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!!!