What Is SP+?
If you follow college football analytics, you have probably encountered SP+ -- the efficiency rating system originally created by Bill Connelly. SP+ has become the gold standard for measuring how good a football team actually is, as opposed to how good its record says it is.
At its core, SP+ answers a simple question: how well does a team perform on a per-play basis, adjusted for who they played and the context of each play?
This is a fundamentally different approach from looking at wins and losses, total yards, or scoring margin. A team can rack up 500 yards against a weak opponent in garbage time and look impressive on a box score. SP+ sees through that. It isolates the plays that matter and evaluates efficiency in a way that translates across schedules and conferences.
The Key Components
SP+ breaks team performance into several dimensions. Here are the ones that matter most.
Success Rate
Success rate is the backbone of SP+. A play is considered "successful" if it gains a specific percentage of the yards needed for a first down:
- First down: 50% of yards to go
- Second down: 70% of yards to go
- Third/Fourth down: 100% of yards to go
A team with a high success rate is consistently moving the chains. This is the single best predictor of offensive quality -- more predictive than yards per play, points per game, or any traditional stat.
Explosiveness
While success rate measures consistency, explosiveness captures the ability to generate big plays. SP+ tracks how often a team produces plays that significantly exceed the expected output for a given down and distance.
An offense that is both efficient (high success rate) and explosive is extremely difficult to defend. It moves the chains methodically and then hits you with a 40-yard touchdown when you least expect it.
Havoc Rate
On the defensive side, havoc rate is one of the most revealing metrics. Havoc measures the percentage of plays where the defense creates a disruption -- a tackle for loss, a forced fumble, a pass breakup, or a sack.
Defenses with high havoc rates are aggressive and chaotic. They force offenses into negative plays and create turnovers. In our Coaching DNA system, defense_havoc is one of the 12 dimensions we track, and it consistently correlates with postseason success.
Rushing and Passing Efficiency
SP+ separates rushing and passing performance on both sides of the ball. This is critical because a team might have an elite passing attack paired with a mediocre running game -- or vice versa. By splitting these dimensions, we get a much clearer picture of where a team's strengths and weaknesses lie.
Field Position and Special Teams
Starting field position matters more than most fans realize. SP+ accounts for the impact of kickoff coverage, punt efficiency, and return game quality. A team that consistently starts drives at midfield has a built-in advantage that shows up in scoring efficiency.
Why Per-Play Efficiency Matters
Traditional stats are noisy. A team that runs 90 plays in a game will accumulate more yards than a team that runs 60, even if the second team is more efficient on each play. Points per game is influenced by pace, turnovers, and opponent quality in ways that make raw comparisons unreliable.
SP+ strips all of this away. By evaluating efficiency on a per-play basis and adjusting for context, it creates an apples-to-apples comparison across the entire FBS landscape. A team ranked 10th in SP+ is genuinely better, on a play-by-play basis, than a team ranked 30th -- regardless of their win-loss records.
How SP+ Connects to Coaching DNA
At Playmakers Edge, SP+ data feeds directly into our Coaching DNA system. Each of the 12 dimensions in a coach's DNA profile is derived from SP+ components and advanced stats:
- offense_rushing and offense_passing come from SP+ rushing and passing efficiency splits
- offense_success_rate maps directly to the SP+ success rate metric
- offense_explosiveness captures big-play production as measured by SP+
- offense_pace reflects how quickly the offense operates relative to the FBS average
- scoring_efficiency measures points scored relative to opportunities (red zone, third down)
- defense_rushing, defense_passing, and defense_success_rate mirror the offensive dimensions on the other side of the ball
- defense_havoc tracks the SP+ havoc rate
- defense_turnovers measures forced turnover rate
- special_teams captures the SP+ special teams rating
When you view a coach's DNA profile on the Coaching Constellation, you are looking at a visual summary of years of SP+ data, distilled into a 12-dimension radar chart that reveals how that coach's teams play football.
Putting It Into Practice
Here is a practical example. Suppose two teams meet in a rivalry game. Team A has a top-10 SP+ rating driven by an elite defense (strong havoc, excellent run defense) but a middling offense. Team B has a top-20 SP+ rating with an explosive, pass-heavy attack but a below-average defense.
Raw rankings might favor Team A. But the DNA matchup tells a different story. If Team B's passing offense can neutralize Team A's pass rush -- perhaps through quick RPO reads -- the explosiveness advantage could tilt the game. Conversely, if Team A's havoc rate disrupts Team B's timing, the defense wins.
This is exactly the kind of analysis our prediction system performs for every game. SP+ provides the foundation, and Coaching DNA adds the matchup layer.
Learn More
SP+ is updated throughout the season as new game data becomes available. You can track how teams' efficiency profiles evolve on our site and see how those shifts affect our weekly predictions.
For a look at how coaching philosophy shapes team identity beyond raw efficiency, read our companion piece: Air Raid vs RPO: How Offensive Philosophy Shapes Team Identity.
The Edge Report is the blog of Playmakers Edge, where we turn college football data into actionable insights. Follow us for weekly analysis throughout the season.