returning production – Syndication Server

Looking at where Texas ranks in SEC in returning offensive production

The Texas Longhorns are Top 5 in returning offensive and defensive production in the SEC.

Is Texas on the verge of an offensive drop off? The numbers suggest the opposite.

Not long ago we noted the Longhorns’ overall returning production ranking among SEC teams. Texas ranked second to the Texas A&M Aggies in that category. Perhaps more impressive is the balance between strong offensive and defensive returning production.

Texas is in the Top 5 of the SEC in both offensive and defensive returning production according to ESPN’s Bill Connelly. His statistical model, which now includes what transfers did in their last season, has Texas as one of the most complete teams in the conference.

Offensively, the Longhorns return 74% of their production from last season. That includes what the team adds from transfer receivers Matthew Golden (Houston), Isaiah Bond (Alabama), Silas Bolden (Oregon State) and Amari Niblack. The four combined 160 receptions, 2,145 yards and 19 touchdowns from last season.

The Longhorns’ rivals from across the Red River aren’t faring as well in returning production. Despite returning several impact receivers, the Oklahoma Sooners return just 44% of their production from last season. Much of that production left with transfer quarterback Dillon Gabriel to Oregon.

Here’s a look at where every SEC team ranks in returning offensive production in 2024.

Wisconsin nearly leads the Big Ten in returning production entering 2024

Wisconsin is well-positioned entering 2024 … if everything works out

The Wisconsin football program enters 2024 needing a bounce-back campaign in a bad way.

The Badgers’ 7-6 2023 season fell far short of expectations, but especially so when one considers the losses were to teams including Northwestern, Indiana, Washington State and Iowa. Now, the team looks a bit different entering 2024 and a daunting schedule awaits.

An 8-4 season at minimum is necessary for the Luke Fickell era to gain positive momentum entering 2025. The schedule should be considered in the evaluation, but it shouldn’t be the end-all when this is what the new era of the Big Ten will look like. It’s on Fickell and Wisconsin’s leadership to adapt to the changes and carve out a successful place in the pecking order.

One important variable entering any football season — but especially this one for the Badgers — is returning production. ESPN’s Bill Connelly ranks every FBS team in the metric throughout the offseason, including this week after the initial transfer portal cycle concluded. The new era of college football makes it challenging to draw direct a correlation between returning production percentage and wins on the field, but it’s easy to conclude that returning starters are a good thing for teams looking to contend.

Yes, there are necessary disclaimers that a program would rather return ‘good’ production (in other words, not Iowa’s offense). So each example is a case-by-case basis, depending on whether the eventual replacement is better than the production that was lost. But that’s extremely complicated and misses the entire point, which is: that higher returning production is generally a good thing for top programs.

Wisconsin, despite all of the transfer talent, is almost at the top of the Big Ten:

2023 Big 12 Conference returning production rankings

Who is returning the most production in the new-look Big 12?

ESPN announced its returning production rankings for the 2023 season on Tuesday. The ranking takes a look at data on both sides of the football for all FBS teams in the country.

Texas checks in at No. 19 in the nation, good for second in the Big 12 Conference. 2023 sets up for Texas to have its most experienced team yet under Steve Sarkisian.

The Longhorns return a majority of its production on the offensive side of the ball, bringing back 10 of 11 starters. Quarterback Quinn Ewers is back for his redshirt sophomore season, along with all five starters on the offensive line.

Texas has more to replace on the defense with a handful of starters off to the NFL. The Horns do bring back a strong core of proven starters including linebacker Jaylan Ford and defensive back Jerrin Thompson.

Here is a complete look at where each Big 12 team stands on Bill Connelly’s returning production rankings ahead of the 2023 campaign.

Where LSU football ranks in terms of returning production, per ESPN

LSU is set to get a lot back on offense, while the defense will feature several new contributors.

Bill Connelly of ESPN has dropped his yearly returning production metric.

Connelly, the creator of SP+, uses a system a bit more complicated than just the counting of returning starters or yards. He weights stats based on what most correlates with progression and regression. For example, wide receiver and tight end yards are more valuable than returning rushing yards.

Connelly also puts a lot of weight on returning OL snaps, which accounts for 47% of his offensive metric. On defense, returning tackles is his most important number, while returning sacks don’t carry much weight at all. Defensive backs account for a lot of weight in his formula, so LSU’s losses in the secondary hurt where the Tigers stand on defense.

Let’s take a closer look at what returning production says about LSU.

How do Oklahoma and the Big 12 stack up in ESPN’s returning production for 2023?

Taking a look at how the Big 12 stacks up in ESPN’s returning production for the 2023 season.

Winter workouts are underway, and spring ball is right around the corner. It’s that time of the football schedule when teams are figuring out how to deal with the turnover they endured with NFL draft declarations and transfer portal departures.

Turnover is the name of the game in college football. The teams that consistently win are the teams that have had the best recruiting classes, which has allowed them to withstand that turnover.

Each offseason, ESPN’s Bill Connelly takes a look at the roster overhauls to determine which teams have the greatest amount of returning production (ESPN+). Returning production has had an impact in his SP+ ratings.

On average, teams returning at least 80% of production improve by about 5.8 adjusted points per game in the following season’s SP+ ratings. That’s a pretty significant bump! For a team ranked 25th in SP+ last year, adding 5.8 points to its rating would have bumped it to 10th. And in the past two seasons that weren’t majorly impacted by a pandemic (2019 and 2022), the average improvement for teams at 80% or higher is 6.8 points. – Connelly, ESPN

Not all programs are alike, however. Alabama, which ranked 125 in returning production, will be able to withstand losses a bit easier because they’ve recruited better than other teams in the bottom 33. We’ll have to wait and see if teams like TCU and Cincinnati are able to overcome their lack of returning production. Interestingly, those two schools each appeared in the College Football Playoff in the last two seasons.

Here’s how Connelly weighs the offense:

Broken out by position/player, you’re looking at roughly 29% for the quarterback, 6% for the running back and each of four wide receivers and/or tight ends and 9% for each offensive lineman. With each year of data, offensive line snaps become a heavier piece of the equation, which I find interesting. – Connelly, ESPN

So based on his equation, the Sooners lost 27% along the offensive line with the departures of [autotag]Anton Harrison[/autotag], [autotag]Wanya Morris[/autotag], and [autotag]Chris Murray[/autotag]. Toss in another 18% for the losses of [autotag]Eric Gray[/autotag], [autotag]Marvin Mims[/autotag], and [autotag]Brayden Willis[/autotag], and the Sooners have lost roughly 45% of their offensive production from a year ago.

Now the Sooners did welcome transfer additions [autotag]Walter Rouse[/autotag] and [autotag]Caleb Shaffer[/autotag] to replace two of their three departing offensive line starters, but given that Shaffer is coming from the Group of Five, his snaps don’t count as much as [autotag]Chris Murray[/autotag]’s.

Conversely, here’s how he evaluates the defensive side of the ball.

Perhaps surprisingly, turnover in the back of the defense causes far more of a shift in a team’s SP+ rating from year to year than turnover up front. By position, defensive backs make up about 46% of the defensive formula, while linebackers are at 40% and the defensive line is at 14%. – Connelly, ESPN

The Sooners’ biggest departures were at the linebacker level with [autotag]David Ugwoegbu[/autotag] (transfer portal) and [autotag]DaShaun White[/autotag] (NFL) moving on. They also lost [autotag]Jalen Redmond[/autotag] and [autotag]Jeffery Johnson[/autotag], but according to Connelly’s metrics, those snaps don’t weigh as heavily.

Oklahoma added some pieces along the defensive front to help bolster its pass rush and mitigate the losses. However, they are hoping for their young linebacker corp to take a step forward in 2023 to replace their veteran backers.

Here’s a look at how the Big 12 stacks up in terms of ESPN’s

ESPN ranks CFB teams with most returning production in 2023. Where’s Georgia?

Georgia will have a lot of talent to replace this offseason

The 2023 Georgia Bulldogs will enter the season as the back-to-back defending national champions, but they will have a new look after losing a number of guys to the NFL draft and the NCAA transfer portal.

ESPN’s Bill Connelly recently released his returning production rankings, which looks at which programs return the most production from last year’s teams. This category is one of the three factors that go into his SP+ rankings and account for a majority of the formula.

Georgia checked in at No. 80 in the rankings, returning 61% of its production from last season. Connelly also breaks it down by offensive and defensive production. Georgia returns 52% on offense (109th nationally) and 70% on defense (42nd nationally).

In 2021, Georgia ranked No. 96, returning 59% of its production from the previous season. And that was after losing 15 guys to the NFL draft and 13 more to the transfer portal.

Connelly listed Florida State, Michigan, Texas A&M, Missouri, USC, Utah, Texas and Washington as the teams most likely to improve next season.

Alabama, TCU, Kansas State, UTSA and Iowa are the teams Connelly considers most likely to regress.

For comparison purposes, Auburn ranks No. 28 with 71% production returning, Ole Miss ranks No. 30, LSU No. 32, Clemson No. 36, Tennessee No. 69 and Alabama No. 125.

[mm-video type=playlist id=01eqbz2y40j067srkf player_id=01eqbvp13nn1gy6hd4 image=]

Big 12 Football: Where each team ranks in terms of returning production percentages

Texas is No. 3 in the conference in terms of returning production.

While many teams across the college football landscape have lost a significant amount of production due to the new one-time transfer rule, others have had better luck. Continue reading “Big 12 Football: Where each team ranks in terms of returning production percentages”

Wisconsin football’s returning production compared to the rest of the Big Ten

ESPN.com ranked FBS football programs based on returning production for2021. Here is where Wisconsin and the rest of the Big Ten fell on the

One of the stories of the Wisconsin Badgers’ 2020 football season was the young names that emerged on the offensive side of the football.

The team’s initial depth chart was supposed to have senior Jack Coan at QB, seniors Danny Davis and Kendric Pryor at WR and senior Garrett Groshek leading the way at RB.

What did the depth chart soon become? Freshman Graham Mertz at QB, freshman Chimere Dike as one of the team’s top receivers and freshman Jalen Berger leading the way at RB.

Related: Wisconsin’s projected 2021 depth chart on offense, defense

While it wasn’t pretty at times, what the experience from the season will do is set up the team’s offensive core to succeed for years.

Then you look at the whole roster and see Jack Sanborn and Jake Ferguson, arguably the team’s two best players, returning along with the three underclassmen I listed above, Leo Chenal, Caesar Williams, Scott Nelson and Nick Herbig. The list goes on and on.

So while the 2020 season was defined by the team’s inexperience at key positions, the 2021 campaign is lining up to be the complete opposite story. One of the most important factors for success at the college level is production, and the 2021 Badgers will have it.

Now backing up to look at the Big Ten as a whole, ESPN ranked FBS football programs based purely on how much production they’ll return in 2021. I went through the list and ranked every Big Ten team, but first here are the Badgers’ three out-of-conference opponents.

Eastern Michigan: No. 61 overall (71% returning production), No. 45 offense (78%), No. 85 defense (64%)
Notre Dame: No. 123 overall (49% returning production), No. 123 offense (44%), No. 108 defense (53%)
Army: No. 42 overall (77% returning production), No. 42 offense (79%), No. 46 defense (76%)

Now, the Wisconsin Badgers and the rest of the Big Ten:

[listicle id=26418]

Texas is last in the Big 12 in terms of returning production

Sooners Wire recently ranked each Big 12 team’s returning production.

Our colleagues at Sooners Wire recently ranked each team’s returning production in the Big 12 conference. Continue reading “Texas is last in the Big 12 in terms of returning production”

Ranking the Big 12 Conference by returning production

In 2021, the Oklahoma Sooners are middle of the pack in returning production in the conference. The full breakdown on returning players.

Looking forward to the 2021 college football season, we examine the returning production in the conference. Bill Connelly of ESPN ranked every team in FBS on their returning starters*.

*Editor’s Note: Link to story requires a paid subscription

Continue reading “Ranking the Big 12 Conference by returning production”