Michigan has seventh-least returning production in college football, is one of teams 'most likely to regress' in 2024

One year after ranking No. 5 in the country in returning production, there are only six college football teams who check in behind Michigan in ESPN.com’s metric. The Wolverines rode that talent and experience to a 15-0 season that culminated in the program’s 12th-ever national championship. Now, with a new head coach in Sherrone Moore and over a dozen potential NFL Draft picks to replace, the challenge to repeat as champions is much stiffer.

Michigan ranks 128th of 134 college football teams and 17 of 18 Big Ten programs in returning production. Only Washington — which also lost its head coach, Kalen DeBoer, and replaced him with Jedd Fisch — slots behind the Maize and Blue among conference teams.

According to the ESPN.com metric, Michigan brings back 36 percent of its overall production — 24 percent on offense (132nd nationally) and 47 percent on defense (109th).

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For comparison’s sake, Virginia Tech returns 86 percent of its production, leading the nation. There are 25 teams at 70 or more percent and 77 at 60-plus percent.

The Big Ten’s leader is Nebraska (third), followed by Northwestern (sixth), Rutgers (eighth), Minnesota (19th), Wisconsin (20th), Penn State (23rd), Oregon (28th), Iowa (30th), Illinois (65th), Ohio State (70th), Michigan State (73rd), Indiana (85th), UCLA (95th), Purdue (96th), USC (99th), Maryland (110th), Michigan (128th) and Washington (130th).

ESPN.com’s Bill Connelly revealed his formula for determining returning production on each side of the ball:

Offense
• Percent of returning WR/TE receiving yards: 23.5% of the overall number
• Percent of returning QB passing yards: 24%
• Percent of returning OL snaps: 47.5%
Percent of returning RB rushing yards: 5%

Defense
• Percent of returning tackles: 69.5%
• Percent of returning passes defensed (intercepted or broken up): 12%
• Percent of returning tackles for loss: 10.5%
• Percent of returning sacks: 8%

Michigan is set to bring back one player on offense (junior tight end Colston Loveland) and four on defense (junior cornerback Will Johnson, senior safety Rod Moore, graduate safety Makari Paige and junior defensive tackle Mason Graham) that started more than half the team’s games in 2023.

The Maize and Blue lost their leader in passing yards, rushing yards, receiving yards, overall tackles, tackles for loss, sacks and interceptions.

The Wolverines also brought in two Big Ten starters from the transfer portal in Northwestern offensive guard Josh Priebe and Maryland linebacker Jaishawn Barham. Connelly explained how he handles transfers in and out.

“Quite crudely, if a player transfers from one FBS school to another, I mash his production from his previous team into the numerator and denominator for his new team,” the analytics guru wrote. “So if your quarterback leaves, and you bring in a transfer who was starting somewhere else, that dampens the overall blow of your QB leaving significantly.”

Michigan ‘most likely to regress’

Because of all that Michigan lost from its 15-0 season last year, and that the Wolverines ranked first nationally in Connelly’s SP+ efficiency ratings, the Wolverines are one of the team’s the writer believes is “most likely to regress.”

“It’s rare that a team can be good enough to win the national title, or come particularly close, without requisite experience levels, so most of the teams that reach particularly high heights one year tend to rank low in returning production the next,” Connelly wrote. “(Those teams tend to recruit quite well, too, so they tend to remain excellent even with low production numbers.) In the current transfer portal era, that’s doubly true if you lose your head coach.

“Michigan, Alabama and Washington made up three-quarters of the 2023 CFP; all three lost key pieces to the pros, and all three lost their coaches — Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh to the NFL, Alabama’s Nick Saban to retirement and Washington’s Kalen DeBoer to Alabama. It’s therefore not a surprise to see all three in the bottom 20 in returning production.

“It also won’t be a surprise to see that, because of recruiting rankings and recent history, both the Wolverines and Crimson Tide will still rank in the top 10 in [the] initial SP+ projections. Washington, however, might have a tougher go of it. The Huskies were this year’s TCU, reaching the national title game on the power of a thrilling but unsustainable run of close wins (8-0 in one-score finishes). SP+ never fully bought-in on UW last season and certainly won’t be in 2024 either.”

Connelly also listed Florida State, Tennessee and Kansas State with Michigan in the ‘most likely to regress’ category.