Michigan Football inside the Top-15 of ESPN’s initial 2026 SP+ rankings

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With a new leader in charge of the Michigan football program in 2026, there’s plenty of optimism that the Wolverines can right the ship and return to being one of the country’s top teams in short order. The blend of youthful talent and veteran leadership help form the makings of a team ready to compete, while an experienced head coach in Kyle Whittingham should help keep everything on the rails.

It’s no surprise the analytics are a fan Michigan at this point in the offseason. In his initial SP+ rankings of 2026 released this week, Bill Connelly of ESPN has the Wolverines slotted in as the No. 15 team in the country.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with SP+, Connelly describes it as, “A tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking.”

Any given team is judged based on their efficiencies on offense, defense, and special teams and given one uniform SP+ rating which can be used to determine how many points that team would beat (or lose to) the “average college football team by. In Michigan’s case, it’s SP+ rating is 16.1, meaning it should beat the ”average” college football team by 16.1 points on a neutral field.

During the season, these numbers are easily adjusted since there’s game data to go off. In the offseason, Connelly determines his rankings using four factors: returning production, recent history, recent recruiting, and coaching changes — not unlike you would see when a preseason poll comes out. Based on the criteria, it’s understandable Michigan comes in as high as it does despite a rough finish in 2025.

As we touched on earlier this week, Michigan’s returning production (also tracked by Connelly) is among the best in college football, ranking at No. 20 thanks in large part to nearly its entire offense coming back. Meanwhile, Michigan has still landed top-15 recruiting classes nationally the last three years. The Wolverines likely get dinged for their recent history over the last two seasons with just a 17-9 record, but bringing in a new staff likely gives them a boost to offset the damage.

As for the rest of the Big Ten, you’ll find the usual suspects near the top, with Ohio State, Oregon and Indiana coming in at No. 1, 2, and 5, respectively. USC, a team projected to take a big step forward in 2026, sits right in front of Michigan at No. 13. Penn State, which is similarly expected to improve, sits just behind at No. 17.

That second tier of Big Ten teams including Michigan, USC and Penn State should be fun to watch all year as these three teams look to rebound and potentially sneak into the back end of the playoff bracket.

Looking all the way ahead to Michigan’s first game of the year on Sept. 5 against Western Michigan, the Broncos are currently listed as Connelly’s No. 95 team in the country with a rating of -7.2. This means the Wolverines should win by about 23.3 points if the game were to be played today on a neutral field.

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