BYU Football Ranks Last in Returning Production

BYU will be forced to feature a lot of new faces in 2021.

BYU takes down UCF in the Boca Raton Bowl

Every year, ESPN's Bill Connelly ranks college football teams in terms of returning production. On Monday morning, Connelly released his 2021 rankings and BYU ranked dead last out of 127 FBS teams.

According to Connelly's formula, BYU returns 47% of their offensive production which ranks 117th out of 127 FBS teams. On defense, BYU ranks last with only 16% of their defensive production returning in 2021. Over the years I've followed Connelly's returning production stats, 16% is one of the lowest numbers I've ever seen. To put this into perspective, Georgia ranks 126/127 in defensive returning production, but they return 39% of their defensive production. As a team, BYU returns 31% of their production from 2020.

How is this calculated? It's pretty simple. Here is Connelly's explanation:

"The weighting for the offensive returning production formula changes from year to year as I get more data to play with. The current iteration is as follows:

Returning QB passing yards: 29%
Returning RB rushing yards: 5%
Returning WR/TE receiving yards: 34%
Returning OL snaps: 33%

Returning tackles: 56%
Returning tackles for loss: 6%
Returning sacks: 7%
Returning passes defensed: 31%

"This ends up being a nice blend of raw tackling figures and disruption stats. Apparently disruption in the passing game is harder to replace -- continuity matters more there."

Most notably, BYU loses QB Zach Wilson who accounted for 3,692 of BYU's 3,985 passing yards. They also lose Dax Milne who had 1,188 receiving yards last season and multiple starters along the offensive line.

On defense, BYU loses 7 of their 10 most productive tacklers from last season. Keenan Pili, Payton Wilgar, and Max Tooley are the only three set to return in 2021.

Stay tuned for more information on this throughout the week as we measure the returning production of BYU's 2021 opponents.

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