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Last year someone posted a link to to 2025 SP+ page for D2 football. When searching for SP+ this year I only find information/rankings for the 138 D! schools. Does anyone have information and a link to where the 2026 D2 information will be posted?
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Your best bet would probably be to reach out to the creator of SP+, Bill Connelly, directly. I don’t believe that the articles he writes for ESPN cover the full spectrum of CFB, and don’t know if he has a personal site with the full list readily available, given that last year it only seemed to exist as an image and a Google Sheet that he tweeted out at times.“No matter how badly things get blown apart, we will always plant flowers again.” -
Thank you Big Cat. I will seek out Bill Connelly and see what might occur for 2026. If anyone does find or receive the SP+ please post that information for all of us.Originally posted by TheBigCat2192 View PostComment
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what is it?Comment
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SP+ is a college football ranking/rating system developed by a guy named Bill Connelly. Specifically:Originally posted by Brandon View Post
Connelly has a long history of writing about advanced football stats around the web, including at Football Study Hall+SBNation, Football Outsiders (no longer exists), and currently at ESPN. The articles he writes for ESPN mostly focus on FBS, but he also maintains a giant ranking list that covers all* four-year schools in the US (FBS, FCS, D2, D3, NAIA, and independent/unaffiliated), and occasionally posts the lists for each level.As a reminder, SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking
*Given closures, program foldings, and pop-up unaffiliated programs the list may not cover all four-year schools.“No matter how badly things get blown apart, we will always plant flowers again.”Comment
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I would subjectively say their quality is the other way around. SP+ is at least stat-based, while Massey is not, at least according to the Wikipedia page about Ken Massey.Originally posted by Matt Witwicki View Post“No matter how badly things get blown apart, we will always plant flowers again.”Comment
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I'm not concerned about debating which is better really..but the SP+ looks like output from someone who doesn't actively watch D2 football games.Originally posted by TheBigCat2192 View PostComment
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Computer ratings (KPI, NPI, Massey, or SP+) cannot accurately evaluate teams operating on an "island." Without interlocking or cross-over games to bridge the gap, it is mathematically impossible to contextualize isolated schedules, making any early rankings purely speculative.
Will Harding be good, probably, but how good? We'll find out in the 1st round.Last edited by debergfan; 08-24-2026, 08:33 PM.Comment
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These kinds of rankings/ratings are not supposed to be based on watching anything. That's the point. right/wrong good/bad, analytics are supposed to take eye test out of the equation.Originally posted by Matt Witwicki View PostComment
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I think you are missing the bigger point here..if the computer is spitting out something much different than the educated fan knows from literally watching D2 football....then we have a disconnect with the data versus reality. If the numbers (SP+) don't tell a story that's in-tune with reality, then why take them real seriously? I do not.Originally posted by Divisiontwo View PostComment
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Lies
D###ed lies
Statistics
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Here’s the link to the SP+ spreadsheet if anyone’s interested:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=1862799891Comment
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