That's interesting. At Alabama, the standard for letters (the best I recall) is based on the same standard that they use to determine whether a player can qualify for a hardship/medical red-shirt year.
Well I got a bunch of letters from LSU and I don't even play on the team, so our requirements must be pretty low.
http://cfn.scout.com/2/649048.htmlSEC Alabama: Returning Lettermen: 48, Lettermen Lost: 16 Arkansas: Returning Lettermen: 48, Lettermen Lost: 21 Auburn: Returning Lettermen: 51, Lettermen Lost: 23 Florida: Returning Lettermen: 38, Lettermen Lost: 25 Georgia: Returning Lettermen: 45, Lettermen Lost: 24 Kentucky: Returning Lettermen: 60, Lettermen Lost: 20 LSU: Returning Lettermen: 46, Lettermen Lost: 21 Ole Miss: Returning Lettermen: 47, Lettermen Lost: 17 Mississippi State: Returning Lettermen: 43, Lettermen Lost: 22 South Carolina: Returning Lettermen: 54, Lettermen Lost: 12 Tennessee: Returning Lettermen: 45, Lettermen Lost: 25 Vanderbilt: Returning Lettermen: 53, Lettermen Lost: 12 add em up and you see that some schools have lots of lettermen (UK 80, AU 74) and some have much less (UF 63, Bama/OM 64)
I was driving through the So. Cal. campus a few weeks ago and got stopped by someone from the athletic department. Guy asked me if I had a varsity letter in football, I told him no, so he gave me one!:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
The key isn't returning lettermen, but returning starters. And that's not always indicative of what kind of talent they have returning. Heck, you could have a 3rd string RB that played in 3-4 games his sophmore year, never saw the field again, and he is a "letterman lost." Take UF as example. They are returning 38 lettermen, but only 8 starters. (2 on defense, which I consider the strength of last years team.) On the flip side, they lost 25 lettermen, 17 of which were starters.
Bingo. I got this further clarification from another poster on the SC site. Since then, we've had some transfers out which would reduce that number. Also, based on their count, I think the CFN writers used the term "lettermen" incorrectly - it should have been returning "players" since it appears to have included the non-lettering "practice squad" players, which included a number of redshirting scholarship players (e.g. David Ausberry, Zack Heberer, Butch Lewis, Michael Morgan, Alfred Rowe, Derek Simmons, and Gerald Washington).
