Daily Blog •May 31, 2012
Today’s blog continues my in-depth look at my New and Improved Experience Chart. For 7 years I had listed an experience chart, which broke down the number of seniors, juniors, sophomores and freshmen each team had in the two deep and rated the teams experience level with a formula I devised. In 2009, I made the experience chart FIVE TIMES better.

Today I will look at the % of tackles returning. I took all of the tackles made by the team a year ago and then took all of the returning tackles from '11 for the percentage.

% of Tackles Returning

% TKL
Rank Team Return
1
South Alabama 96.05%
2
UTSA 89.00%
3
Georgia 88.47%
4
FIU 88.17%
5
Bowling Green 87.94%
6
Michigan St 86.85%
7
Florida 86.34%
8
Tulane 85.97%
9
Maryland 84.78%
10
UCLA 84.57%
11
Colorado St 82.97%
12
Ohio St 81.95%
13
Kent St 81.86%
14
Auburn 81.81%
15
Baylor 81.24%
16
Rutgers 80.27%
17
Texas St 79.51%
18
Oklahoma St 78.70%
19
Oregon St 77.57%
20
Georgia Tech 77.51%
21
Michigan 77.35%
22
USF 77.27%
23
East Carolina 76.92%
24
UCF 76.79%
25
Texas  Tech 76.57%
26
Virginia Tech 76.46%
27
Connecticut 75.95%
28
Tennessee 75.77%
29
Florida St 75.62%
30
FAU 74.94%
31
UMass 74.85%
32
Army 74.76%
33
Ohio 74.38%
34
Wisconsin 74.33%
35
Duke 74.18%
36
Mississippi 74.02%
37
Central Michigan 73.19%
38
Oregon 72.76%
39
USC 71.82%
40
Northern Illinois 71.75%
41
SMU 71.75%
42
Clemson 71.71%
43
Navy 71.60%
44
WKU 71.43%
45
Louisville 70.76%
46
Buffalo 70.71%
47
Memphis 70.36%
48
Washington 70.27%
49
Boston College 69.45%
50
Fresno  St 68.85%
51
Wake Forest 68.76%
52
Houston 68.42%
53
Syracuse 68.41%
54
Illinois 68.25%
55
Oklahoma 68.05%
56
Washington St 68.04%
57
Missouri 67.77%
58
Stanford 67.67%
59
Purdue 66.70%
60
BYU 66.36%
61
Eastern Michigan 66.04%
62
NC State 65.33%
63
Iowa St 65.15%
64
Notre Dame 64.81%
65
Indiana 64.79%
66
Wyoming 64.20%
67
LSU 62.78%
68
Vanderbilt 62.77%
69
Colorado 62.31%
70
Nebraska 62.11%
71
Tulsa 61.48%
72
Texas A&M 61.25%
73
UTEP 61.14%
74
San Jose St 60.87%
75
Kansas 60.62%
76
Miss St 60.40%
77
Western Michigan 60.29%
78
Ball St 60.23%
79
West Virginia 60.22%
80
Rice 59.98%
81
Utah St 59.96%
82
South Carolina 59.31%
83
Kansas St 58.76%
84
Utah 58.25%
85
Troy 58.22%
86
Cincinnati 57.65%
87
Texas 57.62%
88
Middle Tennessee 57.45%
89
Akron 57.22%
90
Arkansas  56.40%
91
Virginia  56.04%
92
North Carolina 55.80%
93
New Mexico 55.56%
94
Miami, Oh 55.53%
95
San Diego St 55.25%
96
Iowa  55.18%
97
UNLV 54.56%
98
Louisiana Tech 53.75%
99
TCU 53.66%
100
Minnesota 53.48%
101
Arizona 52.65%
102
Nevada 52.60%
103
Idaho 52.35%
104
Penn St 52.07%
105
Southern Miss 50.91%
106
Miami, Fl 50.76%
107
Alabama 50.56%
108
UAB 49.67%
109
Northwestern 49.41%
110
Air Force 48.16%
111
Pittsburgh 47.67%
112
Arizona St 47.57%
113
Toledo 47.11%
114
ULM 47.01%
115
North Texas 46.41%
116
California 45.84%
117
Hawaii 45.55%
118
Temple 44.16%
119
Arkansas St 44.15%
120
Marshall 43.25%
121
Louisiana 42.90%
122
Kentucky 42.08%
123
New Mexico St 41.05%
124
Boise St 39.92%

Not surprising, recent start-up programs South Alabama and UTSA topped the list as both teams enter FBS play this year with several starters back. Georgia comes in at #3 with 9 returning starters on D including 12 of their top 13 tacklers back from a year ago! At the bottom of the list is Boise St who returns just 2 starters on D this year and lost 9 of their top 10 tacklers!

Please check PhilSteele.com everyday to get my Top 40 Countdown which continued today with #12 Oklahoma St and #11 Ohio St. Every day now thru June 12th, I will post both magazine pages on each team that day and you can get an early look on how I breakdown your favorite team. Remember I will make those magazine pages available for only 24 hours for you to download.

5 DAYS UNTIL PHIL STEELE'S 2012 MAGAZINE IS ON SALE!

ONLY 91 DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE FIRST COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAME!!!