Big Ten Football Rankings Week 6 ESPN SP+: Nebraska and Rutgers Rising

Here is where all 14 Big Ten teams stand in ESPN's SP+ rankings following Week 6 of the 2023 college football season.

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 6's games.

Big Ten SP+ Rankings

1. Michigan (25.7 rating, 1st overall in FBS)
2. Ohio State (22.5 rating, 4th overall in FBS)
3. Penn State (17.9 rating, 10th overall in FBS)
4. Wisconsin (13.2 rating, 23rd overall in FBS)
5. Maryland (9.7 rating, 31st overall in FBS)
6. Iowa (6.0 rating, 41st overall in FBS)
7. Rutgers (2.1 rating, 58th overall in FBS)
8. Michigan State (1.9 rating, 59th overall in FBS)
9. Nebraska (1.4 rating, 63rd overall in FBS)
10. Minnesota (1.2 rating, 64th overall in FBS)
11. Illinois (0.4 rating, 68th overall in FBS)
12. Purdue (-1.1 rating, 74th overall in FBS)
13. Indiana (-8.3 rating, 95th overall in FBS)
14. Northwestern (-10.4 rating, 103rd overall in FBS)

Nebraska only jumped up six spots in the SP+ rankings as a whole, but on their way, the Cornhuskers surpassed three Big Ten West foes in Purdue, Illinois and Minnesota. Following a 20-7 win in Urbana-Champaign, coach Matt Rhule has Nebraska at 3-3 and on the right track. 

Another coach having a surprisingly positive season is Greg Schiano. Despite losing in Madison on Saturday, Rutgers hung tough against Wisconsin, and sits at 4-2 with some decently winnable games left on its schedule. The SP+ rankings finally agree with the HoosiersNow.com Big Ten power rankings and have the Scarlet Knights ranked as the seventh-best team in the conference. 

Rutgers has at long last surpassed the trio of Michigan State, Minnesota and Illinois, which is deserved with how well that team has played. 

If one wanted to make Big Ten conference tiers from these rankings, it's fairly easy to do so:

Tier 1 — The True Contenders

• Michigan, Ohio State

Tier 2 — Penn State Purgatory (Better than everyone else but not as good as Michigan and Ohio State)

• Penn State

Tier 3 — Good, But Not Great, Teams

• Wisconsin, Maryland, Iowa

Tier 4 — Could Be A Lot Worse

• Rutgers, Michigan State, Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois, Purdue

Tier 5 — This is Bad

• Indiana, Northwestern

Related Stories on Big Ten:

• DYLAN HARPER RECRUITING UPDATE: 2024 five-star prospect Dylan Harper told a reporter on Saturday that he is planning to take an official visit to Rutgers next weekend, while coach Brad Underwood and the Fighting Illini hosted a visit for a prospect in the class of 2025 — Phoenix Gill — who is the son of Illinois basketball legend Kendall Gill. CLICK HERE
• BIG TEN POWER RANKINGS, WEEK 6: Here's where all 14 Big Ten football teams stand in the HoosiersNow.com conference power rankings following Week 6 of the 2023 college football season. CLICK HERE
• WEEK 6 SATURDAY B1G GAME RESULTS: Nine Big Ten football teams played games on Saturday during Week 6 of the college football season. From Ohio State's comeback win over Maryland, to Purdue nearly stealing one from Iowa in Kinnick, it was another entertaining day of Big Ten football. CLICK HERE