March 23, 2026
By Bill Connelly, ESPN: The idea of returning production in college football is easy enough to understand: The more continuity and experience you return from last season, the more likely you are to improve. It’s how things have always worked, but is that still true in 2026, with the transfer portal and extreme player movement dominating the sport?
Yes. To a degree. It’s still better to return a lot of your production than a little, even if last year’s headliner bombed. Clemson led the nation in returning production heading into 2025, which furthered the idea that a potential rebirth was coming to Death Valley East. But a combination of injuries, tactical stagnation and disappointing development held back the Tigers, and they slipped from 10-4 and 22nd in SP+ to 7-6 and 34th.
Most of the rest of the top 10, however, fared well. Texas Tech (sixth in returning production) charged from 54th to third and won its first Big 12 title. Kennesaw State (fifth) went from 132nd to 89th and won Conference USA in its second FBS season. Vanderbilt (third) won 10 games and improved from 52nd to 11th. Oklahoma (10th) and Texas A&M (seventh) went from 14 combined wins to 21 with a pair of playoff berths
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