Football S&P+ Update: Boston College Ranked #70

Football Outsiders’ S&P+ rankings are a comprehensive, stats-based approach to analyze box scores and rank college football teams. You can read more about the components of S&P+ here. One of the useful things about these rankings is that they take in to account margin of victory, offensive and defensive productivity, and other factors in to play that may not show up in a raw W-L record but could be useful projecting forward.

In the early portions of the season, a lot of the S&P+ ranking is based on pre-season projections based on data from last year, so it’s going to take several weeks for this year’s rankings to settle in to shape. But when a team makes a big move, you can tell it registered a lot in the rankings.

This week, BC plummeted by 14 spots to #70. The only team to drop more? Buffalo, which fell from 106 to 123 after a 38-14 loss to Nevada.

BC's offense is ranked #124 out of 128 in the S&P+ rankings --- ouch. On defense, BC is still #5 despite the struggles against VT. On Special Teams, BC is ranked #116.

Wagner is not ranked by S&P+ but we can look toward some of BC’s other upcoming opponents.

Obviously FSU, Clemson and Louisville will be heavily favored against BC under any system. As for the other three games, S&P+ has Syracuse at #48, NC State at #45, Wake Forest #68 and UConn at #79. So based on these rankings, the Eagles have a pair of 50/50 games after (presumably wins against) Wagner and Buffalo, but will need to win both and then punch up and beat a better team if they’re going to get bowl eligible.