minnesota second in returing starters

[die hard gopher]

The number of starters a team returns in no way guarantees of success or failure when the season rolls around, but the metric undoubtedly carries weight this time of year.

Preseason predictions are an inexact science, based heavily on whether a team has, say, 19 returning starters versus 11 or 12. Although there are many examples of bad teams who return a lot of starters and remain bad teams, the general belief among coaches is that more experience leads to fewer mistakes and more wins.

Let's take a closer look at the returning starters in the Big Ten for the 2013 season.

Here are the numbers listed by the Big Ten office (some players who split time as starters are included):

21

Indiana (10 offense, 9 defense, 2 kicker/punter)

18

Minnesota (10 offense, 7 defense, 1 kicker/punter)

17

Michigan State (9 offense, 7 defense, 1 kicker/punter)
Northwestern (8 offense, 7 defense, 2 kicker/punter)
Wisconsin (8 offense, 7 defense, 2 kicker/punter)

16

Iowa (6 offense, 8 defense, 2 kicker/punter)
Penn State (8 offense, 6 defense, 2 kicker/punter)
Purdue (5 offense, 9 defense, 2 kicker/punter)

15

Illinois (9 offense, 4 defense, 2 kicker/punter)

14

Ohio State (9 offense, 4 defense, 1 kicker/punter)

13

Michigan (5 offense, 6 defense, 2 kicker/punter)

12

Nebraska (7 offense, 5 defense, 0 kicker/punter)

Total starters back for the 2013 season doesn't tell the whole story. University of Colorado sports information director Dave Plati examined which FBS teams have the total number of returning starts as well as returning starters only from the 2012 season.

Five Big Ten teams return more than 250 career starts on their 2013 rosters. They are:

Indiana: 391 total starts, fifth nationally
Wisconsin: 304 total starts, 26th nationally
Ohio State: 298 total starts, 29th nationally
Iowa: 274 total starts, 37th nationally
Nebraska: 269 total starts, 42nd nationally

Indiana and Nebraska both rank among the top 10 nationally in total returning starts on offense. The Hoosiers have 193 and the Huskers have 183.

Again, you can't put too much stock into returning starters, but a few observations: •Nine of 12 Big Ten squads return more starters on offense than defense in 2013 (only Purdue, Iowa and Michigan do not). Does that mean more points, yards and excitement around the league this season? Perhaps. Then again, more than half of the league is still looking for a starting quarterback.
•It has been written before, but Nebraska and Ohio State have remarkably similar profiles entering 2013. Both return so much more experience on the offensive side. The Huskers have more than twice as many career offensive starts than defensive starts (86), while the Buckeyes are similarly lopsided (164 offensive starts, 96 defensive starts).
•Wisconsin's experience shouldn't be discounted when sizing up the 2013 team. Yes, the Badgers have been through a lot of transition in the past two seasons and there could be an adjustment period under new head coach Gary Andersen. But Wisconsin returns 25 seniors who know how to win. There's a reason former coach Bret Bielema last offseason pointed to the 2013 squad as potentially his best with the Badgers.
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/77350/a-closer-look-at-b1g-returning-starters#comment


so as you guys know we return 10 on offense and 6 on D but they say 7 for some reason and a punter, but does the fact that we are second in the big ten in returning starters mean anything? does this neccesarily mean that we will be the second most improved? i say if every big ten team returned 7 starters on both sides minnesota would be one of the top 3 most improved big ten teams with the others being michigan and indiana, but with us being second in returning starters does that mean we will be the msot improved (or second to IU)and get to a 8-9 win season, how many starters did we return last year? and we won 3 more games last year then the year before with probably not being second in returing starters

 

[nsmike]

We are not on the list for total accumulated starts, it means, we don't have a lot of experienced starters. Our starters are mostly young players so we have a lot of upside potential as the youngsters gain experience. It also underlines the lack of depth we had last year.

 

[Dr.Don]

We are not on the list for total accumulated starts, it means, we don't have a lot of experienced starters. Our starters are mostly young players so we have a lot of upside potential as the youngsters gain experience. It also underlines the lack of depth we had last year.

So that is what thread title meant when it called them "returing starters"?

 

[Killjoy]

Interesting stuff and analysis. I wonder if this means that we had a young team last year?

 

[MNVCGUY]

Anyone know how far we fell below the 250 start threshold? Have to think with the number of starters we have coming back and the other underclassmen that got starts due to injuries we have to be in that ballpark as well.

Indiana could be an interesting team to keep an eye on. Their offense was explosive last year at times and they brought in a very solid recruiting class on paper with a number of highly ranked defensive players (I know I know...the recruiting services don't know what they are talking about...our class is awesome....rankings mean nothing). All disclaimers aside if they shore up their defense they could be in line for some good things.