[Ed: meant to bump this sooner but there was a lot of stuff yesterday.]

After the disastrous offensive performance of 2008, the 2009 Wolverine offense really had nowhere to go but up.  Using my offensive ratings, the 2008 Michigan offense was 7.4 points per game below average, 107th out of 120 FBS teams.  2009 brought another year in the system and real quarterbacks and huge improvements.  While far from consistently excellent, Michigan moved up to a modest 1.2 points per game above average, 50th nationally.  No one outside of the eternal optimists like Fred Jackson could see another 57 place ranking improvement, but what has happened to teams that have shown big offensive improvements in year in the following year.

Presently my database has the 2007-2009 years completed, just enough for a 3 year case study.  From 2007 to 2008 there were 28 teams that improved offensively by at least 5 points per game.  I broke those team into three categories, teams that saw a second major (+5) increase in the third year, teams that saw a major (-5) regression back in the third year and teams that were in the middle and didn’t necessarily continue gaining, but didn’t fall back much either.

The Regressers

*Only BCS teams shown

With 14 of the 28 teams in this group, half of the teams that show big gains can expect a return to the mean the next season.  In fact, these teams were worse offensively in 2009 than they were in 2007, let alone the beacon season of 2008.  The average team in this group was 2.5 points per game worse in 2009 than they were in 2007 before they peaked.

The closest thing to a consistent thread is the quarterback possession as five of the eight, Oklahoma, Baylor, USC, Arizona and Utah, spent most or all of the season with a new quarterback. 

In general, the regressers look like a group that is just regressing to the mean and that replacing a quarterback is damaging when your success has not been sustained for longer than a single season.

The Holders

With the exception of Alabama, these teams were pretty average in returning starts and had no major position group gaps to fill.  Alabama had a new quarterback and was 97th in returning offensive starts nationally, the ability to sustain the offensive success is likely attributable to the influx of talent Saban brought into Alabama since he arrived.

The Gainers

*Michigan 2007 results omitted (-1.1)

With a relatively new coach and a total offensive system overhaul, Georgia Tech is clearly the most similar situation to Michigan and their path is one that Michigan would be thrilled to follow.  Tech went from –1.1 ppg in 2007 to 7.6 in 2008 to 14.5 and my top rated offense in the country in 2009.  Even though Johnson and Rodriguez were hired the same year, the Michigan offense is about 2 years behind Georgia Tech.  Georgia Tech went from average to very good to best in the country.  Michigan went from average, to very bad and back to average.  Even with the offset timeline, Michigan seems comparable to Georgia Tech’s situation and therefore a second year of offensive gain seems very possible under this comparison.

All five of these teams either returned 20+ starts at the quarterback position (except GT who had the same quarterback from the start of the system), although Stanford’s returning quarterback was replaced.   The other major similarity between these schools in neither of the last two years did they have stratospheric gains, there is less flukiness to these teams success.

When looking at the progression from very bad to roughly average, there are four BCS level schools who showed that same progression.  Three of those (TCU, Notre Dame and Pittsburgh went on to see big gains in year 3 as well, and NC St still saw modest improvement.  Teams fitting this profile for a potential second year of strong offensive progress in 2010 along with Michigan include Kentucky, UConn, Wake Forest and Mississippi St.

Conclusions

Although teams that show a big jump like Michigan last year are more likely to fall back than continue the progress, the recruiting profile, experience at quarterback (even if the returner loses his job), progressions comps and system change all point to Michigan as being a good candidate to at least sustain and probably show more improvement next year.  Every 3 point gain is worth about one additional win on the season and based on this look I would say that from the offense alone, a 3 point gain seems likely and a 6 point gain entirely possible.