All is not wine and roses, as Irish natives are restless despite a 15-point win over a top-20 opponent. And SP+ has downgraded its opinion of Notre Dame as well. From an SP+ perspective the defense was just OK, with the dominant second half balancing out a flaccid first half; similarly, the offense was just OK, with an efficient and moderately explosive run game balancing out a disjointed passing game. There was a lot to be happy with but also some stuff to be concerned about, and the SP+ update reflects that.
Recapping the methodology again: These aren’t actual SP+ win probabilities, as SP+ creator Bill Connelly doesn’t publish those regularly after his preseason previews. We used a slightly tweaked version of the formula that the Reddit guy reverse-engineered to get close to published probabilities. That formula does some probability magic on the differential in SP+ rating for the two teams (with a bump for home field), and voilà.
Post-Week 5 Update
As to how to read this chart:
As you move down each column, you find the probability of Notre Dame owning that many wins at that point of the schedule. In the first row, you can see that the probability of owning 0 wins through week 1 is 0% and one win is 100%, since we already won. Same for the New Mexico row. The Georgia row shows a 100% of two wins through three games, while the Virginia row shows a 100% chance of three wins through four games.
The 9.3% figure at the end of the Stanford row reflects our probability of having 11 wins through 12 games – effectively, our chances of winning out. Last week SP+ predicted 10-2 as our most likely season record; this week, due mostly to a humongous jump by Michigan, it projects 9-3. More on that below.
In the last row, we’re tracking how much the probability of each win total has changed from the previous week. This is largely a function of our own outcomes, the quality of play that led to those outcomes, and SP+’s changing perceptions of our opponents.
Week by Week Game Trends
We’ll get into these moves in more detail below, but man, I need to say here that I’m highly, highly skeptical of that Michigan move. Highly.
Other Nuggets
- Tackling the “Big Three”: A sweep of USC, Michigan, and Stanford dropped from a 38% probability last week to a 21% probability this week, on the strength of the likely overreaction to Michigan’s demolition of Rutgers. Accordingly, SP+ now considers wins over USC and Stanford and a loss to Michigan to be the most likely outcome, at 31%.
- Taking care of business: Despite the win, Notre Dame’s expected win total dropped about a quarter of a game to 9.13 wins. If the Irish win all games in which SP+ heavily favors them (70% or higher win probability), that expectation jumps to 9.7 wins, down from 10.6 last week. This is hurt by the Michigan move and also by USC and Duke dropping below 70%, which puts them in the non-sure win category.
- Michigan has SP+ fooled again: For the last couple of seasons SP+ has seemingly been hoodwinked by Michigan’s performance against bad teams, given that they consistently have been waxed by good teams. The wool seemed to be off the algorithm’s eyes last week when Wisconsin hammered them, but it returned this week when they hammered Rutgers. Don’t get me wrong, I know SP+ is a math problem and it doesn’t have inherent bias towards any one team. Just, man, has Michigan figured out how to work that system.
- Movers and shakers: Highlighting just the notable movers…
- Michigan dropped an even 18 points, just about to where they were preseason, because beating up on Rutgers apparently outweighs going to overtime against Army and getting destroyed by Wisconsin. Interesting.
- USC dropped 6.9 points despite losing 28-14 to Washington, which is interesting. I’ll continue to be concerned by the explosive potential of their receivers until I’m not.
- Duke dropped 12.3 points after eviscerating Virginia Tech 45-10. Maybe we should be concerned about them too, or maybe Virginia Tech is just really, really bad. I know where my money is.
- Navy climbed 2.1 points, which isn’t that notable in itself, but I just wanted to mention this from the game: Memphis had scoring plays of 99 yards (kick return), 75 yards (run), 73 yards (pass), and 31 yards (pass). That’s how you log a double-digit win with a 17-minute time of possession disadvantage.
- Stanford dropped 9.5 points on the strength of a last-second win over Oregon State. It’s a bit puzzling, as Oregon State had a 0.9 ypp advantage and was at or inside the Stanford 30 three times in the first half with no points to show for it. Was our 35-20 pull-away win over SP+ #37 Virginia that much less impressive than Stanford’s 31-28 survival against SP+ #80 Oregon State? I guess it was…
Could be that the SP+ formula is just overrated? At least needs tweaked IMO.
Nah: https://twitter.com/ESPN_BillC/status/1178270556938002433
Yeah SP+ is really good. Like any statistical formula, it’s going to have a few blind spots. I personally just take whatever Michigan and Washington are ranked and drop them about 10 spots. Every year. Every other team seems reasonably ranked to me, in general.
Hey Brendan, good stuff! Despite the win, that ND offense did not look very good until they were running the ball to kill the clock in the 4th quarter. Have you had any ideas or discussions with others about what BK can do to fix the offense? For example, Finke seems to be having a down year and seems invisible for stretches — maybe give someone else some reps at WR?
Another thing to keep in mind with all of this is that this week was still dropping out preseason projections for SP+. So given that ND’s fairly positive preseason projections are getting replaced with, in this case our Virginia game, it’s not too surprising that we dropped (or that some others moved up).
I would say the frustrating thing is having a +1 YPP difference against a top 30 team and you still drop decently in combination with Michigan’s precipitous drop after Wisconsin and bounce back because of Rutgers. Clearly there is no way to capture hangover, letdowns, bye weeks and all the intangibles but we had all that going against us this week and still smothered a good team, and in theory should have all that going for us come Michigan time.
The other frustrating part about this is SP+ Is not really wrong. I’m still surprised our offense is rated higher than D, but our offense is just pedestrian right now. Hard to be a top 8 team with an offense putting together 2 touchdown drives a game the last 2 games .
So apparently someone picked up the slack at Reddit and is doing these again for the nation. Well, bollocks to them, I say, and we’ll continue to do our own. ND is the last major independent, after all. Might as well uphold the tradition!
That’s the spirit Brendan!
I guess beating Rutgers is good for the soul