Where Michigan lands in post-spring SP+ rankings

Training camp and the start of the 2024 college football season might still be a few months down the road, but it’s never too early to take a look at where Michigan is currently projected to stack up. Some of the latest projections come courtesy of Bill Connelly of ESPN, who recently released his post-spring SP+ rankings.

For those of you who might be unfamiliar to SP+, Connelly describes it as, “a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency.” It takes into account a team’s efficiencies on offense, defense, and special teams to create one rating that predicts how many points a team would beat (or lose to) the “average” college football team by.

For example, Michigan’s rating is currently listed as 27.5, meaning Michigan would defeat the average college football team by 27.5 points. During the 2023 season, Michigan held the No. 1 spot in the rankings for much of the year, meaning the Wolverines were almost always projected to defeat any given team on a neutral field.

While the in-season rankings have the benefit of a constant inflow of data thanks to games being played on a weekly basis, the offseason rankings take a slightly different approach, according to Connelly. Preseason projections are based on returning production, recent recruiting and recent history.

This is the same approach Connelly used in his initial preseason rankings, which were released in February. At the time, he had the Wolverines ranked as the No. 5 team in the country. But plenty has happened since then, like the opening and closing of the spring transfer window, which involved plenty of players shuffling teams nationally. As expected, there were some slight tweaks to the rankings.

As previously mentioned, Michigan currently has a rating of 27.5, which is good for sixth in the post-spring rankings. This is drop from the Wolverines’ previous No. 5 ranking, but a 0.5 point boost in the team’s SP+ rating.

Alabama was the team that jumped Michigan, going from No. 6 (26.6 rating) to No. 5 (29.1 rating) in three months. The top-four teams remained the same, with Georgia far ahead of the pack, followed by Ohio State, Oregon and Texas.

One of the biggest reasons for Michigan’s decline from last season, according to Connelly, is due to the Wolverines only returning 40 percent of their total team production from last season. This includes 27 percent of the offense and 53 percent of the defense. Michigan is tied for the ninth-lowest percentage of returning production in the country.

This, of course, is to be expected after Michigan lost many contributors, including 10 of 11 offensive starters, to the NFL Draft. However, Michigan is still in a good spot thanks to its success on the field over the last three seasons and solid standing in recruiting.

Michigan received a slight boost in its SP+ rating thanks in part to its recent run of success in the transfer portal, including a quartet of defensive backs (Aamir Hill, Wesley Walker, Jaden Mangham, Ricky Johnson), who now help make up a deeper secondary.

While it’s still a ways to go before kickoff against Fresno State, and there still might be some concerns about the roster, Michigan fans can take comfort knowing the Wolverines are still in the SP+’s favor heading into the summer.