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ESPN's Football Power Index Predicts Dismal Season for Pac-12 Teams

The ranking system is particularly harsh in projecting Cal's 2021 results
Jake Curtis|
ESPN's Football Power Index Predicts Dismal Season for Pac-12 Teams
ESPN's Football Power Index Predicts Dismal Season for Pac-12 Teams

If you trust the ESPN Football Power Index (FPI), it promises to be a disappointing season for the Pac-12 in general and Cal specifically.

The recently updated FPI, which uses a number of measures to project how a team will do in the 2021 season, does not have a single Pac-12 team among its top 10 and has only one (No. 12 Oregon) in its top 20.

Four of the 130 FBS teams have a better than 58 percent chance to get into the four-team College Football Playoff, according to the FPI, but no Pac-12 team has a better than 7.8 percent chance to get to the CFP. Only one Pac-12 team (Oregon) has a better than 1 percent chance to get to the national championship playoff.

Down near the bottom of the rankings is Cal, which ranks 74th of the 130 FBS teams in the FPI projections. That is higher than only two Pac-12 teams (Oregon State and Arizona) and is behind the likes of Stanford and Washington State.

More significantly perhaps, the Golden Bears rank higher than just eight of the 65 Power Five conference teams.

Among the teams ahead of Cal in the FPI rankings are Troy, Toledo and SMU (where former Cal coach Sonny Dykes is the head coach).

The FPI projects Cal to have a losing record of 5-7 (5.1 wins and 7.0 losses, to be precise). It gives the Golden Bears just a 37.5 percent chance of getting six wins (to become bowl eligible), gives Cal just an 0.9 percent chance to win the Pac-12 North and an 0.2 percent chance of winning the conference. That’s a one-in-500 chance of claiming the Pac-12 title.

The FPI gives Cal a 0.0 percent chance of reaching the four-team College Football Playoff.

I would image Chase Garbers, who is entering his fourth season as Cal's starting quarterback, and head coach Justin Wilcox, who begins his fifth year as the Golden Bears head coach, would take issue with the FPI projections. You may recall that last year Cal beat Oregon, the FPI's top-rated Pac-12 team.

Here is how the FPI rates Pac-12 teams, with the team’s overall ranking in parentheses, followed by the team’s chance to win the Pac-12 title and chance of getting into the College Football Playoff.

1. Oregon (12) -- 40.1% chance to win Pac-12, 7.6% chance of getting into CFP.

2. USC (21) -- 21.2% chance to win Pac-12, 0.8% chance of getting into CFP.

3. Washington (25) -- 15.1% chance to win Pac-12, 0.4% chance of getting into CFP.

4. Arizona State (29) – 9.6% chance to win Pac-12, 0.2% chance of getting into CFP.

5. Utah (30) – 9.6% chance to win Pac-12, 0.1% chance of getting into CFP.

6. Stanford (52) – 2.2% chance to win Pac-12, 0.0% chance of getting into CFP.

7. UCLA (54) – 1.2% chance to win Pac-12, 0.0% chance of getting into CFP.

8. Colorado (62) – 0.5% chance of winning Pac-12, 0.0% chance of getting into CFP

9. Washington State (73) – 0.2% chance of winning Pac-12, 0.0% chance of getting into CFP.

10. Cal (74) – 0.2% of winning Pac-12, 0.0% chance of getting into CFP.

11. Oregon State (85) – 0.1% chance of winning Pac-12, 0.0% chance of getting into CFP.

12. Arizona (98) – 0.0% chance of winning Pac-12, 0.0% chance of getting into CFP.

Here is a brief description of how the FPI works.

The Football Power Index (FPI) is a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team's performance going forward. It is not meant to be a ranking system.

Each team’s FPI rating is composed of a predicted offensive, defensive and special teams component. These ratings represent the number of points each unit is expected to contribute to the team's net scoring margin on a neutral field against an average FBS opponent.

In the preseason, the data comes from previous seasons. The four components used are returning starters (with special consideration for returning starting quarterbacks), past performance, recruiting rankings and coaching tenure.

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Cover photo of 2020 Cal-Oregon game by Kelley L. Cox, USA TODAY Sports

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Follow Jake Curtis of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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