espn has em listed as 17th which bumps up the composite. The actual 247 ranking is 31. I could argue he’s taking out the espn ranking to fit his narrative but I can also argue he took it out because espns rating system is a joke. Neither answer matters, just explaining the numbers.
I look at the grade more than the rank. 2018 had a lower ranking 28 than 2020 at 25 even though the grades were almost a full hundredth in 2018s favor. A kin to finishing 6th in the Big XII is usually better than 5th in the BiG.