Experience Matters in College Football
One of my favorite stats mentioned this offseason was the number of teams that return their head coach, offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator and starting quarterback from last season. 28 of the 133 FBS teams meet the criteria:
Arizona
Colorado State
FIU
Florida State
Hawaii
Kansas
Kansas State
Louisiana
LSU
UMass
Memphis
Michigan State
New Mexico State
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon State
Rice
San Jose State
South Alabama
Texas
Texas Tech
Toledo
USC
Utah
Vanderbilt
Virginia Tech
Washington
Wyoming
I think this is a very important stat when deciding on which season win totals to bet on. We already saw some of this play out in week 0 from some teams on this list. UMass defeated New Mexico State, tying their win total of 1 from a season ago. Hawaii looked vastly improved last week on the road against an SEC opponent, Vanderbilt, in a losing effort by only 1 touchdown (covering the 17 spread). USC rolled San Jose State, even though the defense still leaves a lot to be desired, Caleb Williams looks primed for another Heisman like season.
Reality is, change is different and often difficult when breaking in a new quarterback or a new system all together. Brent Venables and Oklahoma learned this the hard way last year. Bob Stoops was hired in 1999, winning 1 national championship, playing for 3 more, and dominating the Big XII conference throughout his tenure. Then in the summer of 2017 he abruptly retired and handed over the reins to the boomer sooner machine to offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley. Riley continued the winning ways in Norman winning 4 Big XII championships, 2 different Heisman winning quarterbacks, and reaching the College Football Playoffs his first 3 years. Then Brent Venables took over last year and every sooner fan just assumed that Oklahoma would continue the way they had since 1999. But there was one glaring difference between when Venables took over and when Riley took over … Venables system was completely different from the prior staff. When Riley took over for Stoops, nothing changed except for the head coach. The offense was the same, the defense was the same, the quarterback was even the same in Baker Mayfield. Oklahoma had not experienced a true change in coaching philosophy in 23 years! First year’s usually suck for new head coaches (see Nick Saban at Alabama 2007). The regression the sooners took last year was inevitable when that much change takes place. Making what Sonny Dykes did last year at TCU in his first year even more impressive, but that is the exception to the rule.
I would expect almost every team on the list above to have a better record in 2023 than they did in 2022. Experience matters, consistency matters, whether it be the same coordinator calling the plays in the same system year to year or the quarterback being more comfortable in said system or the head coach installing more of the culture that he wants. I would especially use this list early on in September games when deciding on point spreads. My bet is most of these teams have winning records in September and when it comes to sports betting, winning most of them puts money in your pocket!