Predictors of success

[GoUtes]

I believe on the Phil Steele website, I saw that we have the lowest number of returning starters in the conference with 11. Oregon had the highest with 17. I hear it said often that this is a great predictor of success. Has anybody found a good source that shows that this is actually true from a lookback perspective? Do actual results bear this out?

I may be captain obvious here but is the better indicator returning starters at key positions (QB, OL, DL)? Also, if you have mediocre players returning, is that better than giving newcomers (with hopefully more talent) a shot?

I also may be just trying to make myself feel more optimistic since we have the least amount of starters returning.

Just trying to stir up some football talk…. Can’t wait for this fall.  

[Rick]

This might help answer your question:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2015/09/03/college-football-returning-starters/71525990/

 

[UteThunder]

That article made me feel a bit better about who we return as opposed to how I feel about how many we have returning. Going off of their positions of importance being those in “the middle”, we have returning starters in 4 of the 6 positions mentioned: QB, LB, S, and P, the exceptions being C and K. 

Really wish we had more experience returning on the OL.

[GoUtes]

Great article. Thanks for sharing.

[gUrthBrooks]

I count 13. We have 7 returning starters on Defense. Offensively I count 6

D-Line: Fitts, Lotulelei, Mokofisi

LB: Laufatasaga, Tauteoli, Barton

Secondary: Chase Hansen

Offense I count 6: Troy Williams, J. Barton, Lo Falemaka, Uhatafe, Siale Fakailoatonga, (Raelon Singleton or Demari Simpkins)

[Rick]

I would count Armand Shyne and or Zach Moss who both started at times.  I think Shyne has a blow out year this season.

[UteThunder]

Being a bit generous with a couple of those returning starters.

J. Barton has only started 2 games, Falemaka has 0 starts, and C. Barton has only started 5 games(though he was our second leading tackler last year so he did see a ton of playing time).

[gUrthBrooks]

I disagree somewhat. Reading their bio off the roster site doesn’t tell the whole story. J. Barton was listed as co starter the whole season…Tevi was likely given the actual first snaps due to seniority., but yeah, Tevi had the bulk of the snaps. Lo was listed as starter after dielm an went down, then got hurt himself. didn’t mean to use bold here, not sure how my iPad is doing this,

[UteThunder]

I can buy that regarding J. Barton, but Lo never started a game and according to his bio only played 100 snaps on the O-Line last year, 94 of which came in relief of Dielman in the Cal game.

[UtahFanSir]

Consider this as only one data point. Last season Colorado had the most returning players. 

[Rick]

And the vast majority of them were seniors.  Kind of like our ’08 team.

[GoUtes]

Agreed on it being just one data point. We all agree on this, I believe, but it doesn’t always tell the whole story. Williams is a returning starter but I’m not terribly confident given the mediocre performance of the offense last year. Hopefully, that had to do with coaching and we will see some improvement there. Maybe with a system in place that takes better advantages of his strengths we will see better completion percentage and overall production.

[Utah]

I’d say it’s a big thing. It’s why I was so confident last year with this team: our OL and DL were so experienced. Same with Wilson’s last year. 

Our OL experience seems bad with four guys going to the NFL, BUT we do return three players who started games for us. That’s big. 

Our DL depth/returners are insane. 

If our QB play stays the same, we win 7-8 games next year. If our QB’s bump up to 6-8th in the PAC-12 we win 9-10 games. If our QB is top 4, we tie with USC for south crown at worst and play in a BCS Bowl. 

[UteThunder]

Who are the three OL who have started games for us? Uhatafe has 25 starts and Barton has 2. As far as I can tell, none of our other OL have a single start. 

And while having two guys with 27 combined starts is better than nothing, it is far from big. 

[Utahute72]

Lo Falamaka would be the third.

[UteThunder]

But he didn’t actually start any games, at least not according to his bio on Utahutes.com. 

Dielman got injured early against Cal and Lo finished the game for him but then was injured himself and didn’t play another snap on the O-Line the rest of the season, he did come back and play some special teams.

[GoUtes]

Yeah, I’m never worried about returning starters on the D-Line. We are so stacked there.

About the OL, you’re right. It’s easy to say that we only have one returning starter there, but we do have some guys with great experience given all of the injuries we had last year. It’s not like those four draftees played every snap last year and we have guys with zero experience stepping up. All that said, it’s still the area I’m most nervous about.

I completely agree on QB play. I would love to see how we could do with a top-level in the conference QB. Would be amazing. I’m really hoping the Taylor hire helps us get there.

[PlainsUte]

I think those magazines and sites want you to believe its very important because in college football it is the one thing that they can calculate and rank with some certainty.    

I think you want quality players in the key skill positions and experienced people in the trenches.  A team also needs some depth to survive the rigors of the Pac-12 season.

Specific to the Utes seems like there were a lot of returning starters but once again our oh-fense was not what it takes to get the top in the Pac-12 South.   Hoping some new schemes from the OC and fresh blood at QB will improve that for the Utes this year – but still up in the air and even the preview magazine/site gurus are not able to predict that.

GO UTES!

 

[Utahute72]

The lack of returning starters on the Oline is the biggest issue. On D-line at Utah, given the way we use them, it’s more about the top 8 players since they rotate. Skill positions on offense are less of an issue because you can overcome some mistakes with athletic ability. On Defense LB and Safety are the most difficult to learn, but somewhat like D-line loss of starters can be offset by players that have been in the system. Given the fact we will be relying on players from outside to fill those spots this year, it is a potential source of problems.

[Anonymous]

I don’t want to discount experience as a success predictor, but it is too much of a broad brush factor to be considered to be very accurate. More important is who does a team have coming back? Does a team have leadership in the position groups?

UTES have senior, two year starters at all of the Defensive position groups. I look to Hansen and Tauteoli to be strong leaders of their groups. The DL is not a concern. UTAH has hardcore competitive depth there.

The Offense is more of a question. We can’t answer that today, but we do have leadership at QB, even if the starter turns out to be Bateman.

Leadership is a bigger predictor than mere experience, and imho we have that.

[Utah]

Experience on OL and DL is never understated. If you bring back 5 OL, you are all but guaranteed 8 wins. It’s huge. 

[Tony (admin)]

I think the schedule is almost as big of a predictor of success as the returning players. Our schedule is brutal.

[Utah]

Very true. We face four NFL QB’s this fall, plus Oregon, Stanford and Colorado. Seven wins is 1-3 vs the QB’s and 1-2 vs the other three. That’s a good floor to have. 

[Tony (admin)]

How did that Goff NFL QB do against us?