How is SP+ calculated?

How S&P+ Measures College Football Teams

S&P+ isn’t just another stat—it’s a sophisticated rating system designed to measure college football teams more accurately than traditional win-loss records. Developed by analytics expert Bill Connelly, S&P+ evaluates team performance play by play, factoring in efficiency, explosiveness, and situational success on both offense and defense. But how is it actually calculated?

At its core, S&P+ is expressed as an adjusted points per game figure. This means the rating tells you how many points a team would be expected to outscore or be outscored by the average Division I team over the course of a game. For example, if a team has an S&P+ rating of +19.0, it’s considered 19 points better than average. On the flip side, a team rated at -12.0 would be seen as 12 points worse than the typical team.

What sets S&P+ apart is its reliance on tempo- and opponent-adjusted data. It doesn’t just count yards or points—it evaluates how well a team performs on standard and passing downs, adjusts for the strength of their opponents, and removes garbage-time plays that skew performance. This means a blowout win late in the fourth quarter won’t inflate a team’s rating if the game was already out of hand.

The system also incorporates predictive elements, making it useful not just for evaluating past performance but for forecasting future results. Analysts, fans, and even some coaches use S&P+ to cut through the noise of polls and narratives, focusing instead on what the data says on the field.

In a sport where close games and subjective rankings often dominate the headlines, S&P+ offers a clearer, more objective picture of which teams are truly performing at a high level—and which ones are being propped up by fluke wins or weak schedules.