Week 3 of the college football season is wrapped up and the updated ESPN FPI rankings include Big 12 teams scattered across the Top 25, but no team is inside the Top 15 right now.
The Texas Longhorns are atop ESPN’s FPI rankings after Week 3, the same spot they found themselves in last week. Alabama is No. 2, followed by Ohio State, Tennessee and Georgia.
For the Big 12 Conference, the first team to appear in the ESPN FPI rankings was the Kansas State Wildcats at No. 17. K-State is fresh off a win over Arizona on Friday night in Manhattan.
Then came the run on Big 12 teams. UCF, following a win vs. TCU, ranks No. 18 this week. Oklahoma State ranks No. 20 in ESPN’s FPI rankings and then it’s the Utah Utes at No. 24 after a victory against Utah State.
Following those two teams was the TCU Horned Frogs at No. 31 and the Kansas Jayhawks, who have lost two in a row, at No. 35.
In the 40’s was the Arizona State Sun Devils at No. 41 and the Iowa State Cyclones at No. 44. The only other Big 12 team in the Top 50 is the Baylor Bears at No. 48.
The full ESPN FPI Rankings are here.
Understanding ESPN’s FPI Rankings
The FPI metric is used heavily when comparing teams that don’t play one another in a given regular season. In many ways, it is a tool that the CFP committee turns to when it comes time to split hairs.
The Football Power Index (FPI) is a college football ranking system that predicts a team’s performance by rankings them based on their projected point margin against an average team on a neutral field.
The FPI is based on 20,000 simulations of a team’s season, using a combination of analytics like scores, quality of opponents, and recruiting. The FPI breaks down a team’s strength into three components: offense, defense, and special teams.
Something else that the FPI is useful for is to compare conferences, or rather the teams in a given conference that could be in contention for one of the 12 playoff spots that we will see going forward.
