Bill Conelly of ESPN, the famed analytics and SP+ mastermind has been taking a tour through the SP+ Ratings history of various college football programs and he decided to compare Ohio State and Michigan before moving on to whatever crazy formulaic interpretation of value was next on his plate.
You of course know the Buckeyes have gotten the better of the Wolverines over the last two decades or so, and the graph certainly bears that out. However, before all of that started, it’s interesting to see the rivalry flip on its ear right around the time Jim Tressel started pulling the scarlet sweater vest over his head.
Before that — if any of you are old enough to remember — it seemed like Ohio State would take an annual loss to Michigan that derailed a lot of really big things. In fact, the Wolverines were a study of consistency for about a two-decade run from 1980 to the year 2000. The graph also shows that to be the case.
Take a look at the graph below the Oklahoma/Texas comparison and see a definitive turn in the matchup.
One more: Ohio State and Michigan's SP+ history. I forgot that SP+ leaned Michigan in 2016 by … you could call it the nose of a football, or maybe a fourth down spot, if you want … pic.twitter.com/bhkolbLbP5
— Bill Connelly (@ESPN_BillC) July 9, 2021
Connelly even takes a little jab at the 2016 season where Michigan’s SP+ Ranking was just a wee bit ahead of OSU before J.T. Barrett became a worldwide GIF.
Let’s just hope these sorts of graphs don’t take a cyclical turn again anytime soon and sway back towards maize and blue. I mean, nobody really sees that on the horizon right? I don’t need a graph to tell me that the Michigan program is in a serious decline.
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