 1883 and, starting with the 1920s, took a decade-by-decade look at which teams — based on SP+ percentile averages — were in the driver’s seat.
A total of 39 programs placed in the top 10 for at least one decade (not including the ongoing 2020s), according to Connelly’s findings. Here’s the breakdown:
7 times: Alabama, Ohio State5 times: Michigan, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas4 times: Georgia, LSU, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Penn State3 times: Army, Miami, Texas A&M, USC2 times: Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ole Miss, UCLA, Wisconsin1 time: Clemson, Dartmouth, Duke, Fordham, Kentucky, Oklahoma State, Penn, Pitt, Purdue, TCU, Texas Tech, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech
Since Alabama went back-to-back in the 1960s and 1970s, the top team of each decade has been different. Ohio State, though, has yet to hold that No. 1 spot.
Here’s where the Buckeyes ranked, by decade, in Connelly’s thought experiment:
1920s: N/A1930s: 6th (86.5 percentile, three top-five SP+ finishes)1940s: N/A1950s: 5th (85.4 percentile, two top-five SP+ finishes, one No. 1)1960s: 6th (87.0 percentile, two top-five SP+ finishes, one No. 1)1970s: 5th (96.0 percentile, four top-five SP+ finishes, one No. 1)1980s: N/A1990s: 7th (90.1 percentile, three top-five SP+ finishes, one No. 1)2000s: 7th (89.7 percentile, two top-five SP+ finishes, one No. 1)2010s: 2nd (94.1 percentile, eight top-five SP+ finishes, one No. 1)2020s (still in progress): 2nd (98.2 percentile)
Although Ohio State has just one national title since 2002, the Buckeyes have taken things up a notch the last two decades, in terms of SP+.
Connelly noted that, of the five best teams in the 2010s, the only non-Alabama squad was the 2019 Buckeyes, who suffered a heartbreaking loss to Clemson in the CFP.
Connelly concluded that Alabama has been at the root of the sport’s most predictable decades. And, ultimately, over the last 100 years, there has been more parity than you’d think — even if it’s been hard to come by of late.
Ohio State aces another major official visit weekend
To say Ohio State had an important recruiting weekend would be an understatement.
The Buckeyes hosted 10 official visitors, including a handful of key defensive targets, as well as four-star Fairburn (Ga.) Langston Hughes quarterback and commit Air Noland.
Lettermen Row has intel, notes and even a few predictions based on what we heard Sunday.
To get all of that, head on over here.
The Recap: Everything we learned from Lettermen Row Wide Receivers Week
Another week of Lettermen Row‘s position-by-position preview series is in the books.
We did a deep dive into the deepest Ohio State position group last week: the Buckeyes’ wide receivers. The room is headlined by Marvin Harrison Jr., a returning Biletnikoff Award finalist and projected top-three pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. He’s paired with fellow 1,000-yard receiver Emeka Egbuka.
And don’t forget about Julian Fleming, the former No. 3 overall prospect in the 2020 class.
Plus, Ohio State has added four more highly-touted receivers to the mix this offseason, including Carnell Tate — who already shed his black stripe — and Brandon Inniss, a key leader of the 2023 class.
For a complete recap of last week’s wideout content, go here.
FULL COVERAGE
Five Questions for Buckeyes historic group of wide receivers
Examining 2023 Ohio State wide receiver NIL valuations
Top-five wide receiver performances since Ryan Day became head coach
Knowing the basics of Buckeyes wide receivers
Mapping out career path of each Buckeyes WR so far
After offseason WR transfers, Brian Hartline to keep stockpiling talent
Taking closer look at state of Buckeyes wide receivers room
Projecting Buckeyes wide receiver depth chart
Brandon Inniss is latest arrival among new crop of Buckeyes WRs but could make biggest impact
Making three predictions for Buckeyes wide receivers
Counting down
Buckeyes vs. Indiana: 76 days
Buckeyes vs. Michigan: 160 days
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