Auburn Football 2010: A Look at Returning Production in the West

We have all witnessed the growing pains of inexperienced players on different teams. The less playing experience they have, the more mistakes they make. Sometimes these mistakes can be outweighed by production.

There are some truly gifted players whose extraordinary production simply makes us forget those annoying lapses in judgment. They simply score more touchdowns than they miss assignments or sack more quarterbacks than they are burned for touchdowns.

There is a way to look into the production of such players and see if they have actually produced enough for fans to overlook their inexperience. The public has been told on several occasions by various writers and reporters that teams like Alabama, LSU and Florida will simply reload with experienced players for 2010. Many had even predicted that these teams would get better, not worse.

In truth Alabama or LSU will not be starting or playing that many true freshmen except on special teams. The players filling the gaps on these teams were on the teams playing behind the starters. Some have even said they were better than the starters ahead of them.

If this is the case, fans can expect these players to have accumulated some impressive statistics over the last season. It is time to line the contenders up side by side and compare this vast experience so that fans might decide for themselves.

To do this we can first take a look at the entire team that will be returning for 2010. Then we can take a look at the returning starter’s statistics. Finally we can take a look at the impressive statistics put up by these talented replacements.

Returning Team Production Western Division

Statistic	Alabama	LSU	Arkansas	Auburn
Tackles	261	445	742	763
Per Game	19	34	57	59
Sacks	11	10	20	16
Per Game	.79	.77	1.54	1.23
Forced Fumbles	2	3	9	9
Per Game	.14	.23	.69	.69
Interceptions	8	6	11	6
Per Game	.57	.46	.84	.46
Rushing Yards	2619	607	1319	1433
Per Game	187	46.7	101.5	110.2
Receiving Yards	2052	1087	3343	2600
	146.6	83.6	257.2	200
Total Yards	4671	1694	4662	4033
Per Game	333.64	130.31	358.62	310.23

The facts simply do not backup the argument of a lot of experience returning for some of these teams, at least not productive experience. In the SEC western division Arkansas and Auburn return the most starters and their returning production is astonishingly higher.

This would lead any reasonable fan to conclude one of two things. Either the players filling the gaps on these teams are inexperienced, or they did not produce when they were gaining experience. This piece was used for a source of information for this article.