Pitt Lands Top 50 in ESPN Analytical Rankings

The Pitt Panthers are in the middle of the pack among Power 5 teams.

PITTSBURGH -- ESPN's Bill Connelly has released his first round of SP+ rankings for the 2023 preseason and the Pitt Panthers fell among the middle of the pack among Power 5 teams.

The Panthers checked in at No. 36 in the new rankings, good for fourth in the ACC behind No. 7 Clemson, No. 12 Florida State and No. 25 North Carolina. Pitt owns SP+'s No. 37 offense and No. 40 defense. The model predicts 7.3 wins and 4.7 losses against the No. 54-most difficult schedule in America. 

Connelly added a brief write-up on the ACC at large, saying it's a crowded group even with Clemson an Florida State as a clear top-tier. 

"The question for the ACC this year is pretty obvious: Which of a host of potential top-20 teams will fulfill their potential?" he wrote. "SP+ has six ACC teams between 25th and 45th. All of them are within six points of each other, and a couple more are only a couple of points further back."

Returning production, recent recruiting and recent history are the three primary measures that factor into these rankings and, while Pitt has generally been trending in the right direction, their lost production (108th nationally in returning production) and average recruiting rankings all make up a lower ranking than some might expect given it's No. 22 ranking in the final AP poll. 

With those numbers in mind, Connelly is careful to note that these rankings are a snapshot in time and are not meant to be taken as predictions for how the season will play out, meaning the Panthers will have plenty of chances to move up these rankings. 

"SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and, along those same lines, these projections aren't intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the year," Connelly wrote. "These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather to date."

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