Georgia Tech falls in SP+ rankings after Louisville loss

Where is Georgia Tech in the latest SP+ rankings?

Week one is now in the books and week two is on deck in college football. Once the week is over, the new rankings are going to be coming out and that includes advanced stats/power rankings like SP+. 

Georgia Tech did not start the year off ranked very high in ESPN's Bill Connelly's SP+ rankings (75th), but a solid performance against a higher-ranked Louisville team could have meant a jump in the rankings for the Yellow Jackets. 

That was not the case though this week. 

Connelly released his updated SP+ rankings yesterday and Georgia Tech fell from 75th to 80th. Connelly ranked the Yellow Jackets offense as the 75th best in the country and the defense as the 79th. 

So what exactly is SP+ and what goes into making these rankings? Here is how Connelly formulates his rankings in his own words:

"SP+ is indeed intended to be predictive and forward-facing. It is not a résumé ranking that gives credit for big wins or particularly brave scheduling -- no good predictive system is. It is simply a measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football. If you're lucky or unimpressive in a win, your rating will probably fall. If you're strong and unlucky in a loss, it will probably rise."

"I base SP+ projections on three primary factors, weighted by their predictiveness:

1. Returning production. The returning production numbers are based on rosters I have updated as much as possible to account for transfers and attrition. The combination of last year's SP+ ratings and adjustments based on returning production make up about half 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). Beginning this season, I am also incorporating transfers -- both the quality and the volume -- in a different way. After last season's transfer-heavy recruiting shift, I've got a bit more data for how to handle that. This piece makes up about one-third of the projections formula.

3. Recent history. Using a sliver of information from previous seasons (two to four years ago) gives us a good measure of overall program health. It stands to reason that a team that has played well for one year is less likely to duplicate that effort than a team that has been good for years on end (and vice versa), right? This is a minor piece of the puzzle -- only about 15% -- but the projections are better with it than without.

Here are the rankings for the rest of Georgia Tech's 2023 opponents, except for South Carolina State.

2. Georgia (7th offense, 1st defense)

14. Ole Miss (10th offense, 24th defense)

21. North Carolina (15th offense, 39th defense)

23. Clemson (37th offense, 16th defense)

24. Miami (40th offense, 13th defense)

37. Wake Forest (34th offense, 56th defense)

40. Syracuse (50th offense, 32nd defense)

95. Boston College (106th offense, 73rd defense)

99. Virginia (127th offense, 58th defense)

126. Bowling Green (104th offense and 129th defense)

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