Was going to tack this onto the previous post, but then decided I had enough for a post of its own: Looking at USF's opening-week depth chart, you can see just how much more experience the Bulls have compared to a year ago.

First, I looked at the starting lineups just based on what year the players were. For all the talk about the team's youth, the 24 players listed as starters on offense or defense include 13 seniors, seven juniors and just four sophomores. Compare that to the opening-week depth chart last year -- the offense/defense starters were eight seniors, nine juniors, six sophomores and two redshirt freshmen.

So if you assess a point value for each year (5=senior, 4=junior, 3=sophomore, 2=redshirt freshman, 1=freshman), then the average starter this season is 4.38; a year ago, that average is 3.92, so the starting lineup is almost a half-year older across the board. That experience bodes well for this season, but also means the Bulls will get hit hard by graduation -- even harder if you think about a junior or two who could leave for the NFL Draft after this season.

Then I looked at the lineup a second way: in career starts entering the season. A year ago, USF's offensive starters totaled just 88 career starts, while the defense had an impressive 153. This year, those numbers are way up. The offense, returning nearly intact, has 176 career starts -- exactly twice as much starting experience -- while the defense, despite losing three extremely experienced starters, is at 140 career starts. (If you replace Kion Wilson with Danny Verpaele, as USF will often do in passing situations, that number jumps to 152, within one of last year's total).

Or look at it like this: Last year, entering the first game, USF's offense had one player with more than 13 career starts -- Walt Walker, with 22. This year? There are seven with more than 13 starts: Matt Grothe (25), Marcus Edwards (23), Ben Williams (22), Marc Dile (20), Cedric Hill (18), Ryan Schmidt (18) and Jake Griffin (15). (Matt Huners and Zach Hermann also have 13 each). The total starts could be even higher -- right now, USF is counting A.J. Love and Jamar Taylor, with one career start between them, instead of Carlton Mitchell and Mike Ford, who combine for 11.

On defense, Ben Moffitt, Mike Jenkins and Trae Williams combined for 89 career starts entering last season; despite losing those three, there's a comparable number of total career starts on the starting defense. Carlton Williams leads the way with 34, followed by George Selvie (26), Tyrone McKenzie (24), Aaron Harris (15), Jarriett Buie (14), Nate Allen (13) and Brouce Mompremier (12). Then again, the other four defensive starters combine for two starts, so there's still inexperience on the field.

OK, I'm done crunching numbers for the night. And I'm behind on the position breakdowns, so you might see two of those in one day some this week. I count 16 new followers just today on Twitter.com, so thanks for the strong showing there ...