This conversation started with a list the top ten teams who had the most freshman snaps (courtesy of Swonk). In addition to some mostly average to bad teams, also in the top ten were Ugly and Bama. Swonk's comment to the post was, "Not the "youngest ever" as many people try to spin. And, of course, except for Junior Beamer, all those teams were far better than Billyball." That last statement is only partially true. One team, Clemson, had "far fewer" losses with 4; the other teams had either one fewer (aTm, & scUM), the same (USCe, as he noted), or more, UVA, Stanford, and Baylor.
You added, "Not to mention the fact that Georgia is on that list who was probably the best team in the country but tripped up against bama." I'd argue (and did) Ugly and Bama being on that list is for a totally different reason than the other eight, but whatever. Then you later posted. "That graphic disproves the most snaps by freshman thing, then completely destroys the underlying implication that you are gonna lose a lot if you play a lot of freshman snaps. Georgia had way more freshman snaps and they didn't exactly lose much. Then you have aTm who had more freshman snaps, lost less and still fired their HC..."
Of the top eight teams listed, Clemson was 9-4. The rest were anywhere from 7-6 to 3-9 and pretty much all sucked. (On a separate note, Dabo deserves some props. He played the most by far and was a missed field goal from another 10 win season.) And I have no idea what you meant by "Georgia had way more freshman snaps...." Than who? Certainly not us.
The bottom line (I think) is playing a lot a of freshmen can be a determining factor in success (or lack there of), but there are a ton of other variables at play - many of you which you hit above (coaching, playcalling, etc.), but the biggest (which you also mentioned) is recruiting. It's one thing if you have freshman like Percy Harvin or more recently Harold Perkins @LSU who are on the field because they are absolute studs and would be on any team, versus, a freshman who is just OK or potentially good, but not really ready for big-time CFB, but is still the best you have available. As we just saw with the NFL draft, there weren't very many upperclassmen on our team who were very good. Here's that same list of teams, but ranked by players drafted:
Alabama - 10
Georgia - 8
Clemson - 6
scUM - 4
USCe - 4
aTm -4
UF - 1
Stanford - 1
UVA - 1
Baylor - 0
The bottom four on that list were four of the worst five (by record) on that list. And while those rankings might be better if UFDA's are included, it ain't like we had a bunch of those either. (Did we have anyone other than Eguakan who has signed thus far?)
Totally beside the original graphic, but it would be informative to have that list divided into true freshmen versus red-shirts. Also, how balanced out are the inexperienced player snaps by experienced player snaps? It may not matter if the staff is unable to prove they "coached up" the returning players, but we may have more returning two-deep players than almost anybody we play this season - a stat that will work heavily against those arguing for keeping Billy should he not have a good season