I’ve often thought that we tend to overvalue “returning starters” as a metric for projecting the prospects of a college football team in any given season.
That’s not to say that live-game experience isn’t valuable. It might be the most valuable thing, in fact, that goes into the development of a young player. But coaches like David Shaw and Chris Petersen have shown us over the last decade that experience can be cultivated without necessarily dedicating “starts” to young players. Stars such as Bryce Love, Ben Burr-Kirven and Justin Reid are all examples of guys who played a lot before they became leaders and starters.