Michigan football's returning production ranks 20th nationally

Earlier this month, CBS Sports reported that Michigan had the 31st-most returning players of the teams in the Power Four. We had fought back against that notion at the time , noting that it hadn't counted myriad players who hadn't met its somewhat flawed rubric. But the best in the business at returning production is none other than ESPN's advanced stats guru, Bill Connelly.

Connelly revealed his annual returning production list , and on that, Michigan football came in ranked 20th at 63%, with the sixth-most experienced offense and 55th on defense. USC had been listed by CBS Sports as the No. 1 team in terms of returning experience, but according to ESPN, it's 13th.

Georgia was second by the former, but eighth by the latter. Maryland was third by CBS, and is second according to ESPN. What's most important for the Wolverines , however, is who is on the schedule.

The teams the maize and blue will face come in ranked as such according to Connelly: Team Overall Offense Defense Western Michigan 71st (51%) 48th 103rd Oklahoma 16th (65%) 3rd 57th UTEP 126th (35%) 129th 99th Iowa 104th (44%) 84th 105th at Minnesota 7th (68%) 10th 12th Penn State 67th (52%) 78th 67th Indiana 5th (56%) 69th 39th at Rutgers 92nd (47%) 82nd 88th Michigan State 97th (46%) 88th 91st at Oregon 11th (66%) 26th 11th UCLA 9th (67%) 5th 29th at Ohio State 31st (60%) 8th 78th Usually, for the Wolverines, they're in a good spot as they've tended to be no less than fifth in the conference in returning production in years that it has a solid season. However, not only are they behind, coming in 8th in the Big Ten, but Oklahoma, the Week 2 opponent, also has more returning production -- albeit not by much. This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Michigan football returning production ranking