Colorado football lands mid-tier in ESPN's returning production metric
Colorado ranks near the middle of the FBS in returning production, balancing transfer portal additions with a few key returning pieces.
The basic premise is simple: the more continuity you have as a team, the more likely you are to improve. At least that is the idea behind Bill Connelly's returning production model . It has changed slightly as the transfer portal has taken over how college programs are built, but generally, more returning talent (production) equals more success (improvement).
Colorado , which uses the transfer portal more than most teams, ranks near the middle in returning production for 2026, coming in at No. 55 out of 138 FBS teams. The Buffs return 55% of last season's production, which, given the 30-plus transfers who left, is fairly high.
Roster balance-wise, Colorado is fairly even in terms of returning production on both sides of the ball. The offense returns 57%, and the defense returns 53%. What makes returning production worthwhile?
One disclaimer worth noting specifically for the Buffs' situation, which replaced all their transfer losses with even more additions, is that returning production also accounts for incoming production. Here is a useful example from Connelly: "If your quarterback leaves, and you bring in a transfer who was productive elsewhere, that dampens the blow of your QB leaving. " It is not a like-for-like swap, as the metric must account for the rise in competition level (FCS to Power 4) for some transfers.