Today’s blog continues my in-depth look at my NCAA Experience Chart. For eight 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 2016 and divided it into that number for the percentage.

Last year at the top of the list was Arkansas, which had 86.76% of their total tackles returning from 2015 and their record surprisingly went down from 8-5 to 7-6! Army West Point was #2 with 84.95% and their record went from 2-10 to 8-5!

At the bottom of the list last year was #128 Utah St, which had just 27.25% of their tackles returning and #127 Illinois, which had just 35.35% back. Utah St went from allowing 332 ypg to 380 while Illinois went from yielding 23.3 ppg all the way up to 31.9 ppg. Akron was #126 with just 35.67% back and they imploded going from 21.5 ppg & 332 ypg allowed in 2015 to 33.6 ppg & 466 ypg in 2016!

This year the most veteran defenses are all teams I expect to improve their records this year. Syracuse leads the way with 89.2% of its tackles returning. #2 Florida St (87.2%) and #3 Georgia (86.6%).

At the bottom of this years list are #130 UAB which has just 17.9% of its tackles returning. As I mentioned in Friday’s blog UAB is back after they did not have a football program the last 2 years. The Blazers bring back only 4 defensive players from their team in 2014. Air Force at #129, which has just 25.0% of its total tackles back. #128 UNLV (27.6%) rounds out the only 3 teams under 30%.

Here is the complete list.