I came across this article by Evan Miyakawa today which discussed how to build the optimal roster in the portal age. While it has only been a few years of the transfer portal in its glory, it's definitely interesting the trends that have shown up between the teams that are highly successful. His main takeaways seem to be:
1. Fill roster with talented players (There's a clear correlation between talented players based on rankings and team success)
2. Returning players should account for at least 50% of the playing time
3. Prioritizing players who can play at least 2 seasons for you
Of the 10 teams that flipped their whole roster (<15.5% returners minutes) in the last 10 years, only one had a successful season. Conversely, teams with low roster turnover have performed extremely well with only 1 missing the tournament.
He also found that teams that have a high min % with talented freshman tend to perform better when they have a high returner min rate as well (<40%). Teams that rely on freshman classes that are outside the top 20 tend to severely underperform.
Obviously there are exceptions to this rule, but I thought the article was very interesting to read. I'm happy with how Coach Underwood seems to subscribe to this line of thinking with the 2+ year potential of this year's transfers, but I hope we can retain some more talent than we have in past years if the value is correct! As highlighted in the article, all 3 of the last national champions have been built this way. There are always outliers, but continuity is a very underrated thing in the portal era
Link to article:
https://blog.evanmiya.com/p/how-to-build-a-roster-in-the-modern