Michigan football moves up in ESPN's FPI rankings after Rutgers win
The Michigan Wolverines moved to 4-0 after a 31-7 win over Rutgers this past weekend, but it still was not enough for one of ESPN’s most talked-about metrics to shoot them up the rankings.
ESPN’s Football Power Index has Michigan finishing with a 9.8-2.3 record on the season, ranking No. 12 in the country and moving up two spots from last week’s rankings. The Wolverines ranked sixth heading into the start of their 2023 season.
So what exactly is FPI?
“FPI is a predictive rating system designed to measure team strength and project performance going forward,” ESPN explains. “The ultimate goal of FPI is not to rank teams 1 through 128; rather, it is to correctly predict games and season outcomes. If Vegas ever published the power rankings it uses to set its lines, they would likely look quite a lot like FPI.”
After Sunday’s update, here’s the breakdown of the numbers and win percentages.
Michigan football’s updated FPI outlook and win projections
| Rank | Proj. W-L | Win Out% | 6+ Wins% | Win Division% | Win Conference% | Playoff% | Make NC % | Win NC% |
| 12 | 9.8-2.3 | 3.7% | 99.9% | 13.2% | 10.0% | 11.6% | 4.9% | 1.9% |
Sept. 2 vs. East Carolina (FPI rank: 89th) – 30-3 W (1-0)
Sept. 9 vs. UNLV (94th) – 35-7 W (1-0)
Sept. 16 vs. Bowling Green (116th) – 31-6 W (3-0)
Sept. 23 vs. Rutgers (46th) – 31-7 W (4-0, 1-0 B1G)
Sept. 30 at Nebraska (65th) – 87.6% chance of victory
Oct. 7 at Minnesota (50th) – 82.5% chance of victory
Oct. 14 vs. Indiana (75th) – 92.6% chance of victory
Oct. 21 at Michigan State (59th) – 86.7% chance of victory
Oct. 28 – BYE
Nov. 4 vs. Purdue (67th) – 93.5% chance of victory
Nov. 11 at Penn State (4th) – 30.4% chance of victory
Nov. 18 at Maryland (30th) – 69.3% chance of victory
Nov. 25 vs. Ohio State (1st) – 32.0% chance of victory
SP+ tells a different story, though
ESPN’s Bill Connelly has a much different perception of Michigan than his employer’s FPI counterpart. After a dominant showing in Week 4, his SP+ metric has Michigan set as the No. 1 team in the country moving forward.
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The Wolverines rank ahead of Georgia, Ohio State, Washington, USC, Oregon, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama and Penn State, respectively. The Michigan offense is 13th, the defense ranks 1st, and the special teams come in at 16th.
“What is SP+? In a single sentence, it’s a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency,” Connelly writes. “I created the system at Football Outsiders in 2008, and as my experience with both college football and its stats has grown, I have made quite a few tweaks to the system.
“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.”
What’s next for U-M?
Michigan’s next test comes in the form of a road trip to Nebraska on Saturday afternoon, set for a 3:30 p.m. ET kickoff on FOX.
