How Far Did Cal Fall in the ESPN SP+ Rankings After SDSU Loss?

One week after ESPN’s Bill Connelly predicted that Cal could be favored in its next six games, his SP+ national rankings system saw the Bears drop 18 spots from No. 54 to No. 72.

That’s what a 34-0 loss to San Diego State will get you.

The Bears (3-1) weren’t the only team to suffer such a precipitous fall in the SP+ rankings. Illinois (3-1) dropped 18 spots to 36th after its 63-10 pummeling at Indiana (4-0).

Ex-Cal quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who has 14 touchdown passes and no interceptions through four games, has helped the Hoosiers climb to No. 6 in the SP+ listings.

Connelly explains here how the rankings system that he devised in 2008 works:

“What is SP+? In a single sentence, it's a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency . . . SP+ is intended to be predictive and forward-facing. It is not a résumé ranking, so it does not automatically give credit for big wins or particularly brave scheduling -- no good predictive system does. It is simply a measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football.”

So we can assume Connelly no longer believes the Bears will be favorites each week for the foreseeable future. They currently are a 6.5-point underdog at Boston College on Saturday, according to DraftKings.

Even so, the SP+ rankings have Boston College at No. 73 — one spot below the Bears after falling nine spots during a bye week. So go figure.

The biggest drop belongs to South Alabama (1-3), which plummeted 32 spots from No. 78 to 110 after a 38-20 home defeat to Coastal Carolina (2-2).

Delaware (3-1) got the heftiest boost, soaring 25 rungs from No. 118 to No. 93 in the wake of a 38-16 win over FIU (2-2), which is No. 120 in the rankings.

The biggest climber among ACC teams was Virginia (3-1), which beat Stanford 48-20 and ascended 21 spots from No. 63 to No. 42.

The top five spots in the rankings belong to Oregon (4-0), Penn State (3-0), Ohio State (3-0), Alabama (2-1) and Tennessee (3-1).

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