Football Analysis: Returning S&P Production
LINK to our "overall", "offensive", and "defensive" returning S&P production for 2016-2019.
LINK to tableau source where you can play around and highlight various teams, conferences, etc.
What stands out to me is 2017's defense, which ended up being the 5th best S&P defense that year, having the 3rd lowest returning production in the nation. Assuages my fears surrounding us not returning much defensively this coming year.
MSU returning the 3rd most offensively in the nation last year and being that fucking awful is pretty funny.
They were also crazy injured. As much as I enjoyed MSU sucking offensively, they were also down their top two/three receivers, and basically a QB.
Yeah and so were we in 2017 and nobody gives a shit. Anyone can play the injury card
Pretty sure that’s what our offense looked like in 2017... in addition to being extremely young.
If we don’t get to use the injury card, neither do they. Their offense wasn’t very good even when fully healthy. Lewerke had the most turnovers in the conference before his injury occurred. They had no running game and their OL was below average at best. They essentially had Felton, and nobody to reliably get him the ball.
That 2016 defense had a second unit of elite or near elite players. Some of those backups were better than last season’s starters.
There’s a reason why people are worried.
Given that most of the second unit in 2016 were last year's starters can you clarify who you are talking about please? I can think of Hurst I suppose as one.
Can't Wait! fuuuuuuuuuuutball
Connelly is a smart guy and I greatly respect his work.
But it's worth noting, the historical correlations he has between returning production and next year stats are relatively weak correlations. On the order of 0.1 to 0.4. See link below.
I think the best way to look at this is as a directional indicator. Michigan's D could still be pretty darn good in 2019.
Still waiting for Seth's post on returning experience :)