Returning Defense of 2012 Opponents-Part 1

This is a 2-part diary analyzing the returning defense of our 2012 opponents in terms of percentage. So what you’ll see is how much of last year’s defense is returning to play this year, for each team and in each area of defense for each team. I think it’ll be helpful in predicting what improvements or how powerful each aspect of defense will be for each team this year.  Part 1 contains all the raw data and Part 2 will contain all the analysis, charts, and whatnot. Again, very little will be written here, this is just to get you acquainted with the data. Part 2 will be the fun and interesting part. I’ll put it out on Thursday morning.

Here’s Part 1 of the Returning Offense diary and here’s Part 2.

I only included the top 15 returning players for each team for the sake of brevity, as including the data for 45-50 players for each team would make this diary far too long. If any of you would like, I can post the leaving players as a separate diary or I can find a way to post the entire Excel workbook, let me know.

Keep in mind that defensive statistics can be accumulated by offensive players on turnovers or by special team players who have not seen a down on defense. This could either positively or negatively affect the totals.

All stats are courtesy of CFB Stats.

Number of Contributors

Michigan

Alabama

Air Force

Notre Dame

Purdue

Illinois

Michigan St.

Nebraska

Minnesota

Northwestern

Iowa

Ohio St.