[gojetsgomoxies]

getting into pre-season magazine mode. bought one already - 3 at my local magazine shop.. phil steele in a week or two at B&M

i thought i'd share a few thoughts and ask some quesitons...

i'm a big fan of returning starters although so is anyone with at least a moderate knowledge of college football betting.

i did some excel spreadsheets on starters vs. ATS and saw that returning QB can be really really important. most seasons it works. and can't remember when it hurt you more than break-even when it didn't work for a season.

i also found that returning DBs seemed to be important. seen that statistical result elsewhere. i think you can make a logical position for just about any position being important but with passing such a bigger part CFB if you don't have a solid secondary you will get killed.

i also found returning TB and WR were important.

surprisingly OLine and Dline (for sure i remember OLine) weren't that important which is the opposite of what we'd all have thought i.e. conventional wisdom..

i want to combine some ideas............ i definitely have found that returning starters isn't that important for alabama. ohio state etc.. they just reload. i have also found that miltary academies and perhaps major system offenses that returning starters don't matter that much.

things i have looked at and would like to do more involve upstart teams - mid major or major........ returning starters must mean alot to a team that completely overperforms expectations... also an upstart team with a great passing offense losing a 2 or 3 year starter is something that has worked in theory in past from my work. of course alot of it is definitional and back-testing.

as per tenure of the coach it seems like first year coaches being poor ATS and 3rd year coaches being excellent doesn't hold any more........... i did work on this but didn't save it. maybe it'll motivate me to redo the work and slice/dice it.

anyway, returning starters is huge.... but everyone seems to look at it and cite it.....

any other things people look at......... yards/point - offense/defense/net - seems like a good indicator BUT it's mostly perenially good teams at top and perennial doormats at bottom... so i tend to look for surprises and/or filter out 6-7 always good and same number always bad teams out of the analysis.

[Ralphie Halves]

Returning starters is important, sure. But not everything. And there's so much more to it. Once I stopped over-analyzing it, things got a lot better.

For example, TTech's defense returning a bunch of starters you probably wouldn't want. Then again, maybe the new DC they signed is going to be able to get through to them and right the ship. But then again with TTech, has it ever worked? Too much to think about.

Then again, Georgia having that entire D come back is a huge plus, no question about it.

The returning QB thing I like a lot too, especially with a good coach, since they develop well. As long as it's not a mediocre to bad QB that's only back because they have nobody else, or a sophomore (sophs usually have a bad track record for some reason unless they're superstars like a Hurts or a Browning last year).

Returning RB is big, I like when I see this. So much of being a RB is vision and experience in certain situations.

WRs not as much. WRs in college are usually pretty wide open, it's more the system they're in.

Yes, OL is not that super important when it comes to returning starters, who knew? It is somewhat important, don't discount it altogether, but what usually matters more is how many junior and seniors are on the line. O-linemen develop a LOT over the years -- fat guys toning up and getting better at cardio and movement, 255 pound guys turning into 295 beasts over time, etc. If the coach is good, and has been there a few years, those guys are going to be killers whether or not they returned or if they didn't.

Returning DL is more important IMO. Can't explain why, but this has often been the case.

DBs are really hard to get a read on, so I usually don't even try. If you run a good offensive system that fools DBs, and DBs in college are not that hard to fool, you can do well. Pitt has a few DBs coming back, but all you saw was the backs of their jerseys last year. Talent or system? Who the F even knows?

I won't disclose all of my thoughts on coaches, since that's how I do a lot of my capping, but that third year is big typically. It should be longer, but programs lack patience now. You need at least 3 years though so you can bring players in, weed out the shit, and get them used to your system and staff. James Franklin is a perfect example of this -- was probably the first coach expected to be fired at the start of the 2016 season by an entitled, impatient program, but everything he built finally started to click and took PSU to the Rose Bowl in year 3, which nobody saw coming.

I ignore last season's numbers almost completely. I think people who get crazy into numbers in NCAAF don't do well long-term. Watch games instead.

[BigdaddyQH]

First, define "returning starters". Does that mean starting a game? Three games? Six games? All season? For instance. Athelon lists USC as having 4 starters returning on offense, but we know that those who were not listed as "starters" got a ton of playing time, because of injuries, and the number of rout wins they had last season (6 wins of 21 or more points). Utah lists only 3 returning starters, but have 4 returning Seniors listed on their second team. Both teams are expected to go bowling at a minimum in 2017. Now Syracuse has a total of 19 starters returning, but will be lucky to reach 6 wins in the ACC. Which leads me to my second point. How good are the returning starters? Michigan has 1 returning starter on defense, and yet many predict them to win 10 games. ow deep is this team? Generally speaking, the number of starters can be misleading. If your starter is not in the top 15% of players in that position, then the fact that he is a returning starter is not real important.

As far ass coaches are concerned, the two coaches that are the most important to me are the Coordinators. They do most of the work. The HC is more of a cheerleader/recruiter/media type guy. Everyone thinks that Jim Harbaugh is a Top 5 HC. I ask how many Championships has this guy won? The answer is ZERO. Over hyped. I think so.

[Ralphie Halves]

Everyone thinks that Jim Harbaugh is a Top 5 HC. I ask how many Championships has this guy won? The answer is ZERO. Over hyped. I think so.

Who was he supposed to win a championship with? Stanford? He did about as well as humanly possible there. And he's resurrected what was a horrible Michigan team in a very short amount of time.

So by that logic the only active coaches worthy enough to be in the top 5 right now are Meyer, Saban, Swinney, and Fisher? That's only four.

[BigdaddyQH]

Who was he supposed to win a championship with? Stanford? He did about as well as humanly possible there. And he's resurrected what was a horrible Michigan team in a very short amount of time.

So by that logic the only active coaches worthy enough to be in the top 5 right now are Meyer, Saban, Swinney, and Fisher? That's only four.

Lane Kiffin went 10-2 in his 2nd year at USC when they were on probation and had nothing to play for. We are talking Lane Kiffin here. Harbaugh had a 29-21 record at Stanford. Nothing amazing about that. David Shaw has a much better record. Shaw also has a better recruiting record atg Stanford than Harbaugh had. In the Pros, he could not win the Big game, and was run out of San Francisco after a 8-8 season which saw the 49ers lose any chance of the playoffs with a 1-4 effort in their last 5 games. He has done a good job at Michigan, but still cannot win the big game. Last years season ending 1-3 record after starting out 9-0 is proof of that. A good HC? Absolutely. Miles behind the great coaches. Absolutely. He does not have what it takes to be a champion.

[Ralphie Halves]

- Harbaugh took two left-for-dead programs and took them to BCS bowls in a very short amount of time. Don't try to trick people with that "He was 29-21 at Stanford and that's not impressive" nonsense. They were 1-11 when he came in, they were 12-1 four years later when he left. That's super freakin impressive. Coming in after that like Shaw did and doing well is impressive too and gives you nice pretty numbers, but it's nothing compared to turning a program around that drastically and that quickly.

- Oh, and then he goes and does the same thing with Michigan. Very VERY few coaches can just waltz in and turn things around that quickly, twice.

- Another purposely misleading stat with the "1-3, he can't win the big game" bit. He's only been there two years, and the program was 5-7 and sinking before that! Why is anyone expecting them to be a super-team in year two? And nice to leave out that two of those games were OhioSt and FSU. So the only thing that would impress you is if he won those games?? With Michigan?? What planet are we on?

- And who the F cares what kind of NFL coach he was. Saban sucked in the NFL too. Are we holding that against him now?

Harbaugh is gangster and did what 99% of NCAAF coaches could never do.

[BigdaddyQH]

Harbaugh will NEVER win a Championship. He did not do it at Stanford. He did not do it at San Francisco. He will not do it at Michigan. He just does not have what it takes. People get tired of his act real quick (relatively speaking). Hie is little more than a self serving show boat. He blew 800K on a stupid trip to Rome. His team will lose at least 3 games this season. Possibly 4. Not great for a team that plays 7 absolute patsies. Like I said he is a very good HC. But he is not, and never will be a great HC. He will always play in the shadow of Urban Meyer so long as both remain at their current jobs. And that is just in the Big 10 East.

[Ralphie Halves]

Some of the best coaches don't win championships. It's too rare of a thing to do nowadays.

Anyway, nothing you said, or any numbers you tried to manipulate diminished what Harbaugh has been able to do in college football so far. Love or hate the guy, his accomplishments have been special.

[VeggieDog]

Everyone thinks that Jim Harbaugh is a Top 5 HC. I ask how many Championships has this guy won? The answer is ZERO. Over hyped. I think so.

And now that he's sucking obama's rooster, he'll lose even more games. He's paying more attention to politics than he is to his team. Fade him.