Remember when Oklahoma won the National Title in 2000? Not a single OU starter lost a single start due to injury! My research has shown that teams that benefited from very few injuries, in this case 6 or less, usually have a weaker season the next year.

The bottom line is, teams that have suffered a lot of injuries the previous year will generally have a better year the next season. A lot of backups were forced to play during the injury-riddled year, gaining valuable experience and the team figures to not be so injury-prone the next year.

In a study over the last 8 years, my research shows that if a team had 32 or more starts lost to injury the prior season, they improved or had the same record the next year on 62 out of 76 occasions for an 81.6% success rate. How about teams that are really banged up? Well from 2001-2005 12 teams went through seasons of having 40 or more combined starts lost and ALL 12 had the same or better record the next season. It surprises me that 17 teams met that criteria in 2006-’07 but only 7 had a stronger record the next year and 9 had a weaker record.

In 2008, Utah was at the top of the chart with 51 starts lost to injury and they went from 9-4 to 13-0 and #2 in the country! 2010 was another solid year as 9 teams had 35 or more starts lost to injury in ‘09 and 8 of the 9 improved or had the same record (88%!). Here are the teams that suffered 32 or more starts lost to injury last year:

Most Amount of Starts Lost to Injury in 2011

As you can see Maryland led the country with 59 starts lost and it was one of the main reasons the Terps did not meet many of their fans' expectations in year one under HC Edsall. Boston College struggled big time with injuries last year and will benefit from better luck this year. Ohio St also figures to be much improved after last years 55 starts lost to injury. Look for 8 or 9 of these teams to rebound this year and improve their record.

Now let's look at the teams that had great fortune with very few injuries. With teams playing a 12 game schedule, I went for the magic number of 6 lost, figuring that is less than one half of one starter lost to injury during the year. Over the past 8 years only 21 of the 64 teams (32.8%) that had this good fortune managed to improve their record the next year. In 2010 there were NINE teams on this list and ALL NINE had a weaker record with SIX of them bowl teams from 2009 that finished with a losing record in 2010!!! There were a lot of teams (16) that had this good fortune last year.

Least Amount of Starts Lost to Injury in 2011

Arkansas St had the fewest starts lost to injury with only 2 all year and it was one of the main reasons the Red Wolves had a dream season. Also as you can see teams that do not suffer a lot of injuries usually have good seasons as all of these teams with the obvious exception of South Alabama made a bowl last season with Arkansas St, Northern Illinois and Houston all getting double digit win seasons.

However the above teams will probably not be as fortunate this year and if the past trends hold up only 2 or 3 of them will improve their record this year.

Here is the complete list broken down by total starts lost and also by starts lost on offense and defense which can be indicators of one unit underachieving or overachieving last year.

Starts Lost to Injury 2011

PhilSteele.com will have a page updated weekly dedicated to starts lost again this year. We will track each team's starts lost for the 2012 season so you can see which teams are really banged up and those that have remained very healthy. We even include start charts for each of the teams and also update them weekly!

Only 58 Days Until the First College Football Game!!!