Do Returning Starters In College Football Matter?

It is early August, and that means one thing: college football hype. Teams are just starting fall camp, and fans are starting to get an itch for Saturday afternoons in the fall.

This time of the year also means preseason magazines are coming out. These magazines, like Phil Steele, Athlon Sports, and others give complete breakdowns for each team. They usually describe key players, schedule analysis, and the ever important returning starters.

Returning starters are held in high regard by these preview magazines, and why shouldn’t they be? It would make sense that the teams with more returning starters would be better teams the next year. ESPN Big Ten Blog Analyst Adam Rittenberg agrees:

Returning starters don’t guarantee success, but they often help. The teams with fewer players stepping into unfamiliar roles typically enter the season with fewer question marks. – Adam Rittenberg

Adam has the right idea. Returning starters don’t guarantee success, but who wouldn’t want Denard Robinson, Matt Barkley, or Montee Ball returning to their team?

Although it is obvious that teams would want these individual players back, what about the returning starters number as a whole? Does it make a difference?

RETURNING STARTERS: METHODOLOGY

To evaluate this question, I once again used the ELO rating to estimate team success.

Using ELO has it’s advantages. Rather than just using wins by season to gauge success, ELO allows us to get an idea of how well a team played relative to it’s strength of schedule.

To determine “returning starters” each year, I consulted Phil Steele’s preview magazines. He lists a possible 24 starters for teams: 11 offense, 11 defense, 1 kicker, and 1 punter. For more on how Phil Steele defines a returning starter, go here.

The analysis part was pretty simple. Using data from 2008-2011, I simply compared a team’s ELO rating from one year to another, and then looked at how many returning starters the team had in the latter of the two years.

For example, take Iowa. Iowa had an ELO rating of 81.45 in 2010. According to Phil Steele, they had 10 returning starters coming back to the 2011 team. The 2011 team produced an ELO rating of 74.28. Therefore having 10 returning starters produced an ELO rating change of -8.8%.

As you can see from the chart, there is very little correlation between improvement in team play from year to year compared to the number of returning starters. In fact, the R² was .062, which indicates there is very little relationship.

However, it does appear that having a certain number of returning starters can be beneficial. According to the chart, if you have 20+ returning starters, then there is a very good chance the team will improve on it’s previous year. Only 4 out of 18 teams with 20+ starters were worse in the following year.

What could be some possible explanations for this returning starters fallacy?

POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS

Talent is Waiting in the Wings

Many teams, especially those that recruit well, have a lot of talent waiting in the wings. Just because a player doesn’t have a ton of experience doesn’t mean he can’t make a big impact on the field. Sometimes backups can actually be better players than the starter, they just aren’t ready mentally or physically yet. Sometimes coaches like to save really talented players by red shirting them if they don’t feel they are ready to play significant minutes. Also, don’t rule out the possibility of incoming freshmen making an impact. We saw what Clemson wide receiver Sammy Watkins did this past year as a freshman: 82 catches, 1,219 yards, and 12 touchdowns.

The Returning Starters aren’t Good

Just because someone is a returning starter doesn’t necessarily mean they are a good player. Sometimes players are thrust into starting roles due to injury or just lack of competition at the position. This could give teams a false sense of security by having bad players with experience, which doesn’t really help.

Coaching Changes

A coaching regime change can diminish any positive effect of experience players had, depending on the system they bring in. If a coach brings in a new spread offense to a team that was formerly an I-formation team, returning your starting fullback won’t be very important. Also, players need time to learn the new system and adjust to the new coaches. This could make them play slower and hurt their production.

Poor Coaching

One of the main reasons people look at returning starters is because they assume players and teams will be better with more experience. However, if a team has poor coaching, it doesn’t matter how much experience the players have. If a coach is lining up your defense with a 3 man front on 3rd and 1, it doesn’t matter how much experience the players have, they aren’t going to succeed. Poor coaching can also stunt the player’s growth by teaching them incorrect technique or putting them in the wrong positions.

Injuries

It is possible that some returning starters are get injured over the course of the season. Injuries happen all the time in college football, you just hope it doesn’t happen to your star player. Losing a 4 year starting quarterback in the first game of the season will have a bigger impact than losing a starting defensive tackle.

CONCLUSION

Unless your team has 20+ returning starters, the returning starters statistic doesn’t mean much. To gauge the real value of returning starters, you have to drill into WHO the returning starters are, not just the overall number. Remember, even though they both count as 1 returning starter, a 4 year starting quarterback pre-season Heisman candidate =/= random freshman linebacker forced into duty.

What do you think about returning starters? Is it a relevant statistic? Post any comments below.