Texas Football: Returning Production Favors Longhorn Turnaround in 2016
By Tyler Brett
The pressure is on Texas football to start winning under Charlie Strong. While optimism always abounds on the Forty Acres in August, at least one metric supports a Texas turnaround in 2016.
Bill Connnelly over at SB Nation has developed a statistical metric to better measure experience beyond just how many starters a team is bringing back. In short, the method involves counting all returning production as a percentage of the total production from the previous season and looking to see if it impacted improvement the following year.
The results were pretty surprising. So far, there appears to be a strong correlation between returning production and an improved record. Conversely, a low percentage of returning production is correlated with a worse record the following year. While there are exceptions, of course, it seems that the more production a team returns, the more likely they are to improve on their record.
Looking at Texas for 2016, they appear to be in good shape. They rank No. 15 in these rankings, returning 79 percent of their production from last season. Connelly breaks it down further, ranking the Texas offense at No. 33 with 79 percent of production returning, good for a +2.6 projected points per game difference. Defensively, the Longhorns rank No. 13 returning 79 percent of their production as well, good for a -2.8 projected points per game change.
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At face value, that sounds like good news for Texas. Especially when you hear people talk about the youth of this team as a hindrance heading into the season. Sure, the roster is filled out with sophomores, but those sophomores played as freshman and many of them played well. By comparison, non-conference foes like Notre Dame rank No. 113 with 49 percent returning production while Cal ranks No. 126 with just 33 percent returning production and just 19 percent on offense.
However, there are some caveats to the data. Connelly found that there was a higher correlation for returning quarterbacks, receivers, and secondary. Meanwhile, there was almost no correlation between the number of offensive line starts and the line’s improvement or regression. The Longhorns have no continuity at quarterback and lost a lot of experience at the receiver position (though their leading receiver John Burt is back).
Plus, Texas didn’t exactly have a great deal of production last season. Their offense was one of the worst in the Big 12 and the defense allowed over 450 yards per game. How much of that do you really want back? Furthermore, Texas is breaking out a brand new offense for 2016 under offensive coordinator Sterlin Gilbert. That means nobody on this roster has any experience in it and everyone is basically starting from scratch.
Still, there is something to having a roster filled with players who understand what game situations will demand. Having players comfortable with the speed and the intensity of the game helps speed up the learning process and can help teams build off past success.
That’s what Texas will hope for as they enter a make or break season for Strong and his coaching staff. Will the depth of experience of the Longhorns be enough for a turnaround or are the stats just bunk?