We’ve assessed every Big 12 team’s depth chart and rated each team’s top 10 players. We’re redoing our position rankings this week. All of this is an effort to better evaluate the conference and its potential contenders in 2016. Another factor to consider: experience.

Just as we’ve done the past two years, here’s a deep dive into the post-spring rosters of every Big 12 team. We've added up the career starts for every returning player to better judge which teams are loaded or reloading. One note: The starts players made at other FBS schools or junior colleges are not counted in these numbers.

Returning Career Starts In Big 12 Team Offense (Rank) Defense (Rank) Total Starts Oklahoma State 195 (1) 115 (8) 310 West Virginia 162 (2) 78 (10) 240 Texas 111 (4) 119 (6) 230 Iowa State 89 (9) 140 (1) 229 Oklahoma 101 (6) 125 (4) 226 TCU 101 (6) 123 (5) 224 Baylor 93 (8) 130 (3) 223 Kansas 105 (5) 116 (7) 221 Kansas State 75 (10) 135 (2) 210 Texas Tech 115 (3) 90 (9) 205

As you can see in the chart, Oklahoma State is No. 1 in this category thanks to the Big 12’s most experienced offense. The Cowboys did not lose much on that side of the ball (most notably J.W. Walsh and David Glidden). They did lose 164 starts on defense and a lot of leadership from that unit with Emmanuel Ogbah, Jimmy Bean, Kevin Peterson, Ryan Simmons and others. But to put the Pokes' advantage on offense in perspective, they return nearly the same number of career starts that TCU’s veteran-loaded offense did a year ago.

Most Starts In Big 12 The Big 12's active leaders in career starts entering 2016. Pos Player Starts S Dante Barnett, KSU 29 C Tyler Orlosky, WVU 29 S Dravon Askew-Henry, WVU 26 C Kyle Fuller, BAY 26 RB Shock Linwood, BAY 26 DE Noble Nwachukwu, WVU 26 S Jordan Sterns, OSU 26 S Ahmad Thomas, OU 26 CB Nigel Tribune, ISU 26 DE Jordan Willis, KSU 26

A few more takeaways from this year’s career starts data: