Today’s blog continues my in-depth look at my NCAA Experience Chart. For nine years I had listed an experience chart, which broke down the number of seniors, juniors, sophomores and freshmen each team had in the two deep and rated the teams experience level with a formula I devised. In 2009, I made the experience chart FIVE TIMES better by adding new categories like Career Starts on Offensive line, % of Offensive Yards returning, % of Defensive Yards returning and % of lettermen returning.
Today I will look at the % of tackles returning. I took all of the tackles made by the team a year ago and then took all of the returning tackles from 2018 and divided it into that number for the percentage.
Last year at the top of the list was Florida Atlantic, which had 90.8% of their total tackles returning from 2017 and their record surprisingly went down from 11-3 to 5-7. Texas Tech was #2 with 88.2% and their record also went down from 6-7 to 5-7. Georgia Southern was #3 with 88.1% and their record was a huge improvement from 2-10 to 10-3.
At the bottom of the list last year was #130 Connecticut, which had just 33.1% of their tackles returning. Connecticut went from allowing 519 ypg (’17) to 617 ypg last year and their ppg from 37.9 all the way up to 50.4. FIU (38.6%) at #129 went from 159 ypg rush to 192 ypg rush in ’18. Indiana (38.8%) was #128 and they went from 340 ypg to 424 ypg.
This year the most veteran defenses are all teams I expect to improve their records this year. Texas St leads the way with 94.7% of its tackles returning. #2 Western Michigan (87.7%) and #3 Ball St (86.6%).
At the bottom of this years list are #130 Central Michigan which has just 35.7% of its tackles returning. Washington at #129, which has just 37.0% of its total tackles back. #128 New Mexico (39.0%) rounds out the only 3 teams 39% and under.
On Monday July 1st we will be back with 2019 Two Deep Class breakdown chart.
Here is the complete list.
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