Offensive Line Thread

[Wild Bill]

Seems likely we'll have a Fisher/Alt duo at tackle next year but the interior OL is a mystery to me. A lot of guys will be in the mix there.

Kristofic is probably a good bet to at guard.

 

[Riddickulous]

Kristofic is probably a good bet to at guard.

Most likely. I think he entered the year as the second team center so I think there's a chance he moves there.

 

[SBirishlawyer]

Yeah Correll may have played his way out of both spots. At this point after seeing his starts I am wanting anybody else at center and fill out guards with same philosophy

 

[Dale]

Yeah Correll may have played his way out of both spots. At this point after seeing his starts I am wanting anybody else at center and fill out guards with same philosophy

That is silly. We’ve seen Correll play high level football at C. Fact. The OG experiment was bad but to say anyone but him at C is exaggerating.

I also don’t know how much training Kristofic really got at C. Felt more like we need someone there just in case and Gibbons transferred while Correll, to begin with, was at OG. I’d expect Kristofic at OG is the plan.

 

[Irish Man3]

I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that Patterson leaves. If he comes back, that changes everything.

Fisher, Kristofic, Patterson, Spindler, Alt

 

[Dale]

The sooner Josh Lugg moves on, the happier I'll be. I'm grateful he played for ND because he's obviously the best option we have at RT but he routinely puts us in terrible situations: false starts, holding and getting beat for untimely sacks. Really look forward to the Fisher/Alt tackle combo next season!

The momentum killer stay (sacks allowed + penalties) would not shine well on Lugg

 

[Luckylucci]

Fisher/Alt locks. It’ll likely be about filling out the best 5 with the last 3 spots up for grabs between Kristofic, Spindler, Correll at C, and Carmody. Though, I think Kristofic is a near lock.

I will be interested to see if they do move Alt to RT, do they move Kristofic with him? And keep Fisher/Spindler together? That just becomes a lot of spitballin though.

 

[benneboy]

Equally interesting thought. What does the offensive line look like if/when Fisher comes back for the playoffs or bowl game?

 

[NDdomer2]

I'm assuming this still is based on Fisher maintaining all mobility. Which is not a given

 

[Trait Expectations]

I'm assuming this still is based on Fisher maintaining all mobility. Which is not a given

 

[Irish#1]

Equally interesting thought. What does the offensive line look like if/when Fisher comes back for the playoffs or bowl game?

He’s been out too long to make an impact. His playing would be limited and be more about having something to transition into for off-season work.

 

[stpeteirish]

Fisher/Alt locks. It’ll likely be about filling out the best 5 with the last 3 spots up for grabs between Kristofic, Spindler, Correll at C, and Carmody. Though, I think Kristofic is a near lock.

I will be interested to see if they do move Alt to RT, do they move Kristofic with him? And keep Fisher/Spindler together? That just becomes a lot of spitballin though.

There's a pretty good chance next year's OL could have no one who is starting now at the same position. Alt and Kristo are probably going to be moved and the other three are seniors. But we have at least 6 returnees who have started games; fisher, alt, Kristo, Carmody Correll and Baker.

 

[ulukinatme]

I'm assuming this still is based on Fisher maintaining all mobility. Which is not a given

 

[NDdomer2]

The reports he was progressing well were promising. I just don't know how fast we should be penciling a guy with a half a start and a knee procedure as a starting tackle.

 

[BrownerandFry]

I really love this thread. We are going to have an outstanding offensive line next year, regardless of injury.

But the chicken littles will be hand-wringing for the next 9 months.

It reminds me of a blurb from Garrison Keilor

"She read the kind of magazines for Lutheran women that contained articles about using the wrong kind of can opener, as you could suffer internal bleeding from tiny bits of metal in your food>"

Haters gonna Hate
Worriers gonna worry
Fear mongers gonna monger fear.

 

[Dale]

Posting this here as well:

Loy on Quinn: “If he wants to coach offensive line, I don’t think he’s going to end up at Notre Dame or LSU next year”

So we need a new OL coach regardless.

 

[Dale]

These hires are rarely without links but don’t know how you don’t call the Baylor OL Coach Mateos

 

[NDMIA]

Football Outsiders OL Rankings (Regular Season Final)

Power 5 Rankings
1) Oregon State
2) Oregon
3) Kentucky
4) Ohio State
5) Utah
6) Georgia
7) Michigan
8) Arizona State
9) California
10) USC
11) Mississippi State
12) UCLA
13) Clemson
14) Wake Forest
15) Pittsburgh
16) Florida
17) Baylor
18) Virginia
19) Texas
20) Wisconsin
21) Louisville
22) Auburn
23) Missouri
24) Texas A&M
25) Ole Miss
26) Minnesota
27) Michigan State
28) Texas Tech
29) West Virginia
30) Alabama
31) Illinois
32) Virginia Tech
33) Oklahoma State
34) Arkansas
35) TCU
36) UNC
37) Tennessee
38) Maryland
39) Washington
40) NC State
41) Iowa State
42) Syracuse
43) Georgia Tech
44) Oklahoma
45) Washington State
46) Nebraska
47) Kansas State
48) Duke
49) Rutgers
50) Notre Dame
51) Arizona
52) LSU
53) Kansas
54) Vanderbilt
55) Indiana
56) FSU
57) Miami
58) Northwestern
59) Boston College
60) South Carolina
61) Purdue
62) Iowa
63) Penn State
64) Stanford
65) Colorado

 

[Trait Expectations]

Football Outsiders OL Rankings (Regular Season Final)

Power 5 Rankings
1) Oregon State
2) Oregon
3) Kentucky
4) Ohio State
5) Utah
6) Georgia
7) Michigan
8) Arizona State
9) California
10) USC
11) Mississippi State
12) UCLA
13) Clemson
14) Wake Forest
15) Pittsburgh
16) Florida
17) Baylor
18) Virginia
19) Texas
20) Wisconsin
21) Louisville
22) Auburn
23) Missouri
24) Texas A&M
25) Ole Miss
26) Minnesota
27) Michigan State
28) Texas Tech
29) West Virginia
30) Alabama
31) Illinois
32) Virginia Tech
33) Oklahoma State
34) Arkansas
35) TCU
36) UNC
37) Tennessee
38) Maryland
39) Washington
40) NC State
41) Iowa State
42) Syracuse
43) Georgia Tech
44) Oklahoma
45) Washington State
46) Nebraska
47) Kansas State
48) Duke
49) Rutgers
50) Notre Dame
51) Arizona
52) LSU
53) Kansas
54) Vanderbilt
55) Indiana
56) FSU
57) Miami
58) Northwestern
59) Boston College
60) South Carolina
61) Purdue
62) Iowa
63) Penn State
64) Stanford
65) Colorado

That hurts. We must get thsi resolved ASAP. It's better than where they were, we had to have started around 125th so marked improvement but we need a lot of growth from our guys.

 

[NDMIA]

That hurts. We must get thsi resolved ASAP. It's better than where they were, we had to have started around 125th so marked improvement but we need a lot of growth from our guys.

Sorry I wasn't clearer. This is 50th out of 65 Power 5 Teams. So they were in the 90's in overall rank in FBS football. The bottom line is since Football Outsiders began their rankings it is the worst offensive line rank that Notre Dame has ever had. Hiestand's worst ranking if I remember correctly was 19th or 20th in Power 5. Without the late season improvement, Notre Dame would likely have finished in the bottom 10 in the power 5 in offensive lines which is just embarrassing. I've firmly jumped off the team Jeff Quinn ship and I hope our staff looks like:

HC Marcus Freeman
OC/QB Tommy Rees
RB Lance Taylor
WR
TE John McNulty
OL
DC/DL Mike Elston
LB Nick Lezynski
CB Mike Mickens
S Chris O'Leary
ST

I think Polian will follow BK to Baton Rouge or become a smaller school head coach. I hope they get the best recruiting WR coach and best recruiting LB coach they can possibly find. ST and OLine I hope they find a really big time coach for each spot. I think keeping Freeman, Rees, Balis, and Elston are the most important items. I think Taylor and Mickens are also big time keeps too if this works out that way. Regardless of all that I think the OLine coaching hire is unbelievably important for the future and present for this team!

 

[T-Boone]

Clemson at 13? Before I stopped caring about their games their oline was worse than ours.

 

[NDMIA]

So I did some research on the best OLines from 2018-2021 and kind of made a list of guys who were at non-power 5 schools or low level power 5's who ranked highly in terms of their offensive lines doing well.

1) Jim Michalczik - Oregon State - He's actually had the most success of almost any OLine coach in the last 3 seasons. He's been tremendous and they have the best offensive line in the country ths season. He makes $475,000 a year and has really only been a west coast guy so don't think it is possible to get him to ND but hey the carousel is wild.

2) Jeff Grimes - Baylor - He's now the OC there so that has kind of ran its course. He's been tremendous there and I think is the TE position coach now with the OLine position coach being Eric Mateos. I think it would be hard to poach either one of those guys as Baylor is willing to do what it takes to keep their dudes.

3) Rob Sale - NY Giants - He was at Louisiana and thrived there for a few years before getting the bump up to the big leagues and has not done well at all. The silver lining in that is he could be let go after this year and open the door for an opportunity for ND to hire a young, good OLine coach with NFL experience even though it didn't work out very well

4) Nic Cardwell - Appalachian St - He's had a really good 2 years at App State and could be a worth a look.

5) Herb Hand - UCF - He had a solid three years at Texas before a good year at UCF. He's been at talented schools but I think he's done reasonably well there. He's been with Malzahn a bunch and I don't he's leaving considering they are gonna be power 5 soon enough.

I'm sure there are guys getting fired, retired, or leaving jobs that are also really really good. Bill Bedenaugh might be the best OLine coach in the country but there's no way he's not either staying in Norman or going to LA with Lincoln but he's worth a phone call. There's other guys too that will be good that come up. My hope is that ND lands someone that leans more towards a Hiestand in coaching technique and all of that but also has some recruiting chops to boot.

 

[Luckylucci]

Great call on Lezynski. Unsure how I forgot about him but would love to see him as LB's coach. But, this isn't really the thread for that.

Edit: On topic, it's telling that neither school want Quinn to coach the OL. Including the one that just paid his best friend and boss a kings ransom to bring who he wants, lol.

 

[Dale]

These hires are rarely without links but don’t know how you don’t call the Baylor OL Coach Mateos

Bump.

This OL was awful LY and is made up of mostly guys recruited to play C. At least call him

 

[Rogue219]

Freeman said in yesterday's presser he wants recruiters. I think the one area where he might want to have a teacher and coach over recruiter is OL. It's too important and it's where championships are won (along with QB and WR).

If you can get both, all the better, but getting a guy who could teach the position like Hiestand did in terms of technical knowledge (hated recruiting) might not be a bad thing. Obviously with 2022 methods that relate to today's players and won't be an HR issue.

 

[BrownerandFry]

Football Outsiders OL Rankings (Regular Season Final)

Power 5 Rankings
1) Oregon State
2) Oregon
3) Kentucky
4) Ohio State
5) Utah
6) Georgia
7) Michigan
8) Arizona State
9) California
10) USC
11) Mississippi State
12) UCLA
13) Clemson
14) Wake Forest
15) Pittsburgh
16) Florida
17) Baylor
18) Virginia
19) Texas
20) Wisconsin
21) Louisville
22) Auburn
23) Missouri
24) Texas A&M
25) Ole Miss
26) Minnesota
27) Michigan State
28) Texas Tech
29) West Virginia
30) Alabama
31) Illinois
32) Virginia Tech
33) Oklahoma State
34) Arkansas
35) TCU
36) UNC
37) Tennessee
38) Maryland
39) Washington
40) NC State
41) Iowa State
42) Syracuse
43) Georgia Tech
44) Oklahoma
45) Washington State
46) Nebraska
47) Kansas State
48) Duke
49) Rutgers
50) Notre Dame
51) Arizona
52) LSU
53) Kansas
54) Vanderbilt
55) Indiana
56) FSU
57) Miami
58) Northwestern
59) Boston College
60) South Carolina
61) Purdue
62) Iowa
63) Penn State
64) Stanford
65) Colorado

I am unaware of this ranking group.

I have found Pro Football Focus reliable.. and would be interested to see their rankings on this.

Further, and statisticians will accuse me of "data mining" I would like to see the rankings from PFF split, so they show the ND OL rankings for the first 6 games
and then, ranked against the others, in the last six games.

That might be instructive. Last year's losses of OL was worse than I initially thought. Tommy Kraemer was playing (starting?) for the Lions, the ones with the one game unbeaten streak,.
And he was the "least promising" after Eichenberg, Hainsey and Banks.

 

[Pops Freshenmeyer]

FO offensive line rankings are a blend of sack rate and run success rate. It's more complicated than that because of how they break out rushing vs. passing down and distance situations but those are the basic components.

The rankings are NOT opponent adjusted and will favor pro-style rushing teams that have higher rush success rates but fewer big plays. ND's zone rushing scheme creates more big plays at the expense of its success rate and will be (IMO) consistently underrated by this metric.

That said, Notre Dame's power success rate on runs (where they just need a short gain and aren't trying to hit a big play) and the rate of sacks allowed by ND in the first half of the season was abhorrent. Even with significant improvement the Irish finished 106th in rate of sacks allowed, 91st in sack rate allowed on standard downs, and 107th in sack rate allowed on passing downs. The rushing power success rate ended at 73rd. That's just brutal.

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

Will be very interesting to see where Quinn goes after the bowl game. I've said it since the day he was hired as OL coach at ND: if he weren't Kelly's buddy, who would chase him for their OL position? No one in the top 25, for sure. Time will tell.

 

[Irish8248]

Will be very interesting to see where Quinn goes after the bowl game. I've said it since the day he was hired as OL coach at ND: if he weren't Kelly's buddy, who would chase him for their OL position? No one in the top 25, for sure. Time will tell.

Fair enough but the guy was an OC at cincy with FUBK before getting a HC job at Buffalo. So while he may not have be pursued as OL coach for other programs, he was an assistant under HH and that was our opening. If it were TEs or any other spot on offense I believe they would have plugged him in for that.

 

[BilboBaggins]

Questions for OL this winter and into spring ball:

* Is Heistand coming back? (Please sweet baby Jesus). I'm almost positive I saw Chris Watt on the sideline at the 20yd line catch a player who was running out of bounds. Isn't that the rumor, that the Heistand/Watt show was just waiting for the season to end?

* Is Patterson returning? This OL can be top 10 if he does.

* Is Lugg moving on? Only way I see him contributing in 2022 is if the staff decides he can play RG. He's been a swiss army knife for Notre Dame over the course of his career but is the talent level surpassing his ceiling? I favor veteran OL so I personally wouldn't mind him playing RG. Lots of others will want a RS-Fr Spindler to take his spot.

* Will they move Baker back to LT. If he's a real bulldozer then RT is a nice place to put a run blocking-dominant tackle. I was always under the assumption he was playing LT because he was so huge that he could stop any pass rush on the blind side. If he's a legitimate All-American OT you probably flip the line and have him at LT.

This will probably be what everyone is rooting for:

T: Fisher (RS-Fr)
G: Spindler (RS-Fr)
C: Patterson (GS)
G: Kristofic (RS-Jr)
T: Alt (SO)