Something very surprising from SP+ is the big drop the top teams saw after only 1 game. Many people simply look at the rankings and not the actual value SP+ gives to teams. Bama, Florida, Georgia, Texas A&M, and LSU all saw massive drops in their score after a single week. Here are some box score+eye evals for those teams. The point value is equated to how many points the team would beat a perfectly average college football team by.
- Bama(29.0 dropped to 25.8)-After racing out to a 35-3 lead of the mighty Missouri Tigers many people(including myself) figured Bama dominated the game. SP+ on the otherhand thought they played terrible. Offensively Bama dropped from 46.4 to 44.5 points expected vs an average team. Starting on offense, Mac Jones threw for 10.4 ypa which is solid. A big concern though is Devonta Smith and Jaylen Waddle accounted for 223 yards out of the total 303 yards Bama threw for. Outside of those two Bama lacks anything scary at the position. The biggest concern though, and something that has been largely ignored, is how concerning the run game is. Bama averaged 3.1 ypc and Najee Harris averaged 5.8 ypc. Without a threat of Mac Jones running the ball the running game was not explosive at all with the longest run only going for 18 yards. Harris isnt an explosive back and with the limited passing threats and Jones being a statue the run game could be really tough to get going against actually good defenses. Defensively was also a negative for Bama as they allowed Shawn Robinson to gain 7.4 ypa and Mizzous top RB to run for 4.8 ypc. This isnt a bad stat line until you look at Mizzou's projected to be 103 in offense this year. That is absolutley terrible and if that holds true this was a bad outing for Bama. The biggest concern going forward for Bama is running the ball with Mac Jones at QB. SP+ currently has Bama worse than Georgia was last year which is a yikes.
- Georgia(25.5 dropped to 23.1) I mean what an ugly game. The offense is bad, their QB is bad, and the offensive line looks much worse without all the NFL talent and Sam Pittman coaching. The defense did fine against a terrible offense but no answers have been found on offense. 5.7 ypa and 2.9 ypc for Georgia while Arkansas had 5.2 ypa and 2.8 ypc.
- Florida(23.8 to 22.0)-They did a good job of moving the ball against a bad defense but their defense was shredded. They were projected to have the 3rd best defense and now sit at 17. They dont have anybody special and when they play an OSU/Clemson caliber team I'm not sure how they will be able to stop them. Really bad performance giving up 13.4 ypa through the air.
- Texas A&M-(20.2 to 14.7)-Just terrible all around. Vanderbuilt was supposed to be one of the worst SEC teams of the last decade and nearly beat A&M. A&M is the 5th most talented team according to 247 and they couldnt do anything against Vandy. Hopefully they were saving everything for Bama but man that was ugly. They averaged just 6.8 ypa in the air and a nice 6.9 ypc on the ground. However Isiah Spiller had a 60 yard run which greatly shifted that average.
- LSU(18.5 to 12.3)-Some people had really high expectations based on their talent but man they got rekt. Giving up 10.4 ypa on 60 pass attempts is like really bad. The running backs for MSSP St also averaged 5.0 ypc. Offensively it was really ugly too as they ran for a terrible 2.1 ypc and only threw for 7.4 ypa.
The top teams all looked terrible and the stats really hated Bama. Bama vs A&M is going to be a big game to watch to see if the concerns SP+ sees in Bama are legit. \
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/29780982/college-footba...
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/29984186/college-footba...
