B1G Expectations: 2018 S&P+ Sneak Peek

It's that time of year again - the lull between the day-formerly-known-as NSD and Spring Practice, when nothing much is going on, except that some of the early pre-season advanced stats ratings have come out. I'm planning to put together what's becoming a usual Diary post that details the ratings, schedule breakdowns, and expected win total at some point. Until then, since the numbers have been crunched and some of the graphics have already been generated, I thought I'd just post a sneak peek chart. This one pretty much summarizes the S&P+ take on how things are expected to shake out in the B1G East and West.

So, 2018 is looking like more of the same, except with M coming in with a mode of 8 wins and an expected win total of 8.3 - numbers which are actually worse than the early estimates from last season. Most of that decline is probably attributable to M's schedule being far more treacherous for 2018, most evidenced by all of the other teams on the chart with higher modes than M's being on M's schedule.