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In an ESPN+ story, Bill Connelly released his returning production percentages and rankings for all 131 FBS teams.
According to Connelly’s rankings, Oklahoma is No. 71 nationally in returning production at 64 percent. Offensively, the Sooners return just 47 percent of its production, which ranks 117th. OU brings back 82 percent of its production on the defensive side of the football, which is good for 15th nationally.
Here’s the formula for determining returning offensive production: percent of returning wide receiver and tight end receiving yards equals 37 percent of the overall number, percent of returning quarterback passing yards equals 29 percent, percent of returning offensive line snaps equals 28 percent and percent of returning running back rushing yards accounts for 6 percent.
Transfers’ production at their previous school are taken into account to determine returning production.
In the case of Oklahoma’s offense, that doesn’t help much, though. UCF transfer Dillon Gabriel has passed for 8,037 yards and 70 touchdowns over the course of his collegiate career, but he only played in three games last season due to injury.
If you add in Gabriel’s passing yards during the 2021 season to what Spencer Rattler, Ralph Rucker and Caleb Williams passed for, it equals 4,229 passing yards for the Sooners last season. Only 834 of those passing yards are returning, equaling 19.7 percent returning production for quarterbacks.
Again, at least in the case of OU’s quarterback position, it’s a tricky percentage to use, because the hope is Gabriel remains healthy throughout 2022. Under that scenario, Gabriel would approach or exceed his passing totals from the 2019 and 2020 seasons when he passed for 3,653 and 3,570 yards, respectively.
At wide receiver and tight end, it’s easier to understand. OU will be without four of its top-five pass catchers from 2021 next season. Michael Woods and Jeremiah Hall are entering the 2022 NFL Draft and Jadon Haselwood and Mario Williams are transferring to Arkansas and USC.
Factoring in the 12 receptions and 97 receiving yards Daniel Parker Jr. recorded at Missouri last season, Oklahoma pass-catchers caught 291 passes for 3,522 receiving yards in 2021. According to those numbers, OU is replacing 49.7 percent of its receiving yards from last season.
Looking strictly at the running back position and not accounting for any of Oklahoma’s other rushing yardage, Sooner running backs carried 304 times for 1,810 yards. Of course, Kennedy Brooks rushed 198 times for 1,253 rushing yards, meaning OU is replacing 69.2 percent of its rushing yardage from running backs.
Defensively, Connelly’s ranking allots 59 percent of his returning defensive production to percent of returning tackles, 28 percent to percent of returning passes defended, 8 percent to percent of returning tackles for loss and 5 percent to percent of returning sacks.
Here’s where things get a little wonky after mixing in the Oklahoma transfers’ production. As a team, OU recorded 902 tackles, 97 tackles for loss, 33 sacks and 24 passes defended. Not accounting the transfer numbers in just yet, Oklahoma would be replacing 40.3 percent of its total team tackles, 53.1 percent of its tackles for loss, 65.1 percent of its sacks and 33.3 percent of its passes defended.
Since Oklahoma added defensive transfers Jeffery Johnson, Jonah Laulu, C.J. Coldon, Trey Morrison, Kani Walker and T.D. Roof, all of those replacement numbers actually dip.
With the transfers mixed in, Oklahoma is replacing just 31.2 percent of its tackles, 41 percent of its tackles for loss, 49.4 percent of its sacks and 20 percent of its passes defensed.
To this point, Coldon had 10 passes defensed in 2021 and Morrison had four. OU had 24 passes defensed as a team last season. The outgoing players for Oklahoma represented 364 tackles, 51.5 tackles for loss, 21.5 sacks and eight passes defensed. The transfer portal adds accounted for 261 tackles, 28.5 tackles for loss, 10.5 sacks and 16 passes defensed.
Point being, returning production can be an inexact science once transfer portal players start getting tossed in. The bottom line is this: OU is replacing four of its top five pass-catchers offensively, its leading rusher, its top three sacks and tackles for loss producers and three of its top five tacklers from last season.
OU landed one of the top transfer quarterbacks in Gabriel and there are able replacements across the board elsewhere, some of which also happen to come from out of the transfer portal as well. How all of it meshes together won’t be determined by anybody’s returning production rankings.
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