SB Nation writer Bill Connelly has come out with his coveted S&P+ numbers for every team entering the 2019 season and is projecting the UCLA football team to win 4.9 games. Though his numbers represent certain accuracies, it doesn’t take into consideration other factors, which leads us to believe that the Bruins will be better than Bill believes.
The S&P+ rating system has become a standard tool for college football analytics, especially when trying to predict the performance of every FBS team. Among UCLA football fans, Bill Connelly’s S&P+ projections have sparked a conversation about how the Bruins will do next season.
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In the last few weeks, Connelly has released both his 2019 college football preview data for every Pac-12 team. Though he has the Bruins doing better than their 3-9 finish in 2018, it is not by much as he only has UCLA winning 4.9 games next season. That is in contrast to what several other writers have been publishing about the Bruins in Year 2 of the Chip Kelly era.
Though we respect the S&P+ rankings, there seem to be a few things they do not include which is why most writers on the Bruins beat are predicting more than five wins in 2019. Some have gone on to predict 8 or 9 wins. Here at Go Joe Bruin, we have predicted a 7-5 regular season finish and here is why…
Key UCLA Football S&P+ Numbers Over the Last Three Years
- Final 2017 S&P+ rankings: Overall: 51 | Offense: 9 | Defense: 104
- Projected 2018 S&P+ rankings: Overall: 39 | Offense: 18 | Defense: 84
- Final 2018 S&P+ rankings: Overall: 76 | Offense: 50 | Defense: 97
- Projected 2019 S&P+ rankings: Overall: 63 | Offense: 50 | Defense: 72
First off, let us look at the all-important transition between the Jim Mora era and the Kelly era. The Bruins ended 2017 with a fantastic offensive ranking and an atrocious defensive ranking. We can all thank Josh Rosen for the offense and blame the Bruins’ “bend but don’t break” philosophy on defense. Going into 2018, Connelly gives UCLA good S&P+ numbers.
With the Bruins losing one of the best quarterbacks in the nation, Connelly doesn’t drop the Bruins off too much despite a new coach, new system (which was unknown at the time), a new grad transfer QB and a true freshmen QB. As we saw last season, they did worse compared to the S&P+ numbers, but as the season went on, there was clear progress.
The defense was not good at all. They even got worse as the season progressed, but this was because several players exited the program, injuries ran rampant across the roster, and the coaches heavily relied on younger players. By season’s end, the Bruins did worse than Connelly’s projections.
The Bruins’ S&P+ is telling but doesn’t tell the whole story (cont.)
In essence, the Bruins showed that numbers are not everything. This is not to prove Connelly wrong just so I can make UCLA football fans feel better about the upcoming season (I, for one, rely on his numbers all the time), but It does show that the numbers do not project everything.
Though there are multiple factors used in calculating S&P+ numbers which are “derived from the play-by-play and drive data of all 800+ of a season’s FBS college football games (and 140,000+ plays),” (which is defined by Football Outsiders), there are several intangibles that cannot be measured which have a significant impact on games.
Though the S&P+ can help evaluate an entire season, it does not take into account (and bare with me as some of these factors might seem outlandish) player exits, player fit into a team’s system, injuries, progression/regression in player development, player IQ, coaching IQ, coaching evaluations, ability of coaches to make in-game changes, coaching style variations and position-by-position match ups.
Which brings me to Connelly’s numbers for the Bruins in 2019. According to Connelly’s numbers, the Bruins will be better. It is hard to argue that 4.9 wins are not better than three, but that does not give UCLA fans much hope. The offense stays the same in the S&P+ rankings while the defense is projected to improve, but for those of us that have followed UCLA closely, we expect the Bruins to be a lot better than they were to end 2018 across the board.
The Bruins’ S&P+ is telling but doesn’t tell the whole story (cont.)
One of the things that bring us to this conclusion is the fact that UCLA’s offensive was exponentially better by the end of 2018 than they were by the start. Connelly’s week-by-week S&P+ numbers show this (as they also show the decline in defensive numbers). With that in mind, we can’t fathom the Bruins’ offense plateauing heading into 2019.
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With the offensive line improving, Joshua Kelley continuing where he left off and Dorian-Thompson-Robinson elevating his game in his sophomore season, the offense should be closer to Connelly’s 2018 projected numbers.
As for the defense, Kelly and DC Jerry Azzinaro should do a lot better on that side of the ball for a myriad of reasons. Not only have they brought in the players that will give maximum effort and further develop the players that are already on their roster, but they have reloaded in all position groups as well as get back several key Bruins from injury.
Last week, former NBA player Jalen Rose had an interesting take on analytics. Though his concern was on its use in basketball, it holds true for every sport that uses analytics as a base for their projections. “I think analytics should be a tool in the box, not the actual toolbox, ” proclaimed the analyst and he is right. Numbers are useful to help you get a game plan going, but they do not reveal everything about a team and a team’s opponent.
With that in mind, Connelly’s numbers are a good jumping off point and in my opinion will be a springboard for UCLA who will use it to climb the S&P+ rankings and shock the world in Year 2.