BYU Football: Cougars’ S&P+ jump is a good sign for 2019

The latest S&P+ rankings are out, and the top predictive ranking system is just as optimistic for BYU Football going forward as fans are.

You can find so many ranking systems and predictive algorithms for sports. Some are fairly reliable, while others aren’t. The beauty of sports, though, is that computers or formulas mean nothing once a game begins.

But some systems can be good for measuring progress and potential, and one of those is the S&P+.

Predicting the Future

Created by Bill Connelly, this system doesn’t care what a team’s record is. Thy system is designed to compare a team’s production (offense, defense, and special teams) against what they’re expected to produce. When a team outproduces expectations, they move up the rankings. When they don’t they fall.

As a result, it’s one of the best predictors of how a team will play going forward.

With all of the bowls finished and only the title game left to be played, Connelly released his updated S&P+ rankings, and BYU Football sits at No. 46. So if the Cougars were to play next week, they’d be expected to play like the 46th best team in the country.

Doesn’t sound too impressive?

Look at where the Cougars finished last year. BYU finished as the No. 101 team. And looking at how the Cougars played toward the end of the 2017 season, that seems about right.

So why care how good a computer says BYU played at the end of the season? After all, a lot can happen between now and next September.

Coming Back

The answer is that the rankings themselves mean very little. For example, the Cougars finished 2016 with an S&P+ ranking of No. 36, then proceeded to lose nine games in 2017.

But that 2016 team that was playing like the 36th best team in the nation lost the vast majority of their offensive production and their best defensive playmaker to the NFL (Taysom Hill, Jamaal Williams, and Kai Nacua).

And that’s what makes things different at the end of this season. The Cougars will bring back nearly their entire offense, along with the vast majority of the defense.

So this BYU squad that’s playing good football should return mostly intact, ready to play like a Top 50 team in 2019.

Of course anything can still happen between now and next September to change that outlook, but for now we can take some comfort in the fact that the computers are just as optimistic for BYU Football going forward as fans are.