With the offseason in full swing, the nerd numbers are taking center stage. Most of this is the work of Bill Connelly, who is brilliant and covers college football as a whole better than anybody else I know.
Anyway, I have some thoughts on some of these figures. First let’s look at what numbers, rankings and stats we’re actually talking about.
First, let’s talk about the difference between FPI and SP+ (mostly because I always forget). Here are the definitions.
SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is not a resume ranking that gives credit for big wins or particularly brave scheduling — no good predictive system is.