Michigan football's returning production ranks 20th nationally

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Earlier this month, CBS Sports reported that Michigan had the 31st-most returning players of the teams in the Power Four. We had fought back against that notion at the time, noting that it hadn’t counted myriad players who hadn’t met its somewhat flawed rubric. But the best in the business at returning production is none other than ESPN’s advanced stats guru, Bill Connelly.

Connelly revealed his annual returning production list, and on that, Michigan football came in ranked 20th at 63%, with the sixth-most experienced offense and 55th on defense.

USC had been listed by CBS Sports as the No. 1 team in terms of returning experience, but according to ESPN, it’s 13th. Georgia was second by the former, but eighth by the latter. Maryland was third by CBS, and is second according to ESPN.

What’s most important for the Wolverines, however, is who is on the schedule. The teams the maize and blue will face come in ranked as such according to Connelly:

Usually, for the Wolverines, they’re in a good spot as they’ve tended to be no less than fifth in the conference in returning production in years that it has a solid season. However, not only are they behind, coming in 8th in the Big Ten, but Oklahoma, the Week 2 opponent, also has more returning production — albeit not by much.

This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Michigan football returning production ranking

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