"Whatever you need to make you feel, like you've been the one behind the wheel, the sunrise is just over that hill."

                                                      —Cursive, The Gentleman Caller, The Ugly Organ

How about some good news regarding Michigan's football team? One runaway success you can attribute to this coaching staff is they've managed to hold onto their players, especially the ones they recruited. Better news: the thing about a lot of the teams that finished in the Top 10 in 2013 were they had lots of upperclassmen starters. Experience is still a big deal, and the only way to get that is to go a lot of years in a row without losing half your roster. Better better news: Michigan is (likely) going to be one of those teams in the not-too-distant future. Let's go right to the table:

% of PLAYERS REMAINING AFTER X YEARS FROM RECRUITING CLASSES 1993-'13

*(Played out eligibility, i.e. nonredshirted Sr's who played 4 years + guys who played 5)

**(Eligible seasons the class netted divided by 4 x class size)

There will be attrition from Hoke's classes as the position battles shape out, but for awhile there Michigan was regularly coming into a recruiting class's redshirt sophomore season with a third of that class already departed. As of now the only guy from that awesome 2012 haul not on the roster is Kaleb Ringer. You have to go back to the class of 2000*, which didn't qualify Reggie Benton, to find a class to make it this far as intact. It was so long ago that a guy from that class is now one of Michigan's coaches.

Plot the retention of the 2012 class to this point with the state of the classes before it coming into their 3rd season. It's stunning:

Years after coaching changes seem to witness an exodus spike, followed by a return to normal, which is to be expected. The last few years though…

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*Even better was 1998. Henson (Yankees), Terrell (early NFL), Fargas (transfer to USC) and fullback Dave Armstrong (unrenewed 5th) were the only losses, and that was just a year of eligibility from each of them. Considering they were recruited after the championship year that's astounding.

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[Jump for lots more charty charts.]

Better, Still Ugly

When can Michigan enjoy a mostly intact senior class? Answer:

Note this is by eligibility not class so, e.g., the 2013 bar includes non-redshirted players from the class of 2011 plus the remaining guys from 2010. The fifteen guys from 2017 are just the 2013 recruits who redshirted.

Not this year, probably next year, but doo doo doo doo doo doo. Over half of the seniors who would have helped last year were gone. I also broke out types of attrition into "no fault" (Early NFL or medical reasons) and "bad" (everything else), and all that which affected last year's seniors was the bad stuff.

Freshmen combined with questionable coaching don't make great OL either, but at least the days of Recycling Bin on the two-deep are over.

Would-be 2013 seniors who didn't make it:

• Pre-Hoke: Conelius Jones, Davion Rogers, Antonio Kinard, Demar Dorsey, Vlad Emilien, JT Turner, Anthony LaLota
• Transition losses: Vinopal, Cullen Christian, Carvin Johnson, Isaiah Bell
• Left later: Terrence Talbott, Stephen Hopkins, M-Rob, Mike Jones

Would-be 2014 seniors who didn't make it:

• Injuries: Terry Talbott, Christian Pace
• Busts, etc.: Kellen Jones, DJ Williamson, Austin White, Greg Brown, Ricardo Miller, Jerald Robinson, Ken Wilkins, Chris Barnett

The current butcher's bill for 2015 reads Chris Rock, Tony Posada, Tamani Carter and Antonio Poole. Maybe figure a Terry Richardson or Chris Bryant or Jack Miller if they don't get on the field this year; every other junior has already played extensively and should again next year unless there's an injury or an early NFL departure among them, which doesn't seem very likely. After that, it's all kids recruited by these coaches, so long as these coaches aren't sent out the door before then.

By Position

The dark bars on the right are the attrition. The colors represent recruiting class, blue being the guys in their fourth year in the program or later. The 2013 team is another young one, dominated by sophomores of one type or another. Your 5th year seniors, provided all return, are Gardner, Ryan, Furman, Ash, and Paskorz.

By Unit

Obviously the guys who've left also make themselves replaceable by opening up a scholarship, but what's not replaceable is their experience. I tried to capture that a few ways, finally settling on a simple average of years since high school of the non-redshirted players on each unit:

You know how people kept making diaries last November/December to try to show relative experience? Good news: I think I figured out the proper correlation. Bad news: it's very difficult to pull without an extensive database like I keep of Michigan players. The trick is to know which guys were redshirting and what year (for injury types). That allows things like Troy Woolfolk's non-availability to show through.

Anyway that big jump in 2011 isn't an error; it's the 2008 recruits all being on hand as well as Molk, Huyge, Hemingway and Steve Watson. That Team 132's offense wasn't any better than 2010's can probably be attributed to the coaching change. That Team 132's defense was so much better despite not being that much older than 2010's can probably be attributed to the coaching change. Absent a coaching change, it seems a roster getting older is a team getting better.

And there's your shred of hope for next season, since the effective age of the roster (figuring the obvious guys redshirt or not next year) will climb back from a nadir (to 2012 level) while the defense will be as old as any at Michigan since 2006.