EAST LANSING — We’ll hear from the coaches and media in the upcoming weeks about where Michigan State stands in the preseason rankings. But for now, ESPN has released new data for its Football Power Index, a rankings system that slots teams based on 10,000 simulations of the season and is meant to project a team’s performance for the rest of the season. The results: the Spartans came in at No. 14, the second-best ranking in the Big Ten but below seven SEC teams. That’s better than the Spartans fared in the preliminary FPI rankings earlier this summer, when they were No. 24 and behind three other Big Ten schools. But it’s still below other offseason polls that peg the Spartans as a top-10 team coming off an 11-2 season and a win in the Cotton Bowl. On top of ranking the teams, the expanded FPI data unveiled on Tuesday show strength of schedule figures, win probability, projected win-loss, and more. The Spartans are favored in 11 of 12 games regular-season games. The only exception is their Nov. 21 trip to Ohio State, which the FPI gives the Spartans a 26.6 percent chance of winning. The next closest projected games on the Spartans’ schedule are at home against Oregon, which Michigan State has a 51.3 percent chance of winning, and at Michigan, which the Spartans have a 63.1 percent chance of winning…
Continue Reading: Michigan State No. 14 in ESPN Football Power Index, with 15 percent chance of winning Big Ten …
