ESPN's ranking system for college football, the FPI (Football Power Index), has been a joke for a while, but this season it's more apparent for Wisconsin fans. Plenty of other fanbases have pointed out how silly it is and how it doesn't actually work. The math behind the metrics doesn't do enough accounting for actual football being played, and Wisconsin is a great example of that.
According to the AP Top 25 Poll, Wisconsin is No. 26. The last team that wasn't included and received the most votes. Of course, the AP Poll also has its flaws, but it does something the ESPN FPI doesn't do: watch actual football games.
If the AP Poll has the Badgers at No. 26 what would the ESPN FPI have Wisconsin at? 41. Yes, ESPN FPI thinks that Wisconsin is the 41st-best team in the country. And it's wild to see what teams are above the Badgers. The most glaring one is Penn State, which is ranked 15th. The same Penn State that Wisconsin just beat in Beaver Stadium.
This is a great example of how real football games don't seem to matter for ESPN FPI. The preseason weighted grades are all so high that when upsets actually happen, the analytics don't change things very much. Penn State is still projected to win around nine games and has a 9.4% chance to make the College Football Playoff.
ESPN's FPI model needs to be overhauled because the current rankings don't make sense
When we scroll down to Wisconsin at No. 41, the Badgers are projected to win more than seven games now, with a 6% chance to make the College Football Playoff. And maybe that's where the thing is flawed. The rankings are determined based on this definition by ESPN: "Football Power Index that measures team's true strength on net points scale; expected point margin vs average opponent on neutral field."
Yet, Wisconsin took down ESPN FPI's No. 15 Penn State on an AWAY field, not even a neutral field, and yet are still ranked below 40. While the Nittany Lions are ranked in the top-15. Something is seriously wrong with your model if the analytics have determined these rankings.
You can make a case that the projected wins and losses still give Penn State a decent shot at the College Football Playoff, as their remaining schedule is Northwestern, USC, Michigan, Purdue, Washington, Minnesota, Rutgers, and Maryland. There's not really a great team left on their schedule. So they have a chance to really make some noise.
Maybe even a better chance than Wisconsin, which has three ranked teams left on its schedule: UCLA, USC, and Iowa.Yet, even if they lose those three and win the rest, that gives the Badgers eight wins. After knocking off Penn State, Wisconsin fans are starting to dream about beating the upstart UCLA, the overrated USC, and even sticking it to Iowa.
There's a long road to go, but after just four games, ESPN FPI's model is showcasing once again that it's a joke and needs to be re-tooled.
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