Offensive Line Thread

[Irish YJ]

“Get embarrassed REALLY bad.....” work??

Acamp, is that really advanced to you? lol...

 

[T-Boone]

7-0 balances it out

Haha, we can get more advanced than that.

 

[Crazy Balki]

Again, those don't really do the line justice. Have to remember that:

A) Backs really struggled the first couple of games in finding lanes. Armstrong in particular, though he steadily improved prior to the injury. It doesn't help the line when they make their blocks and the back is running into the wrong lane. That's been rectified somewhat with the return of Dexter.

B) First three games, Wimbush presented little passing threat which allowed teams to attack the line in several exotic and aggressive ways without the threat of getting beat deep. Heck, even with Book, that has been the case, at least so far. If he hits on some of those deep shots, teams have to back off the line to respect the pass.

C) Losing Bars just when the line was putting it all together was a pretty major setback. Just how it is. To his credit Ruhland and Banks have been pretty good in his stead, but it's noticeable that he's out. Not to mention injuries to Kraemer and Hainsey. Hope the BYE gets them healthy. They're very good when they have solid legs under them.

D) Playcalling has, in a few games so far, been baffling and counter-productive. We aren't establishing a physical presence up front, because we're not trying to establish the run first and foremost. What is our identity Chip?

Have to be patient. I'd like this unit to be on pace as well, but that's not how it has shaped up. Having a solid identity helps matters significantly. Last year, ND knew what it wanted to be, and because of it, ND's OL dominated in almost every game and they had one of the top run games in the country. This year, they haven't established the run anywhere near as much as before.

 

[IrishBoognish]

Am I wrong, but didnt CBK say that it was a mistake that Book didnt pass for 50+ attempts with the way that Pitt was stacking the box?

It reminded me of the (fleeting) good days with Weis when he said "Hey listen, of you stack the box, we're gonna pass 45 times, if you hang back, we're gonna run it tell you stop us."

I liked it. I think that's the key for Book's success. If they wanna stack the box and stop Dex, fuck you! We'll pass down the seam and kill you. Had enough of that? Here's Dex!

I know I'm over simplifying because I'm not a doctor, but seriously.

 

[Some Irish Bloke]

Am I wrong, but didnt CBK say that it was a mistake that Book didnt pass for 50+ attempts with the way that Pitt was stacking the box?

It reminded me of the (fleeting) good days with Weis when he said "Hey listen, of you stack the box, we're gonna pass 45 times, if you hang back, we're gonna run it tell you stop us."

I liked it. I think that's the key for Book's success. If they wanna stack the box and stop Dex, fuck you! We'll pass down the seam and kill you. Had enough of that? Here's Dex!

I know I'm over simplifying because I'm not a doctor, but seriously.

Haha the bolded made me chuckle. "In English, Doc, we ain't scientists!" - Walk Hard, a Dewey Cox Story.


At any rate, I think it is important that CBK and his staff were stubborn with their game plan against Pitt. It shows that we will commit to running the ball, especially against inferior opponents. When push comes to shove, maybe @NW, v. 'Cuse, @USC or even v. FSU, if we find ourselves in a dog fight, he may just do that and drop Book back 40-50 times to secure the win if teams are loading up to stop Dex.

Still holds true though: we need to improve up front, period. Otherwise we will be an air-raid team, and being one dimensional isn't going to cut it come November and (hopefully) January.

 

[BabyIrish]

We currently rank 100th in OLY. That's horrible. For comparison, Bama is 3rd and Clemson is 23rd. We're going to get embarrassed again in the post season (or drop a winnable game before then and miss out) if Quinn doesn't get his shit together in a hurry.

I thought Sampson was just being over dramatic in his assessment of the line since Bars went down, but boy was I wrong.

 

[Bluto]

We currently rank 100th in OLY. That's horrible. For comparison, Bama is 3rd and Clemson is 23rd. We're going to get embarrassed again in the post season (or drop a winnable game before then and miss out) if Quinn doesn't get his shit together in a hurry.

That is horrible given the fact that we’ve played a number of pedestrian teams to this point. Pretty much every ND podcast this week made a point of stating how underwhelming the o line has been all season. Lot of talk of players regressing in their “technique” which is 100% a coaching problem.

 

[IrishLax]

What's crazy is that we get to face the 4 worst OLs in the entire country this year... Stanford, USC, Northwestern, and Florida State. Three of them coming up in the next five games.

 

[Ndaccountant]

I mentioned it in another thread, but this has to be the #1 strategic priority moving forward. The run game has not been good. I know Dex vs Stanford, VT, blah blah blah.

Stanford is 96th in defensive stuff rate, 101 in opportunity rate, 105 in standard down line yards.

VT has great stats....and if not for Dex's two explosive runs, the run game produced a minimal 39 net yards rushing, an average of just over 1 yard per carry.

Pitt...no explosive runs, 2.1 net yards per carry.

Fact is, the recipe for beating ND is clear...have a decent run defense and have a DL that can pressure Book. As far as future opponents go, It would appear that FSU has the best defense, along with NW and USC. Cuse cannot stop the run well, but can get after the QB.

If there are no significant production improvements, I would pencil in at least one loss.

 

[Wild Bill]

Listened to Driskell on podcast. He didn’t mince words in how describing how much the OL has regressed. He was especially disappointed in the regression of 3-yr starter Mustipher and Kraemer/Hainsey who started since last season.

He mostly focused on their poor footwork in that they stop moving their feet leaving them w/ very little leverage. Said Mustipher is “catching” blocks vs firing off the ball like last season. He & Somogyi both noted that Bars was great about always hammering them about sticking to their mechanics but w/ him gone, it’s really devolved.

Hopefully Quinn & Long can work it out over the bye week but if teams w/ better DL (Northwestern, FSU & USC) exploit the OL and seal up any run threat than it’s not going to end well b/c this team needs to be able to run the ball to advance to the CFP.

It's a good thing ND is paying someone a six figure salary to step in for Bars and coach 'em up a bit.

The offensive line is a unique unit within a football team - they're a team within a team.
They tend to take on the personality of their leader, rather than the team's leader, and they also tend to be soft if they're not being led correctly or if the offensive line coach isn't a dictator.

Heistand may have rubbed some of his players the wrong way but he made the unit tougher overall. Q and Mike were violent and intense players and raised the bar for what is acceptable for the unit.

With Bars out, Mustipher and Kraemer are the leaders. They are not intense or violent. This isn't meant to be an attack on these two players. Both players are talented and have played at a high level. I just think they lack the killer instinct needed to lead a "tough" offensive line. I know nothing about Quinn but I can't imagine he brings the same mentality as Heistand. I could be wrong.

We need to get tougher and get back to basics. Playing offensive line is relatively simple - you just have to move humans from point A to point B against their will. That may be the one benefit of playing Banks over Ruhland. Banks is massive and likes to embarrass defenders when he gets the chance. We need more of that.

 

[NDRock]

If someone told me preseason that our OL would suck and we had to change the QB due to lack of production, I would have had us at 4-3.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Whiskey, I'm new to these, and know you have have been digging them for quite a while. If you get a chance please drop some knowledge/translation in terms of what these numbers and trends tell us.

Don't have much to add, unfortunately. I'm a huge proponent of FO's stats; they've been the best in the business at providing reliable opponent-adjusted rankings and projections for many years now. Rating OL performance is notoriously difficult since there are so many different variables, but I think FO has controlled for them as well as possible, and that adjusted line yardage is a reliable tool for comparing our OL's improvement from year-to-year and currently against our peers.

FO didn't start tracking this until 2014, so I unfortunately can't make the comparison I most want to here. But we lost both Martin and Watt to the 2014 draft. Probably not quite as significant as losing Q and McG this year, but still comparable I think. Yet we still ranked a very solid 32nd in ALY the following season. This year, we dropped from 5th to 100th. Why? Hiestand. He was truly the best in the business, and his departure was a massive loss for us.

Our OL recruiting over the last 4-5 years has been as good as anyone's in the country. And as Stanford has shown, that should continue even without Hiestand. The big uglies tend to have the highest Wonderlic scores, and our mix of academics, tradition and competitiveness seems to make us uniquely attractive to them. But we've got to actually develop that talent, or on-field success will suffer, followed by our OL recruiting. No unit is easier for us to recruit and more crucial to establishing the sort of sustained success we need than OL.

To be blunt, I think Quinn is likely to blame for this. I hope I'm wrong, but it doesn't look like he's up to the task here.

 

[Old Man Mike]

Kraemer will ultimately be that angry tough guy. Once he gets healthier and sees that the seniors aren't leading, I think that he will believe that he (though a young-un) has the right to step up and get in the others' faces. I've seen Tommy "enjoy" the mauling part of the game, and also be the first running to the RB to pick him up, all last year. He has this in him.

Ian is angry enough, but isn't consistent enough to have the street-cred. Hainsey? Can't see his personality expressed on the field yet. Mustipher seems almost literally not "strong" enough --- which is (on the physical side) really surprising to me because he had the high school reputation of being a weight-room forklift phenomenon.

Nobody is apparently as good as Hiestand, but these athletes are very good. We should be able to evolve a very good OLine for the intended offense of the coaching staff. I'm not giving up on that. (Though I'd like to see a bit of urgency trying out at least Banks and Lugg.) (And if Hainsey and Kraemer get really healthy, maybe Hainsey/LT and Tommy/RT for an experiment.) --- plus we REALLY need the "support people" (TEs and RBs) doing MUCH better jobs. OLine is being blamed for some of their errors in these debates.

 

[Rack Em]

Don't have much to add, unfortunately. I'm a huge proponent of FO's stats; they've been the best in the business at providing reliable opponent-adjusted rankings and projections for many years now. Rating OL performance is notoriously difficult since there are so many different variables, but I think FO has controlled for them as well as possible, and that adjusted line yardage is a reliable tool for comparing our OL's improvement from year-to-year and currently against our peers.

FO didn't start tracking this until 2014, so I unfortunately can't make the comparison I most want to here. But we lost both Martin and Watt to the 2014 draft. Probably not quite as significant as losing Q and McG this year, but still comparable I think. Yet we still ranked a very solid 32nd in ALY the following season. This year, we dropped from 5th to 100th. Why? Hiestand. He was truly the best in the business, and his departure was a massive loss for us.

Our OL recruiting over the last 4-5 years has been as good as anyone's in the country. And as Stanford has shown, that should continue even without Hiestand. The big uglies tend to have the highest Wonderlic scores, and our mix of academics, tradition and competitiveness seems to make us uniquely attractive to them. But we've got to actually develop that talent, or on-field success will suffer, followed by our OL recruiting. No unit is easier for us to recruit and more crucial to establishing the sort of sustained success we need than OL.

To be blunt, I think Quinn is likely to blame for this. I hope I'm wrong, but it doesn't look like he's up to the task here.

 

[BeatSC]

Haha, we can get more advanced than that.

8-0 balances it out?

 

[BeauBenken]

Don't have much to add, unfortunately. I'm a huge proponent of FO's stats; they've been the best in the business at providing reliable opponent-adjusted rankings and projections for many years now. Rating OL performance is notoriously difficult since there are so many different variables, but I think FO has controlled for them as well as possible, and that adjusted line yardage is a reliable tool for comparing our OL's improvement from year-to-year and currently against our peers.

FO didn't start tracking this until 2014, so I unfortunately can't make the comparison I most want to here. But we lost both Martin and Watt to the 2014 draft. Probably not quite as significant as losing Q and McG this year, but still comparable I think. Yet we still ranked a very solid 32nd in ALY the following season. This year, we dropped from 5th to 100th. Why? Hiestand. He was truly the best in the business, and his departure was a massive loss for us.

Our OL recruiting over the last 4-5 years has been as good as anyone's in the country. And as Stanford has shown, that should continue even without Hiestand. The big uglies tend to have the highest Wonderlic scores, and our mix of academics, tradition and competitiveness seems to make us uniquely attractive to them. But we've got to actually develop that talent, or on-field success will suffer, followed by our OL recruiting. No unit is easier for us to recruit and more crucial to establishing the sort of sustained success we need than OL.

To be blunt, I think Quinn is likely to blame for this. I hope I'm wrong, but it doesn't look like he's up to the task here.

Saw a long post about the offensive line and assumed it was OMM. Whiskey is advancing into new territories.

 

[BeatSC]

When we sense the pass rush is getting too aggressive a draw play would be nice. A la Charlie Weis get the screen play going and quick passing game. Book also needs to not scramble straight back. His scrambling last week was awful and was making bad directional decisions. We were a decision and a play or two from this being much of an issue. Watched the game for a third time and except for the one red zone debacle that we dropped back 3X in a row book had ample time to throw but in a few cases held on too long.

We also gave up on the run too early but we haven’t been down by two scores let alone one before this season. Need to beat Navy by 40 or more as I’ve got $900 in to 5 tickets.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Saw a long post about the offensive line and assumed it was OMM. Whiskey is advancing into new territories.

Once upon a time, I frequently wrote long stat-heavy posts about NDFB. Now I've retired to posting about less controversial topics, like theology and culture.

 

[Ndaccountant]

Once upon a time, I frequently wrote long stat-heavy posts about NDFB. Now I've retired to posting about less controversial topics, like theology and culture.

 

[BeauBenken]

Once upon a time, I frequently wrote long stat-heavy posts about NDFB. Now I've retired to posting about less controversial topics, like theology and culture.

Weren't most of those about Grad Rates and 30-year-ROIs though? I still remember the excel sheet.

 

[Irish#1]

Reflecting on OMM's discussion of leadership, I think that is a little bit of the problem. Sam just doesn't have the personality to hold guys accountable like Big Mike did. Q wasn't as vocal, but when he did speak guys listened. For an underclassman to take hold of the leadership reigns, they have to get fed up enough that they don't care if they step on some toes by speaking up and challenging the group.

I think you'll see Banks starting from here on out. Ruhland played great coming in for Barrs when he was injured, but his play seems to have leveled out. He doesn't have the lateral speed to pull which has been a big part of the running game, so you're essentially removing about a half dozen run plays from the game plan.

 

[koonja]

Reflecting on OMM's discussion of leadership, I think that is a little bit of the problem. Sam just doesn't have the personality to hold guys accountable like Big Mike did. Q wasn't as vocal, but when he did speak guys listened. For an underclassman to take hold of the leadership reigns, they have to get fed up enough that they don't care if they step on some toes by speaking up and challenging the group.

I think you'll see Banks starting from here on out. Ruhland played great coming in for Barrs when he was injured, but his play seems to have leveled out. He doesn't have the lateral speed to pull which has been a big part of the running game, so you're essentially removing about a half dozen run plays from the game plan.

I'd be pleasantly surprised. He got 1 series vs. Pitt and did very well. At the very least he didn't miss an assignment. If he was getting the start going forward, they would have played him more than 1 series considering he didn't screw up IMO.

 

[Irish#1]

I'd be pleasantly surprised. He got 1 series vs. Pitt and did very well. At the very least he didn't miss an assignment. If he was getting the start going forward, they would have played him more than 1 series considering he didn't screw up IMO.

I thought he played more than one series?

 

[BabyIrish]

I thought he played more than one series?

If I recall I think he played like half the game

 

[ND88]

With the loss of Bars, we all knew we took a big hit to our leadership on OL.

Nevertheless, even with Bars, we also knew there would be growing pains this season.

More than the loss of two 1st rounders, Heistand checking out was the biggest hit to the team.

The fact we are undefeated at this point in the season is nothing to take for granted.

How many of us actually predicted we would be in this position?

Realistically, we CAN win out, but it would be a pretty amazing feat to do so, especially when reflecting back on certain liabilities we foresaw before the start of the season.

I’ve learned to be an ambitious, yet realistic fan of our team.

I want to see Long, Kelly, Quinn strive to establish a clearer offensive identity. This should benefit the development of our OL, and keep us competitive in every matchup ‘til the end.

Make no mistake though, we have plenty of gut checks coming up this second half of the season.

 

[Irish YJ]

-On the state of the OL in general, it was a concern coming into the year to start, but feel it's even more of a concern at week 8.

-Losing HH, two top draft picks, and now Bars. Those are huge losses to contend with. That said, our recruiting has been phenomenal. While I think the losses have incredible impacts, we've got to find a way to develop, and pick the right guys for the starting 5. Our 2nd and 3rd string guys are arguably more talented and better prospects than most teams not Bama, OSU, etc..

-On last game. Agree with some of you that BK/Long's approach to throw it so much, was simply calling plays to Pitt's weakness. Stacking the box was Pitt's identity, and there was simply not a lot we could do in terms of running. I believe the longest rushes in the 1H was Book. Outside of that, very little success. I'm not sure how you establish the run with what they were doing, unless you want to run twice, and put Book in 3rd and long every time.

-I have to agree with Whiskey right now to an extent. My biggest fear is Quinn's potential lack of development, and lack of instilling nastiness.

-Glass half full... we have a bye to rest, get healthy, and figure things out. We don't play a D in the top 45 for the rest of the year. Would love to see some healthy big uglies rise to the challenge, and gel over the next month.

 

[Domina Nostra]

My 2 cents. The line right now looks like the line did every year Kelly has been here, with the exception of 2017–even then, we had some tough games. That includes lines we’ve had with HH. The only big difference is really no clear superstar, but That is somewhat motivated by no position with a real talent deficit.

Also, Ian Book is a rich man’s Tommy Rees. And Teams are starting to cover us like they did against Rees: everyone at medium depth, fly to the line once it’s clear they are running. It’s hard as heck to run against that. You need some deep balls.

My take-away is that I am not sure any team’s line ever plays up to people’s expectations, if they look at it under a microscope. If the team wins 10 games, they remember the line fondly, if they don’t, they don’t.

 

[Irishize]

I was fearful Quinn would be to blame but wanted to give him a fair shot as he is following the best OL coach in the nation. I’ll still reserve that blame unless it continues to regress but the trend doesn’t look great.

To give credit to Pitt, Narduzzi is a helluva DC (not so much when it comes to HC) and he stuck w/ his tried & true scheme of putting his CBs on an island in press coverage & bringing the two safeties down to take away the run. You better have some experienced CBs to make that happen...especially now that Book has seen it live & can adjust accordingly. Make the D pay & they’ll drop those safeties which will open up the run.

Make no mistake...Pitt sucks. But Narduzzi’s CBs were able to do their job on an island unlike 2015 when they had to contend w/ speedster Will Fuller. That’s when sticking to Narduzzi’s scheme became insanity as it got exposed every series.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

My 2 cents. The line right now looks like the line did every year Kelly has been here, with the exception of 2017–even then, we had some tough games. That includes lines we’ve had with HH. The only big difference is really no clear superstar, but That is somewhat motivated by no position with a real talent deficit.

Also, Ian Book is a rich man’s Tommy Rees. And Teams are starting to cover us like they did against Rees: everyone at medium depth, fly to the line once it’s clear they are running. It’s hard as heck to run against that. You need some deep balls.

My take-away is that I am not sure any team’s line ever plays up to people’s expectations, if they look at it under a microscope. If the team wins 10 games, they remember the line fondly, if they don’t, they don’t.

IE isn't always a paragon of objective analysis, but we're not nearly as ignorant as that. From 2014-2017, we had the best OL coach in the nation, were recruiting the position better than any other team in the nation, and finished each season in ALY ranked 32, 2, 18, and 5 respectively. No rational observer could argue that OL was anything but a tremendous strength for the team over the period.

Our depth of quality hasn't changed at all, but Hiestand left and OL is now an obvious liability for our offense. That lines up with our abysmal 100th ranking in ALY. So I don't think it's fair to treat OL like a blackbox that gets irrationally blamed or praised based on the team's overall success. We can see them struggling on-field, and the advanced stats back that up.

 

[Irish YJ]

IE isn't always a paragon of objective analysis, but we're not nearly as ignorant as that. From 2014-2017, we had the best OL coach in the nation, were recruiting the position better than any other team in the nation, and finished each season in ALY ranked 32, 2, 18, and 5 respectively. No rational observer could argue that OL was anything but a tremendous strength for the team over the period.

Our depth of quality hasn't changed at all, but Hiestand left and OL is now an obvious liability for our offense. That lines up with our abysmal 100th ranking in ALY. So I don't think it's fair to treat OL like a blackbox that gets irrationally blamed or praised based on the team's overall success. We can see them struggling on-field, and the advanced stats back that up.

Good post, and agree with everything you say. Do you think the poor numbers are somewhat impacted by BW's style of play, and lack of ability to pass? Do you think as teams adjust for Book's accuracy/quickness, will those numbers improve. And if Book learns how to hit the long ball consistently, the numbers improve even more.

I think the OL needs to improve to give Book the time for the long ball, but I also think that his short and intermediate accuracy will force them to crowd the box less. I think not having burner WRs that can take the top off, also have allowed folks like Narduzzi to put their CBs on an island.