Alum 65 asked what did we do to the injury gods.  I was thinking the same thing as it seemed like a lot, but then I asked myself how it compares to other schools.  Some Internet searches convinced me that reporting was too inconsistent across schools to have a good, comparable measure.  Plus, it was really time consuming.

The table below presents an imperfect measure of starts lost.  Michigan appears second to Maryland in terms of injuries in the Big 10.

For each player on the team that records at least one start in the NCAA database, the table sums up the number of games played according to the same database less the number of games the team played.  So, for instance, Michigan has played seven games.  Jehu Chesson started at least one game (four actually, which doesn’t matter) and has played in six.  So, he contributes 1 to Michigan’s total.  Kyle Kalis started only three games, but because he has played all seven he doesn’t contribute to the measure.  The theory is that if a player has started at least one game, he probably plays in all the games even if he doesn’t start unless he is injured or suspended.  You can’t just take everyone on the roster and calculate how many games weren’t played because you’ll end up just with an estimate of how coach’s play their benches and how many blowouts there were.

The one adjustment I made to the count was that I treated quarterbacks differently.  If a starter is replaced, he may not be hurt but not play in the game.  Moreover, if you end up starting a second-string QB in one game, you’ll end up treating him as hurt in all the other games that he may not have played.  Shane Morris is such an example, as he started against Minnesota, but did not play against Notre Dame when he wasn’t hurt.  So, he otherwise would have been counted as injured for Notre Dame had I not just excluded second-string quarterbacks.  I did go back and add in any games not played by obvious 1^st string quarterbacks.  Rudock, Leidner, and Lunt missed games due to injury, while it doesn’t appear that Etling, who missed two games, was hurt.  (The theory is that reporting on starting quarterbacks is good enough across teams.)  I didn’t add back in an injury for Morris for the Penn State game, which he probably should be counted, just like I didn’t do any comparable searches for other second-string quarterbacks who may be injured.

It’s useful to acknowledge all of the other imperfections in this measure.

• It includes suspensions, so Glasgow adds one to Michigan.
• It doesn’t include obvious starters lost for the entire year before the season started, such as Braxton Miller.  Note that Noah Spence also doesn’t show up, as although he played in one game, he didn’t start in that game.
• It doesn’t include injuries to important people on special teams or important backups that in a perfect world would be counted. 
• No adjustments are made for how good the player was that was lost.  Nor does it weigh injuries if for instance they occur in the same area, which may compound the damage.
• No allowances are made for guys who play in some games but are obviously not 100% (Jake Butt?).
• Teams that have instability in their starting lineups will have a bigger pool to have a chance to show up as injured. 

The advantage is that it doesn’t depend on a detailed knowledge of the teams, which might then be biased as I at least know more about some teams more than others.