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Four weeks into the 2024 college football season, both the Utah Utes and BYU Cougars find themselves in rather select company.
Both teams have perfect 4-0 records, and are among just 26 undefeated teams in the country, down from 43 teams last week.
On Tuesday, a story by ESPN’s Bill Connelly was published in which Connelly ranked the perfect teams 1-26. To help him, Connelly used a few key metrics — SP+ and FPI rankings.
In short, SP+ is a metric Connelly created in 2008 that measures team efficiency adjusted for tempo and opponent, while FPI attempts to predict future performance. Thus, Connelly’s rankings are different from the Associated Press Top 25, which this week has 10 one-loss teams in it.
In Connelly’s rankings, Utah is right in the middle as the 13th-best undefeated team, while BYU is the 19th-best (they are Nos. 10 and 22, respectively, in the AP poll).
The Utes moved up five spots from last week’s ranking of undefeated teams and are ranked 13th in the country in SP+ and 22nd in FPI with an SP+ strength of schedule to date ranking of 71st.
Connelly considers Utah’s “next test” to be in Week 8 against TCU.
“Facing a tough road trip to Stillwater without injured quarterback Cam Rising, Utah played its most impressive defensive game in quite a while,” Connelly wrote.
“The Utes charged to a 22-3 lead, outgaining the Cowboys by a 368-156 margin through three quarters and getting OSU quarterback Alan Bowman benched. (He returned when his backup fared even worse.) The Pokes made a late charge, but Utah survived and seized early control of the Big 12 race in the process.”
Connelly noted that “Almost half of Utah’s opponents’ plays (45.4%) have gained zero or fewer yards this season. If Rising is ever 100% again — it’s always something — this team has a top-10 ceiling.”
As for BYU, it moved up to No. 19 among undefeated teams from No. 31 last week. The Cougars are ranked 42nd in the country in SP+ and 37th in FPI with an SP+ strength of schedule to date ranking of 47th.
Connelly considers BYU’s “next test” to be this weekend against Baylor. He noted that the team has backslid the past four years in SP+ (he didn’t account for the uniqueness of 2020 or the Cougars’ move to the Big 12 last year) and wrote, “The offense isn’t trustworthy this year, but the defense has rebounded with vengeance, especially against the pass.
“The Cougars held Kansas State to 5.1 yards per play and forced a trio of turnovers to turn a tight game into a blowout win. A couple more wins like that, and they’ll reach “Big 12 contender” status.”
Texas, which is No. 1 in this week’s AP poll, also topped Connelly’s list, while Liberty is ranked No. 26.