The Blue Board

Also, I gave you a possible top 50.

Who are we missing from outside that group? Arkansas, Auburn aren't going to be down forever. One of them could pop off 8 wins this year if everything fell right.

San Jose State, Kent State, Arkansas State and Louisiana Tech all had great years and could contend in their leagues again this year.

great write up, thanks Steve

Steve, great write up. I would point out that it's misleading to claim that Alabama is bringing back 8 defensive starters. Even if CJ Mosley were considered a starter (which, although technically debatable, I have no problem with), then there are still clearly 4 starters leaving the roster:
Jessie Williams, Damian Square, Robert Lester, Dee Millner. Even if Nico were not considered a starter, who are you considering the 8 starters returning? If you include the nickel back or something like that, I think you should note that you're including 12-13 'starters' for each team. Just a thought. Thanks.

And look at who they are losing and how many they are losing.

I mean that does have an impact

Sure it does, but Reef, elam, Bostic, McCray, and Evans are the only real losses.
Morrison replaced Jelani for the 2nd half of the season.
Evans will be easy to replace with a secondary one of the 5 starters at corner.

So really, replacing Reef, Elam and Bostic are the major concern. Morrison will prob slide over
into a Bostics spot...done, Taylor who has started and played as much as anyone will replace Jelani's/Morrison. McCray's spot will be filled with the starter before McCray, Ronald Powell, so thats the LBs
Roberson a 2 year starter can replace Evans an prob improve the position, as well as Poole. Corner is full Pirifoy, Watkins, Riggs, Brown, and VH III everyone will agree will play right away. Add Ramsey when he joins.

So we are down to replacing Reef and Elam. Easley will slide down and replace floyd with Orr and Jacobs still there and Fowler and Bullard will remain as DEs. in 3-4 Fowler can slide down or play Buck.

Elam is now about the only position of concern, Marcus Maye is capable along with others but replacing 1 key positions is alot different then 7 as the author initially wrote.

Also that is replacing all "starters" with "starters" with the exception of Elam. This is before any of the great recruits of the last 2 years get a crack at it. VHIII, McMillan, Brian Poole, Valdez Showers, Caleb Brantley, 1 more secret, McAllister, Anzalone, etc. All who have the ability to play right away based on ability.

Hey at least he didn't put them #1

Isn't Ace Sanders going pro? And, bigger question - will SEC heads explode if only Ohio State & Oregon go undefeated?

I take a pretty liberal view of starters. Few guys start an entire 14 game season due to injuries or otherwise.

On defense, I usually look at 11-12 guys because most teams play nickel half the time.

I have DE Stinson, SLB Hubbard, MLB DePriest, WLB Mosley, Jack Dickson, CB Belue, S Sunseri, S Clinton-Dix all coming back and NG Williams, DE Square, LB Johnson and S Foster leaving.

Those guys all played enough to be considered starters, even if they didn't start every game.

That's what I was looking at.

Good catch on Sanders, I apologize on that. News on that did not come out until last week. He wasn't on the list I had as of the deadline on the 15th. I will take him out of there.

Regarding Florida, maybe I didn't dig hard enough. It looks like roughly 13 guys played/started over the course of the year.

6 are gone: Elam, Evans, Bostic, Hunter, Floyd and McCray

7 back: Easley, Purifoy, Watkins, Ball, Morrison, Roberson and Bullard ... the first 3 started most of the year, the last 4 seemed to split time ... so, yes, they have a bit more experience back on defense than I originally thought

Hey, man, you are welcome ... how 3 graphs out of about 500 constitute Buckeye coverage is beyond me, but whateves

Michigan not a finished product, some holes to fill. It will be a nice team and I think Gardner will do well. They've lost at PSU with better teams, right?

Michigan will be a much better team than Wisky. Michigan is top 15 or so and Wisky is just gonna suck. A&M that high is laughable IMO. They lose a ton of talent and three of there four best players aren't coming back including two guys that will go in the top 5 of the NFL draft, they don't reload with talent like BAMA does, Johnny Football returning or not. I also have a hard time thinking a team that loses it's head-coach just keeps winning big like Oregon. When has that ever happened? I think they lose 3-4 games next year. My top 5 would be BAMA, OSU, Georgia, Clemson and South Carolina. Each team returns there starting QB, each team has had little to no coaching changes, and each team has recruited well for the last 4 years. One more thing look out for TCU next year.