College football teams with the most returning production in 2020

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GopherWeatherGuy

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Here's an interesting read about returning production by Bill Connelly. He came up with different weights/percentages of how important returning production is across certain position groups, and how it relates to overall production increase/decrease for the following season.

• Percentage of last season's QB passing yards returning: 32% of offensive returning production formula
• Percentage of last season's WR/TE receiving yards returning: 32%
• Percentage of career starts returning on the offensive line: 17.5%
• Percentage of last season's offensive line snaps returning: 12%
• Percentage of last season's RB rushing yards returning: 6.5%

• Percentage of defensive returning production formula derived from defensive line: 5%
• Percentage derived from secondary: 37%
• Percentage derived from full defense: 21%

In 2020, teams range from 29% to 93% returning production on offense and 27% to 96% on defense. What does that tend to mean for a team's SP+ ratings?

Over the past six seasons, offenses with returning production above 60% average an improvement of about two points per game, while those below regress by about three. And the extremes are pretty stark: Only one of the 18 teams that have returned at least 90% of their offensive production saw its offensive SP+ rating fall, while nine improved by at least seven adjusted points per game.

Meanwhile, of the 37 offenses that returned 35% of their production or less, only five improved, while 19 regressed by at least seven adjusted points per game.

It's the same story on defense: Teams returning at least 85% of defensive production improve by an average of five adjusted points per game, while teams returning 40% or less regress by five adjusted points per game. If you're on one end of the spectrum or the other, your fate is pretty settled.

According to this the Gophers return 82% of their offensive production, good for 13th in the country. They return only 33% of their defense, which is 125th in the country. Overall, they are 86th in returning production in the country.

https://www.espn.com/college-footba...football-teams-most-returning-production-2020
 
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Thanks for posting this; you beat me to it.

This idea of tracking returning production rather than the old method of returning starters is really interesting and bears watching.

Leading up to the 2019 season, Connelly had the Gophers ranked 10th nationally and first in the B1G in returning production...

... and the Gophers (as we all know) went 11-2, a spectacular season.

Going into 2020 Billy has us ranked 86th in returning production, which looks a bit worrisome at first glance. However, the continuing maturation on this (still) young team, plus the high percentage of returning productivity on offense, are reasons for optimism in my opinion.

It's also interesting that many of the helmet schools have very high turnover heading into 2020.
 

Good stuff. This suggest the Big10 west might be wide open In 2020 to any one of the seven teams. The typical strong west teams IA & WI down the list but Northwestern, Nebraska, Illinois, Purdue all quite high.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Here's an interesting read about returning production by Bill Connelly. He came up with different weights/percentages of how important returning production is across certain position groups, and how it relates to overall production increase/decrease for the following season.

• Percentage of last season's QB passing yards returning: 32% of offensive returning production formula
• Percentage of last season's WR/TE receiving yards returning: 32%
• Percentage of career starts returning on the offensive line: 17.5%
• Percentage of last season's offensive line snaps returning: 12%
• Percentage of last season's RB rushing yards returning: 6.5%

• Percentage of defensive returning production formula derived from defensive line: 5%
• Percentage derived from secondary: 37%
• Percentage derived from full defense: 21%

In 2020, teams range from 29% to 93% returning production on offense and 27% to 96% on defense. What does that tend to mean for a team's SP+ ratings?

Over the past six seasons, offenses with returning production above 60% average an improvement of about two points per game, while those below regress by about three. And the extremes are pretty stark: Only one of the 18 teams that have returned at least 90% of their offensive production saw its offensive SP+ rating fall, while nine improved by at least seven adjusted points per game.

Meanwhile, of the 37 offenses that returned 35% of their production or less, only five improved, while 19 regressed by at least seven adjusted points per game.

It's the same story on defense: Teams returning at least 85% of defensive production improve by an average of five adjusted points per game, while teams returning 40% or less regress by five adjusted points per game. If you're on one end of the spectrum or the other, your fate is pretty settled.

According to this the Gophers return 82% of their offensive production, good for 13th in the country. They return only 33% of their defense, which is 125th in the country. Overall, they are 86th in returning production in the country.

https://www.espn.com/college-footba...football-teams-most-returning-production-2020
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Well, that just can't be right. I have been assured by the deepest thinkers on this board that replacing seven starters on the D will not be a serious problem, even in the short run, and may very well result in an improved D this year.
 

Ohio State, Clemson, LSU and Alabama are all toward the bottom. They are screwed!

It is interesting that most of the top teams had dumpster fire seasons.
 


basically this just says if you bring back your passing offense and passing defense, you'll be good.
 

Veritas said:
Well, that just can't be right. I have been assured by the deepest thinkers on this board that replacing seven starters on the D will not be a serious problem, even in the short run, and may very well result in an improved D this year.
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Man you are really pulling hard for the defense to struggle this year. I am sure you probably have your thread about it already planned out so you can come and tell us how stupid we all were to have any optimism that the talent on D might take a step forward in the way it has on offense.
 

-13th in returning offensive production
-125th in returning defensive production

A huge part of Connelly’s formula is...recruiting rankings (a mix of Rivals and 247 IIRC - he doesn’t totally trust 247 composite either). Turnover isn’t as important in aggregate if a blue chip player steps in next season.

The question for Minnesota for 2020 and perhaps the biggest question mark - competing with whether Sanford will break the offense (or enhance it) - is what the up and coming defensive talent can do. As Veritas pointed out hard to say for sure. IMO based on limited playing time (and based on recruiting rankings) the DL talent coming up is superior. The corners are excellent. Questions at linebacker, safety but talent on paper there as well and guys like Oliver look really talented.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Man you are really pulling hard for the defense to struggle this year. I am sure you probably have your thread about it already planned out so you can come and tell us how stupid we all were to have any optimism that the talent on D might take a step forward in the way it has on offense.
Click to expand...

I'm sure we'll get some "OH MAN I KNEW IT AND PEOPLE TOLD ME I WAS WRONG" post.

Some folks I think just post here and it isn't even about football or being a fan ... more about some weird process of telling the outside world that they know things ... even if those things are the most obvious things to everyone else ...
 




A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I'm sure we'll get some "OH MAN I KNEW IT AND PEOPLE TOLD ME I WAS WRONG" post.

Some folks I think just post here and it isn't even about football or being a fan ... more about some weird process of telling the outside world that they know things ... even if those things are the most obvious things to everyone else ...
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Haha -- so true. Unfortunately for the Gophers, the schedule has Iowa and BYU on it back to back very early so the defense has got to be ready to go very early on. I think it will get better as the season goes on barring injuries - that's safe to say but there is enough talent to fill in the holes left behind. Look at the Outback Bowl game where Kamal Martin was replaced very adequately and at times he was our best defender last season. Winfield will be tough to replace no doubt about that one but the rest were decent players who did a great job for us but remember they aren't exactly going to get drafted in the top 10 in the upcoming NFL draft, either. This is year 4 for Fleck so any holes should have been addressed the last few years.

We will be fine - let's not worry about it!!
 

MNVCGUY said:
Man you are really pulling hard for the defense to struggle this year. I am sure you probably have your thread about it already planned out so you can come and tell us how stupid we all were to have any optimism that the talent on D might take a step forward in the way it has on offense.
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I'm pulling hard to have a realist set of expectations going into next season. IMHO the D is likely to be somewhat less effective early in the next season. Huffing and Puffing to the contrary is, IMHO, ignorant and or naive. And, I will do you the courtesy next season of pointing out the error in your thinking should it turn out that the D is slow to get up to adequate speed. Just because I happen to be right about this does not mean I should protect the thin skins of those who might, naively, see it otherwise. Dream on. Go Gophers!!
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I'm sure we'll get some "OH MAN I KNEW IT AND PEOPLE TOLD ME I WAS WRONG" post.

Some folks I think just post here and it isn't even about football or being a fan ... more about some weird process of telling the outside world that they know things ... even if those things are the most obvious things to everyone else ...
Click to expand...

Needing a safe space again today? "Everyone else"?
 



Veritas said:
I'm pulling hard to have a realist set of expectations going into next season. IMHO the D is likely to be somewhat less effective early in the next season. Huffing and Puffing to the contrary is, IMHO, ignorant and or naive. And, I will do you the courtesy next season of pointing out the error in your thinking should it turn out that the D is slow to get up to adequate speed. Just because I happen to be right about this does not mean I should protect the thin skins of those who might, naively, see it otherwise. Dream on. Go Gophers!!
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So you already know you're right about next season's defense in early Feb?
 

Pompous Elitist said:
Can someone fill me on on this argument? ^^^
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Well...Slab followed this "more about some weird process of telling the outside world that they know things ..." with this "even if those things are the most obvious things to everyone else ..."
 

PMWinSTP said:
Well...Slab followed this "more about some weird process of telling the outside world that they know things ..." with this "even if those things are the most obvious things to everyone else ..."
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I guess I’m confused. People are upset there are differing opinions about how good the defense will be next year? You're saying people don’t want to hear losing 7 starters might impact a defense?

There has to be some other underlying antagonism here. I suppose we can argue losing defensive production is no big deal, losing KC will be no big deal, Morgan no big deal, PJF no big deal but that’s sort of pie in the sky.

I see some talent returning and am optimistic but I don’t think I would slam someone that is a little more pessimistic because that is actually the more obvious conventional wisdom...
 

Pompous Elitist said:
I guess I’m confused. People are upset there are differing opinions about how good the defense will be next year? You're saying people don’t want to hear losing 7 starters might impact a defense?

There has to be some other underlying antagonism here. I suppose we can argue losing defensive production is no big deal, losing KC will be no big deal, Morgan no big deal, PJF no big deal but that’s sort of pie in the sky.

I see some talent returning and am optimistic but I don’t think I would slam someone that is a little more pessimistic because that is actually the more obvious conventional wisdom...
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Here is my original post on this topic.

Jan 3, 2020
"We are losing seven starters on D and they played the most minutes precisely because they were the best, most ready guys we had. The backups were backups for exactly the same reasons: less ready, less able. So, IMHO, we will have several games, at least, where the D will be short of where we were this year. I hope I am wrong, but my experience is that you do not replace seven starters without taking a step backwards unless you have a mighty stable of high school All Americans waiting on the bench like Ohio State has."


Nothing treasonish or illogical. That whole thread back on January 3rd was a dream fairy orgy of wishful thinking by too many Gopher fans and my post was an attemp to keep expectations in line with reality so as to avoid the "sky is falling" inevitable reactions when reality settles in.

But, you are right about the underlying issue. People with an addiction problem hate it when their lack of self control is exposed and critized. I did that in regard to all the drunken standing at the Wisconsin game and these drunks have been major leagued pissed ever since. Too bad.
 

Veritas said:
Well, that just can't be right. I have been assured by the deepest thinkers on this board that replacing seven starters on the D will not be a serious problem, even in the short run, and may very well result in an improved D this year.
Click to expand...

Well in 2015, Fleck's third year, WMU was #8 in the MAC in scoring defense at 28.3 YPG. They were #8 in the MAC in total defense at 413.7 YPG allowed. That defense graduated 5 starters, 2 DB's, an LB and 2 DL.

In 2016, year four of Fleck, they had the #2 total defense in the MAC at 353.6 YPG allowed and the #1 scoring defense in the MAC at 19.8 PPG allowed.

Also last year Wisconsin lost 5 starters including 4 of their top 5 tacklers and their top 3 TFL and sack guys. They went from giving up 22.6 PPG in 2018 and to 16. PPG in 2019 and 344 YPG in 2018 to to 287 YPG.

Now I don't necessarily think we'll be better on D compared to last year but we should be alright.
 


Veritas said:
Yes, I know I'm right about being cautious about replacing seven starters on D early in the new season.
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Let’s break this down a little, so it doesn’t look so daunting. We’ll start with Martin. He’s a good player, who has a chance to be drafted in the late rounds. That said, he missed a lot of games, and played injured in others. Given what you saw from our defense in the Penn State and Auburn games (without Martin), are you concerned about replacing him in the starting lineup next season?
 

Pompous Elitist said:
I guess I’m confused. People are upset there are differing opinions about how good the defense will be next year? You're saying people don’t want to hear losing 7 starters might impact a defense?

There has to be some other underlying antagonism here. I suppose we can argue losing defensive production is no big deal, losing KC will be no big deal, Morgan no big deal, PJF no big deal but that’s sort of pie in the sky.

I see some talent returning and am optimistic but I don’t think I would slam someone that is a little more pessimistic because that is actually the more obvious conventional wisdom...
Click to expand...
No, I was just pointing out that Slab basically did in his post what he was pointing out...in his post.

I think the discussion is good. My take is that Gophs have had players step up to replace good/great starters every year for the past 7-8 years. I don't see that changing this year.
 

Veritas said:
I'm pulling hard to have a realist set of expectations going into next season. IMHO the D is likely to be somewhat less effective early in the next season. Huffing and Puffing to the contrary is, IMHO, ignorant and or naive. And, I will do you the courtesy next season of pointing out the error in your thinking should it turn out that the D is slow to get up to adequate speed. Just because I happen to be right about this does not mean I should protect the thin skins of those who might, naively, see it otherwise. Dream on. Go Gophers!!
Click to expand...

Don't back pedal now after months. Stick to it's a serious problem.
 


Our defense will be worse short term no mstter who fills in. 3 starters we lost are NFL combine worthy and the others will get NFL camp invites. They are solid players and while I am excited for our replacements there is a lot of room for error when you replace so much experience and production. We have reason for optimism, especailly by the end of the year as defense gels. However, losing a game 38 - 35 is a real possibility. Especially early. I do have high hopes but it does not mean we should not be cautious of over hoping what our defense will be.
 

PitinoFan said:
Let’s break this down a little, so it doesn’t look so daunting. We’ll start with Martin. He’s a good player, who has a chance to be drafted in the late rounds. That said, he missed a lot of games, and played injured in others. Given what you saw from our defense in the Penn State and Auburn games (without Martin), are you concerned about replacing him in the starting lineup next season?
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S-M does not have the wing span, speed or experience of Martin. Indeed, I think it more likely he will replace Barber than Martin. But, to the real point, replacing seven is a lot harder than replacing one. In the first month or so we are going to have seven guys out there who will have limited experience playing with each other. There will not be ten veterans knowing what to do with one guy working himself up to speed. Additionally, there is the question of pure talent. People are assuming the new guys will be as flat out talented as the guys they are replacing.
 

btowngopher said:
Don't back pedal now after months. Stick to it's a serious problem.
Click to expand...

Here, for the second time today, is the original post from Jan. 3.

"We are losing seven starters on D and they played the most minutes precisely because they were the best, most ready guys we had. The backups were backups for exactly the same reasons: less ready, less able. So, IMHO, we will have several games, at least, where the D will be short of where we were this year. I hope I am wrong, but my experience is that you do not replace seven starters without taking a step backwards unless you have a mighty stable of high school All Americans waiting on the bench like Ohio State has."

Would you like me to post my second post of Jan. 3 to futher clarify my original position for you? It is the cry babies, like you, on this site who have tried to change my position which has remained exactly the same. For the first several games all the new defensive starters are likely to be less effective than the starters of 2019 were.

Here is my second post under the original post on next season's depth chart:

"Personally, I find much of the above to be wishful, unproven, thinking at this point, but we will just have to wait until late September to know how many of the above named "studs" live up to the hype and which will be on the transfer table in December. By November I hope and expect the young guys to be veterans, but how much pain will we have to endure until then? I certainly agree that a very good O can solve a lot of defensive problems. Go Gophers!"

Notice, same thesis, same concern.
 
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Veritas said:
S-M does not have the wing span, speed or experience of Martin. Indeed, I think it more likely he will replace Barber than Martin. But, to the real point, replacing seven is a lot harder than replacing one. In the first month or so we are going to have seven guys out there who will have limited experience playing with each other. There will not be ten veterans knowing what to do with one guy working himself up to speed. Additionally, there is the question of pure talent. People are assuming the new guys will be as flat out talented as the guys they are replacing.
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The only new starter that I would consider inexperienced is going to be Nubin. SM, Oliver, and the dline all have plenty of experience. Luckily Nubin was our highest rated recruit from the 2019 class. Of course the rest of the secondary is loaded with experience.
 

I think one guy that could make a run at a starting LB position is this guy, looks like he could be a beast.

 

Terrell Smith could be a piece to help allay concerns. He had a lot of production in 2018:

2018 • FRESHMAN SEASON: Played in 11 games and started nine • recorded 43 tackles (34 solo), broke up eight passes and made one interception.
 


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