From Phil Steele's website....
LETTERMEN LOST/RETURNING EXPERIENCE FACTOR
One of new articles for this year?s magazine dealt with Lettermen Returning and Lost. This was something I started working on in the last few weeks of the magazine and did not have time to fully analyze. Last week I looked at my database on Lettermen returning and lost (which also includes returning starters) and starting playing around with some numbers. Here is my new analysis.
With all the teams logged into the computer since 2001, I have 6 full years of stats and results. The average number of returning lettermen in the NCAA in those six year is 69.7% of the previous year?s lettermen. That means that on the average a team has 70% of the lettermen from the previous year returning. The average team in that span has 43.81 lettermen returning with 19 lettermen lost. The median for the NCAA in terms of percentage of lettermen returning is 69.6% so that is a very solid average. There have only been 27 teams in that span who have returned 82% or more lettermen and of those 27, 24 (89%) had a stronger record the next year and only 2 (7%) had a weaker record. Only 7 teams returned less than 52.5% of their lettermen and 5 of those had a weaker record including Florida Atlantic in 2005 which dropped from 9-3 to 2-9!! Since 2001 the average amount of returning starters for the NCAA is 13.36.
I went to work and did a quick calculation which took the % of lettermen returning, the amount of starters returning and whether a team had its starting QB back or not from the previous year. The points for each individual team were as high as 224.02 or as low as 75.45. Looking at my new numbers the results were exactly as I anticipated. There have been 35 teams since 2001 that totaled 190 points or more in my new experience rating. Of those 35 teams only TWO (6%) had a weaker record the next year meaning 94% of the time those teams had the same or stronger record the next year. I do a lot of charts in the magazine and most have 75% to 85% success rates but 94% is the best rate yet! Your next question should be, ?What teams fall into the most experienced category in 2007?? This year there are 10 teams that fall into this MOST experienced team category of earning 190 points or more in my system. The teams are:
1. UCLA
2. Florida Atlantic
3. Utah State
4. Colorado St
5. Vanderbilt
6. Buffalo
7. South Carolina
8. Purdue
9. Illinois
10. Eastern Michigan
Now on the flip side of the coin, let?s take a look at the least experienced teams in the NCAA for the upcoming year. Since 2001 there have been 41 teams that have had 112.2 or LESS points earned in my new calculations of experience. Of those 41 teams. 9 did manage to improve their record the next year so 78.1% had a WEAKER or the same record the next year. If I lower the total to 103.5 points or less earned in terms of experience than 15 of 18 teams had a weaker or the same record the next year or 83.3%. There is only one team that fits into the first category this year and that is Baylor which has a 78% chance of a weaker record in 2007. This year there are two teams that fit into the latter category with an 83% chance of having a weaker record this year and they are Florida (98.46 pts) and Notre Dame (96.72 pts).
LETTERMEN LOST/RETURNING EXPERIENCE FACTOR
One of new articles for this year?s magazine dealt with Lettermen Returning and Lost. This was something I started working on in the last few weeks of the magazine and did not have time to fully analyze. Last week I looked at my database on Lettermen returning and lost (which also includes returning starters) and starting playing around with some numbers. Here is my new analysis.
With all the teams logged into the computer since 2001, I have 6 full years of stats and results. The average number of returning lettermen in the NCAA in those six year is 69.7% of the previous year?s lettermen. That means that on the average a team has 70% of the lettermen from the previous year returning. The average team in that span has 43.81 lettermen returning with 19 lettermen lost. The median for the NCAA in terms of percentage of lettermen returning is 69.6% so that is a very solid average. There have only been 27 teams in that span who have returned 82% or more lettermen and of those 27, 24 (89%) had a stronger record the next year and only 2 (7%) had a weaker record. Only 7 teams returned less than 52.5% of their lettermen and 5 of those had a weaker record including Florida Atlantic in 2005 which dropped from 9-3 to 2-9!! Since 2001 the average amount of returning starters for the NCAA is 13.36.
I went to work and did a quick calculation which took the % of lettermen returning, the amount of starters returning and whether a team had its starting QB back or not from the previous year. The points for each individual team were as high as 224.02 or as low as 75.45. Looking at my new numbers the results were exactly as I anticipated. There have been 35 teams since 2001 that totaled 190 points or more in my new experience rating. Of those 35 teams only TWO (6%) had a weaker record the next year meaning 94% of the time those teams had the same or stronger record the next year. I do a lot of charts in the magazine and most have 75% to 85% success rates but 94% is the best rate yet! Your next question should be, ?What teams fall into the most experienced category in 2007?? This year there are 10 teams that fall into this MOST experienced team category of earning 190 points or more in my system. The teams are:
1. UCLA
2. Florida Atlantic
3. Utah State
4. Colorado St
5. Vanderbilt
6. Buffalo
7. South Carolina
8. Purdue
9. Illinois
10. Eastern Michigan
Now on the flip side of the coin, let?s take a look at the least experienced teams in the NCAA for the upcoming year. Since 2001 there have been 41 teams that have had 112.2 or LESS points earned in my new calculations of experience. Of those 41 teams. 9 did manage to improve their record the next year so 78.1% had a WEAKER or the same record the next year. If I lower the total to 103.5 points or less earned in terms of experience than 15 of 18 teams had a weaker or the same record the next year or 83.3%. There is only one team that fits into the first category this year and that is Baylor which has a 78% chance of a weaker record in 2007. This year there are two teams that fit into the latter category with an 83% chance of having a weaker record this year and they are Florida (98.46 pts) and Notre Dame (96.72 pts).
