In the spring we reviewed the early ESPN FPI rankings for Alabama Football and the other 13 SEC teams. At least in this preseason, Alabama football fans have good reason to tout the FPI, with the Alabama Crimson Tide having the overall No. 2 ranking.
The same analytics that feed the FPI also power the game predictors published by ESPN. The FPI gets frequent criticism. It is a predictive ranking of teams, but in the preseason, it suffers from being driven mostly by the previous season’s results. After several weeks of new game results, the algorithm is by design a more accurate predictor.