How important is starting experience?

Phil Steele did a great article that showed every FBS teams' career returning starters at each unit.

Here are the rankings of the Big XII teams in terms of career returning starts:

1. Baylor (9th overall) - 362 career starts returning
2. Oklahoma State (16) - 320
3. Oklahoma (34) - 294
4. Iowa State (36) - 293
5. Texas (42) - 285
6. Kansas (62) - 269
7. Kansas State (78) - 252
8. Texas Tech (80) - 251
9. Colorado (93) - 229
10. Nebraska (101) - 216
11. Texas A&M (102) - 215
12. Missouri (111) - 189

This list does a lot of talking. In the South division, Baylor seems to have even more of a case to be thinking of a bowl this year. Oklahoma State looks like they have a great chance to be at least third in the South. Even though Texas Tech only has more experience than Texas A&M in the South, the Red Raiders still have more starting experience returning than three North teams.

The North division should be a battle each and every week. Missouri, who represented the North in the Big XII title game last year, returns the least amount of starts from any Big XII school. Iowa State, who had the worst conference record of all Big XII schools, has the most returning career starts out of any team in the North (and has a coach who cares about ISU, sorry Gene). Kansas has the second most career starts returning in the North behind only Iowa State. Nebraska is fifth in the North ahead of only Missouri. I was a little surprised when the college football magazines came out and Nebraska was first in the majority of them. Then, the Big XII media picked Nebraska first. Kansas will have a lot of extra fuel for a motivating fall, even with all their offensive fire power returning, they are still looked as an inferior representative of the North, nationally and apparently regionally also. Looking at this list, this year could be more open than at any time during North division play. There are four teams in the North who have a shot at going to the Big XII title game, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska.

Nebraska's non-conference opponents:

Florida Atlantic (47) - 281
Arkansas State (58) - 273
Virginia Tech (18) - 316
Louisiana-Lafayette (25) - 305

Nebraska's career starts at each position:

QB: 0
RB: 3
WR/TE: 24
OL: 61
DL: 49
LB: 12
DB: 67

Offensively, Nebraska returns 88 career starts (114 rank). Defensively, NU returns 126 career starts (63 rank). Examining the specific units closer, even though the running backs only have 3 career starts, Helu had the same amount of carries as the starter (Lucky - 125 carries), and Castille had 106 carries last year. Basically, 13 starts could be added to the RB position. I didn't realize Nebraska had 24 starts at the WR/TE position, but Mike McNeill has 12 starts, Menelik Holt has 4, and Niles Paul has 4 as well. At linebacker, Nebraska will most likely be down to 11 career starts of experience because Matt Holt is likely out for the year with a shoulder injury. Philip Dillard has 8 career starts and at this point is not expected to start (was 3rd string during spring practices), Blake Lawrence has 2 starts of experience, and Colton Koehler has 1. Needless to say, the Huskers defensive success early on will be based on the amount of pressure from the defensive line and the ability of the defensive backs to play effective coverage while the linebackers mature.

Nebraska's Top 3 Players with starting experience:

1. Ndamukong Suh - 25 career starts
T2. Jacob Hickman - 22
T2. Larry Asante - 22