The Numbers Game

Different college sports information departments have sometimes wildly different ways of counting who is considered a "returning starter," in their spring prospectuses. Some schools list anyone who started a game, which I suppose could lead to more starters than there are positions. Some list only those who started a certain number of games, perhaps half of those played. Clearly, comparisons can be apples and oranges.

Thinking about it during the first week of Dartmouth spring practice, I decided to toss out my own idea about how to count starters and here it is: If the player who started the most games at a particular position is back, he's a returning starter. Pretty simple.

Given that way of counting, here's how Dartmouth breaks down:

OFFENSE
Starters returning: 7 (left guard, center, right guard, right tackle, tight end, quarterback, running back)
Starters lost: 4 (wide receiver, wide receiver, left tackle, running back)

DEFENSE
Starters returning: 5 (defensive end, nose guard, corner, corner, free safety)
Starters lost: 6 (defensive tackle, defensive end, outside linebacker, outside linebacker, middle linebacker, strong safety)

SPECIAL TEAMS
Starters returning: 6 (placekicker, kickoff specialist, holder, kickoff return, kickoff return, punt return)
Starters lost: 4 (punt snapper, placement snapper, punter, punt return)

No system is perfect of course. For example, Royce Egeolu gets the nod as a returning starter at nose guard after being credited with five starts last fall, and he's slated to play linebacker this fall. But he does have starting experience and that should, um, count for something, even if it happened to be at another position.

Now I know you probably want the numbers from other schools. I started to try to pull them together before my head started to spin and I punted.

If you've got a little time this weekend, by all means check out an Esquire story about Todd Marinovich shared by a fellow sportswriter. It's a lengthy but tremendously riveting look at the former boy wonder quarterback. It is introduced this way:

Twenty years ago, he was guaranteed to be one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play the game of football. Engineered to be. He was drafted ahead of Brett Favre. Today he's a recovering junkie. This month he was arrested again. Scenes from the chaotic life of a boy never designed to be a man.

Enjoy the weekend.