Big Ten Football Rankings in Week 3 ESPN SP+: Ohio State No. 1 in Country

With the first three weeks of the college football season in the books, here is where all 14 Big Ten football teams stand in ESPN's SP+ rankings.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Ranking college football teams in a perfectly accurate manner is an impossible task. Human error comes into account whenever people try to do it, and one need only look at old BCS polls to know that the computers can get it wrong too.

Even though there will never be a perfect method for college football rankings, there is one system that does it better than all others, in my opinion — SP+. 

SP+ was created by college football writer Bill Connelly many years ago, then working for SB Nation, now for ESPN. There's a whole lot of complex math involved that someone smarter than me like Connelly could explain, but it essentially boils down to this paragraph he wrote in 2017. 

"SP+ is presented in the form of an adjusted points per game figure," Connelly wrote, though at the time it was called S&P+. "For instance, if Team A's S&P+ rating is plus-19.0, that means [Team A] is 19 points better than the average college football team. If Team B's rating is minus-12.0, [Team B] is 12 points worse than average."

And put another way — SP+ basically attempts to predict that if all things were even, with both teams playing on a neutral field with neutral conditions, who would be the expected winner.

Here's where all 14 Big Ten football teams rank in SP+, both nationally and relative to the rest of the conference, following Week 3's games.

Big Ten SP+ Rankings

1. Ohio State (30.3 rating, 1st overall in FBS)
2. Michigan (28.2 rating, 3rd overall in FBS)
3. Penn State (23.9 rating, 9th overall in FBS)
4. Wisconsin (15.2 rating, 25th overall in FBS)
5. Iowa (13.8 rating, 28th overall in FBS) 
6. Maryland (12.6 rating, 31st overall in FBS)
7. Minnesota (8.4 rating, 42nd overall in FBS) 
8. Illinois (5.2 rating, 52nd overall in FBS)
9. Michigan State (4.7 rating, 54th overall in FBS)
10. Rutgers (2.1 rating, 64th overall in FBS)
11. Nebraska (1.5 rating, 65th overall in FBS)
12. Purdue (0.9 rating, 67th overall in FBS)
13. Indiana (-4.8 rating, 81st overall in FBS) 
14. Northwestern (-7.6 rating, 87th overall in FBS)

SP+ Ranks Ohio State as Best Team in Country 

Connelly's model was clearly impressed by the Buckeyes' 63-10 thrashing of Western Kentucky, a quality Group of 5 squad that stood no chance in Columbus. 

Ohio State ranked No. 2 in SP+ following Week 2, but rose above Georgia this past week thanks to a huge boost to its offensive SP+ rating. At 43.1 (i.e. Ohio State would score 43.1 points against a perfectly average college football team), the Buckeyes are tied with Michael Penix Jr. and Washington for having the second best offense in the sport, trailing only USC. 

Michigan is still most people's favorite to win the Big Ten, and deservedly so. The Wolverines are the two-time defending champs, and SP+ obviously still views them as an elite bunch, ranking UM No. 3 overall in the country.

But, Michigan has not yet showed the explosiveness on offense that Ohio State did last Saturday, and thus, we saw the first real case for the Buckeyes to surpass them.

Michigan State Takes a Huge Fall

As you read in last week's update, SP+ had Michigan State rated as the seventh best team in the conference, and 37th overall nationally. 

Well, it looks like the metric did not love the Spartans getting torched through the face of the earth by Penix and the Huskies on Saturday. 

Michael Penix Jr. is just an awesome quarterback #iufb pic.twitter.com/J535cBT6pj

— Dan Olinger (@dan_olinger) September 18, 2023

This is one where the numbers and those who watched the game in East Lansing can agree — this Michigan State team is much closer to finishing last in the Big Ten than it is to winning a significant number of games.

Big Ten Tiers by SP+

Disclaimer: This is not how I would rank the teams in the conference. I would put Iowa and Maryland over Wisconsin right now, and there's no reason to believe Michigan State or Purdue are better than Indiana.

But looking at the SP+ rankings, it slots the Big Ten football teams into a few clear tiers based on how far the numbers are separated from each other. Here's what those look like:

SP+ Tier 1: Elite Teams

• Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State

SP+ Tier 2: Teams that are Good but not Great

• Wisconsin, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota

SP+ Tier 3: Mediocre to Below Average Teams

• Illinois, Michigan State, Rutgers, Nebraska, Purdue

SP+ Tier 4: The Basement

• Indiana, Northwestern

Related Stories on Big Ten Football:

• MICHAEL PENIX EMERGING HEISMAN FAVORITE: The former Indiana quarterback had an incredible game for Washington in Week 3, and is now one of the betting favorites to win the 2023 Heisman trophy. CLICK HERE
• WEEK 3 BIG TEN POWER RANKINGS: We're well into the 2023 college football season, and things have started to separate in the Big Ten. There's a clear top three in the conference, but also a whole lot disappointing squads, including two nearby teams that slid below Indiana in this week's rankings. CLICK HERE
• WOULD B1G EVER KICK A TEAM OUT OF CONFERENCE: With Stanford, Cal and SMU joining the ACC in 2024, conference realignment has truly gotten out of hand. With all the movement up into new conferences coming, we ask the question — would the Big Ten ever forcibly remove a team from its own conference? CLICK HERE