Only one game remains in the 2023 college football season. Next Monday night in Houston, Michigan and Washington will face off in the College Football Playoff National Championship presented by AT&T (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN and ESPN App) after disposing of Alabama and Texas, respectively, on Monday.
Washington has made a habit of defying the numbers of late, but the Huskies are going to have to do it one more time. While ESPN BET lists Michigan as a 4.5-point favorite at the moment, SP+ sees a pretty different game: It gives the Wolverines a 12.3-point advantage. The Huskies have defied the number in each of the past two games, though. Can they do it and take home their first national title in 32 years? Or is this Michigan's moment?
Below are the updated SP+ rankings after bowl season. What is SP+? In a single sentence, it's a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. I created the system at Football Outsiders in 2008, and as my experience with college football and its stats has grown, I have made quite a few tweaks to the system.
SP+ is indeed intended to be predictive and forward-facing. It is not a résumé ranking that gives credit for big wins or particularly brave scheduling -- no good predictive system is. It is simply a measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football. If you're lucky or unimpressive in a win, your rating will probably fall. If you're strong and unlucky in a loss, it will probably rise.
Here are the full rankings: