Bison Bites: Dispatch #10

Data bites touching on: Indiana's returning production, Nick Westbrook-Ikhine's role in the NFL, and Indiana's third-down production in 2024.

If you’re new enough to Bite-Sized Bison, you might not be familiar with Bison Bites. Each dispatch of Bison Bites is intended to be a quick-hitting list of approximately 3-5 statistics of interest between typical Bite-Sized Bison posts.

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Indiana ranks 44th in the FBS in initial returning production.

Bill Connelly at ESPN released returning production figures for each of the (now) 136 teams in FBS football. He noted that returning production is lower than ever now, as the FBS averages returning 53.7% of its 2024 production, where it averaged 76.7% as recently as 2021.

Indiana ranks 44th in the nation, with 61% of its 2024 production set to return for 2025, before the spring portal period. This ranks 8th in the Big Ten.

CFBNumbers compared these returning production figures with their Final Consensus Power Ratings (combining several overall metrics), which seeks to find a definitive metric for quality. Indiana comes in above the trendline.

This metric isn’t perfect by any means. One of the most influential variables in the formula (for offense) is returning OL snaps, which, for Indiana, includes Carter Smith, Bray Lynch, and Drew Evans. If you read the Pre-Spring piece on LG, I’m not expecting both Lynch and Evans to be contributing simultaneously and also am hoping for development from Lynch, if he starts. Elijah Sarratt and Omar Cooper carry nearly the rest of the weight on the offensive side.

So it doesn’t account for very particular nuances of each team’s roster, but it also (obviously) doesn’t account for incoming transfer classes either. Indiana’s 2025 transfer class currently ranks 18th nationally. Returning to the chart above, the only neighbors ranked above Indiana in transfer class rankings are LSU, Texas A&M, Miami, Auburn, Texas Tech, South Carolina, and Oklahoma.

Additional notes:

• When split between offense and defense, Indiana is fairly even, returning 61% of offensive production and 60% of defensive production.

• Going into 2025, the Big Ten ranked 4th among FBS conferences (last among P4 conferences) in average returning production (56.2%), but the MAC, which is hemorrhaging coaches, is also hemorrhaging production, returning just an average of 43.6%.

• Illinois is one of a few FBS teams poised to make substantial improvements. That Week 4 matchup is going to be fireworks.

Nick Westbrook-Ikhine has carved out a role in the NFL.