Returning Production, or the lack thereof, is a clear hallmark of what life will be like in the AAC and the Group of 5/6 for college football going forward.
ESPN’s Bill Connelly updated his key college football metrics following the spring portal cycle and, usurpingly, the biggest brands from the SEC and the Big Ten sat atop most of the rankings. What didn’t stand out as clearly at the time — at least to my naked eye — was the impact the modern landscape has had on team building at the lower levels of the sport.
Returning Production seeks to approximate the meaningful contributors from last year’s team who are still on the roster for the upcoming season. It’s not a perfect measure — returning every player from a bad team still likely leads to a bad team — but it does demonstrate which programs pose to gain the most from continuity and experience.
As I began my preparations for the upcoming season preview series, I noticed just how little returning production most AAC teams had. So many key pieces are gone, either to the Transfer Portal of the NFL Draft, leaving the AAC flush with teams installing so many new players this offseason.
Connelly puts just seven AAC programs in the top 100 nationally in returning production. Three crack the top 60. Here’s the full list:
| Nat. Rk | AAC Rk | Team | Conf | Ret Prod | Off | Rk | Def | Def Rk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 1 | USF | AAC | 67% | 69% | 22 | 66% | 19 |
| 27 | 2 | UTSA | AAC | 64% | 82% | 2 | 46% | 89 |
| 35 | 3 | Navy | AAC | 63% | 74% | 14 | 52% | 73 |
| 66 | 4 | Temple | AAC | 55% | 65% | 39 | 45% | 96 |
| 76 | 5 | Tulane | AAC | 52% | 49% | 84 | 56% | 57 |
| 77 | 6 | Tulsa | AAC | 52% | 46% | 93 | 58% | 51 |
| 88 | 7 | N Texas | AAC | 49% | 44% | 98 | 55% | 65 |
| 101 | 8 | Army | AAC | 43% | 36% | 120 | 51% | 80 |
| 103 | 9 | ECU | AAC | 43% | 51% | 77 | 35% | 117 |
| 105 | 10 | UAB | AAC | 43% | 43% | 103 | 43% | 101 |
| 110 | 11 | FAU | AAC | 41% | 50% | 79 | 32% | 127 |
| 113 | 12 | Rice | AAC | 41% | 36% | 122 | 46% | 91 |
| 115 | 13 | Memphis | AAC | 40% | 39% | 114 | 41% | 108 |
| 118 | 14 | Charlotte | AAC | 38% | 35% | 123 | 40% | 109 |
It’s no coincidence that the top three programs (USF, UTSA and Navy) all return their starting quarterbacks and several key skill players. That USF also brings back so many key defenders gives the Bulls a better starting point, at least from a roster construction standpoint, than most if not all of their conference peers.
How this plays out on the field this fall remains to be seen, but the era of slow builds and roster continuity seems long past, at least at this level of the sport. When your program does get the luxury of “running it back”, you better not miss. The odds of you getting that much continuity again soon are slim to none.
