ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI) 2025 is a bit Joke to Start the Year

[99Gopher]

Looking at ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI) for 2025 is a bit of a Joke as you'll see below. If you look at the Trend column, you'll find that a majority of the Big1G dropped despite wins. If fact, Minny dropped 9 spots to number 53 after a WIN over Buffalo. Evidently, if you don't cover the spread on ESPN BET then you get your ass handed to you even if you put up 443 yards of offense. On the flip side, Wisky beat that powerhouse Miami (OH) team (insert sarcasm) with 363 yds of offense and somehow they jumped 4 spots to #36. Someone will need to explain to me how their ranking and our ranking make sense.

2025 Big Ten College Football Power Index - ESPN

View the 2025 Big Ten conference College Football power index on ESPN. The FPI is the best predictor of a team's performance for the season.

www.espn.com

 

[gopherphil]

I wouldn’t be worried about espn ratings. Just win baby!!!

 

[everybody knows my name]

ESPN always predicts Minnesota will regress to mediocre.

 

[WashedGoph]

FPI is worthless trash. Had Alabama ranked #4 at the end of last season with a 9-4 record.

 

[A_Slab_of_Bacon]

FPI seems like one of those rankings that tries to look beyond wins and losses so much that ... it kinda ignores wins and losses and you get these spiky outputs that ... ignore wins and losses. It's also supposed to be "predictive" so I guess that makes sense that in the face of a loss it still thinks "well they're still more likely to win anyway".

But being predictive is almost the opposite of what folks look for in polls, I think we expect polls (especially late in the season) to reward a good team for winning and so on, but FPI isn't about that.

I'm sure FPI works overall well enough in SOME ways like if you're betting on the next game(s) in a general sense, but it's also opaque system that we don't know how it works exactly / what their math IS.

I suspect the fact that it seems to favor SEC teams / say what they want it to say is all that matters to ESPN.

 

[Pompous Elitist]

These systems will struggle more in 2025 than ever before as they utilize prior years (multiple) performance and opponent strength. With massive roster turnover every year now one can start to see some problems. By the end of the season it will probably have a decent handle on things.

 

[minnyrules11]

What was impressive about Wisconsin scoring 17 points and having two qb's with poor play? Also how can two teams be worse than Northwestern?

 

[mggoph]

What was impressive about Wisconsin scoring 17 points and having two qb's with poor play? Also how can two teams be worse than Northwestern?

Yup, make it make sense. Wisky and Nebby both get the benefit of the doubt tho...

 

[TwistingMyMelon]

Also how can two teams be worse than Northwestern?

Well, they might be the worst but it's a bit too early to tell. I'm not a big fan of ESPN's metrics but they did have Northwestern dropping 11 places after their first game debacle. ESPN had Purdue ranked so low to start that even with a 31-0 victory over Ball State and an improvement of 17 places, they still were ranked directly below Northwestern! I can't complain about UCLA being ranked last after losing 10-42 in their opening game.