SP+ Just Put a Number on UTRGV’s Year 2 Expectations

Source: ESPN Bill Connelly SP+ and UTRGV Athletics

UTRGV isn’t exactly sneaking up on anybody anymore.

ESPN’s Bill Connelly dropped his 2026 SP+ Top 771, putting 771 college football programs on one giant board.

UTRGV landed at No. 179.

That number gets a lot more interesting when you put the Vaqueros’ schedule next to it.

UTRGV’s 2026 opponents in SP+

No. 71 UTSANo. 131 Stephen F. AustinNo. 137 SoutheasternNo. 154 Lamar No. 179 UTRGVNo. 181 UIWNo. 198 Central ArkansasNo. 212 McNeeseNo. 224 NichollsNo. 279 East Texas A&MNo. 315 UT Permian BasinNo. 321 Houston ChristianNo. 370 Northwestern State

That means UTRGV enters Year 2 ranked ahead of eight of the 12 teams on its schedule.

But that’s not even the part that jumped out the most.

Outside of the trip to No. 71 UTSA, every other road opponent on UTRGV’s schedule sits below the Vaqueros in SP+.

And the three Southland teams ranked ahead of UTRGV?

SFA. Southeastern. Lamar.

All three have to come to The Vack.

UTRGV went 9-3 during its inaugural season and finished 7-0 at home. Its three losses came on the road against SFA, Southeastern and Lamar — three teams that reached the FCS playoffs.

Now those games flip to Edinburg.

That doesn’t mean SP+ is predicting UTRGV will run through the schedule. It doesn’t work like a traditional preseason poll, either. Connelly’s SP+ is designed as a predictive, tempo- and opponent-adjusted efficiency rating — basically a way of measuring how good a team is expected to be moving forward.

But from the DITV side, it does put a number on something we’ve been talking about all offseason.

The expectations have changed.

UTPB may carry the DII label into Game 1, but SP+ has UTRGV at No. 179 and UTPB at No. 315. UIW sits just two spots behind the Vaqueros at No. 181. Even deeper into the Southland schedule, UTRGV finds itself on the right side of this particular computer model more often than not.

Last year was about seeing whether a brand-new football program could compete.

They answered that pretty quickly.

Year 2 might be about finding out just how good UTRGV already is.

Source note: Rankings in this story come from ESPN’s Bill Connelly and his 2026 SP+ Top 771. SP+ is a predictive, tempo- and opponent-adjusted efficiency metric, not a traditional poll or résumé ranking. Schedule information and 2025 UTRGV results are from UTRGV Athletics.