The whole “Alabama doesn’t rebuild; it reloads” thing is going to be put to the test in 2018. Specifically, its going to be put to the test with the Tide’s defense, which returns just … well, hold on a minute and we’ll tell you.
We took a look at the number of returning full-time starters for each SEC team for the 2018 season. We define a “full-time starter” as someone who started at least seven games in 2017 (i.e., at least half the games). That means we did not include guys who began the seasons as starters but got hurt in the first half of the season and didn’t play again.