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What rating systems think of the Texas Longhorns: Post Week 2

by: Evan Vieth10 hours ago
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Steve Sarkisian (Will Gallagher/Inside Texas)

We’re all tired of the AP Poll process, right?

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It truly doesn’t even matter anymore with the current College Football Playoff model, but it still feels infuriating when there’s an obvious lack of process from most voters.

Clemson is still a top-12 team in the nation despite a home loss and struggling at home against Troy? Vanderbilt and South Carolina played a common opponent. One played them on the road and won by 24. One played them at a neutral site and won by 13. One of these schools is 11th in the nation, the other received a singular vote in the AP Poll. Guess which one is which?

But one thing that still intrigues me throughout the college football season is ratings. How good is a team, outside of what their record says about them?

If you watch On3 employee Josh Pate’s podcast, you probably know a bit too much about ratings, but when used properly, they can give you a lot of information about the CFP world and how a certain team looks.

Take a look at ESPN’s SP+, a “tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency” that “is intended to be predictive and forward-facing.” Bill Connelly’s metric doesn’t care about what you have done; it’s about what you can do.

This metric has Texas as the No. 9 team in the nation, behind the likes of Tennessee, Penn State, and even Oklahoma. SP+ believes Texas has the top defense in the nation, but also the 45th-best offense and second-worst special teams unit. Their 19.6 rating is 7.2 points behind first-place Oregon, the same distance between Texas at 9 and Minnesota at 33.

The special teams note is interesting because it shows up in another rating: the KFord Ratings. Ford is much higher on Texas than SP+, naming them the No. 3 team in the nation behind Oregon and Ohio State, but it shares the 135/136 rating on special teams that SP+ has.

Early in the season, these rating systems take past season influences and player ratings into account in their model, which may be overcorrecting Texas’s special teams. Last year, Texas did have a bottom-five special teams unit, but the players most affecting that are gone. Jack Bouwmeester and Mason Shipley have both looked good so far, and Jeff Banks has a strong track record. If Texas remains the exact same in the other two phases but has just the 50th-best special teams, they’d probably be a consensus top-three team.

KFord also does graphics surrounding conferences and where teams are expected to finish. Here’s the SEC:

On the individual team pages, Ford has Texas projected for 9.4 wins and has them favored in every game. Georgia, Florida, and Oklahoma are all games with a 58–75% win percentage for Texas.

Lastly, FEI also has Texas as a top-five team, ranking them fifth. They’re more bullish on Texas’ offense, ranking them 19th, but still have OSU as a better defensive team. All other top-four teams have top-10 ranks in both offense and defense, making Texas’ offense the decider that keeps them out of the upper echelon. FEI puts more weight into implied talent on teams, which is why Texas and a team like Notre Dame still have top-20 offenses, as well as ranking special teams higher.

From what we can tell, Texas is probably still a top-10 team in the nation, and probably closer to 5 or 6 than No. 9. Outside of Oregon and Ohio State, it’s unlikely any fan base is super confident in where their team stands. That’s why we try to look at unbiased sources like this to get a real gauge of just how good the talent is around the nation.

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