Offensive Line Thread

[Sea Turtle]

It worked out? When did an HH OL not look terrible in big games? Flat track bullies.

I'm starting to think that all of the top teams are on PEDs except for us.

It certainly looks like it, performance wise.

 

[fightingirish26]

Why don't you answer your own question for our edification. What were HH's biggest ND games, and what were the results?

Harry's famous 17 OL couldn't get any push whatsoever against UGA, Miami, Stanford or LSU. Now his preseason "no. 1 OL" looked atrocious in the opener (I'll give him time and a healthy JPatt before being too harsh on HH v2). The 17 OL earned their reputation against USC and NCSU. We talk about how soft USC has been in the trenches all the time, while NCSU was certainly a great effort as that version had a good front 7.

Been too long to remember the rest tbh

 

[sixstar]

I'm starting to think that all of the top teams are on PEDs except for us.

It certainly looks like it, performance wise.

Hyperbolic assumptions beget hyperbolic conclusions

 

[GrangerIrish24]

I'm starting to think that all of the top teams are on PEDs except for us.

It certainly looks like it, performance wise.

2010's Stanford nods in agreement

 

[ulukinatme]

It literally says in the video that there's a chance that Audric ran the wrong play and may have been responsible.
But yes, with that said, Correll should have quickly seen he had no-one and should have twisted back left (even though it'd likely still be too late).

If that's true, I think we need Diggs in there on passes. He's not as big, but he was Kyren-esque with his blocking pickups last season. I still think he's our most complete back.

 

[Rizzophil]

We couldn’t get a push but they loaded the box bc we only had essentially 5 healthy receivers.

Everyone knew we were going to be conservative in the whole stadium

 

[Crazy Balki]

Harry's famous 17 OL couldn't get any push whatsoever against UGA, Miami, Stanford or LSU. Now his preseason "no. 1 OL" looked atrocious in the opener (I'll give him time and a healthy JPatt before being too harsh on HH v2). The 17 OL earned their reputation against USC and NCSU. We talk about how soft USC has been in the trenches all the time, while NCSU was certainly a great effort as that version had a good front 7.

Been too long to remember the rest tbh

The problem in 2017 wasn't the OL. You want to know why the OL struggled in those games. Here's why:

vs. UGA (Brandon Wimbush: 20/40 / 50% / 210 yards / 0 TD / 0 INT / 5.25 yards per attempt)

vs. Miami (Brandon Wimbush & Ian Book: 13/27 / 48% / 152 yards / 1 TD / 3 INT / 5.6 yards per attempt)

vs. Stanford (Brandon Wimbush 11/28 / 39% / 249 yards / 2 TDs / 2 INTs / 8.8 yards per attempt)

vs. LSU (Brandon Wimbush 3/8 / 37.5% / 52 yards / 0 TDs / 0 INTs / 6.5 yards per attempt)

The reason the OL continuously struggled in these games is because those defenses did not respect ND's passing game. It doesn't matter how good your OL is. You could have the Hogs up front, but if your QB is throwing sub 50% clips and 5 or 6 yards per attempt, defenses are just going to load the box and stop the run and dare you to beat them with the pass.

Brandon Wimbush was challenged by defenses multiple times and failed almost every single time.

 

[Giddyup]

Harry had one good season at ND. Not good enough. Not popular but I remember Weis saying any good online needs to avg at least 4 yds per carry. I was pissed when Harry was hired after getting fired by the bears. Time to turn the page and bring in a new system- o coaches

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Harry had one good season at ND. Not good enough. Not popular but I remember Weis saying any good online needs to avg at least 4 yds per carry. I was pissed when Harry was hired after getting fired by the bears. Time to turn the page and bring in a new system- o coaches

WTF would Weis know about good OL play?

 

[Giddyup]

Not much but he knew any good offense is averaging over 4 ypc

 

[Giddyup]

If you can’t run on a team then those teams are just waiting on the pass. Not to mention you fall into 2nd and 3rd and longs.

 

[Crazy Balki]

Harry had one good season at ND. Not good enough. Not popular but I remember Weis saying any good online needs to avg at least 4 yds per carry. I was pissed when Harry was hired after getting fired by the bears. Time to turn the page and bring in a new system- o coaches

Harry had more than 1 good season at ND.

The problem is that Harry would often have a good/great unit up front, but the skill positions were lacking.

2012 and 2013, ND had good to great OL play with guys like Zack Martin, Chris Watt and Nick Martin leading the charge. But they had limited receiving options and less than good QB play in a freshman Golson and Tommy Rees, along with Cam McDaniel as the primary runner in 2013. That isn't going to get it done, no matter who's blocking for you.

2015 was a great unit, but that team was obviously bogged down by awful defensive coaching and Kizer began to regress a bit later in the year, as well as injuries to key offensive players like Prosise.

I already mentioned 2017, see above.

Really the only years the OL wasn't good was 2014 and 2016, and the latter year had more to do with the team just all-around being a dumpster fire and bad coaching with little motivation.

 

[Giddyup]

Too many excuses. Time to stop blaming everyone else. Our oline looked like crap and the buck stops with Harry. Hopefully we move on from Kelly coaches next year.

 

[Crazy Balki]

Too many excuses. Time to stop blaming everyone else. Our oline looked like crap and the buck stops with Harry. Hopefully we move on from Kelly coaches next year.

Too many excuses? Bruh, you really expected Harry to fix the OL in 1 offseason? Have it moving like clockwork after 1 game? After losing the best player and most experienced lineman of the entire group against one of the most talented rosters in the nation on the road?

Harry isn't going to fix Correll or Lugg's physical limitations and we have limited options because his predecessor recruited poorly for several cycles before finally getting his ass in gear. Harry is having to deal with that problem.

These are just awful takes.

 

[Rack Em]

WTF would Weis know about good OL play?

His DL frequently made it easy for good opposing OL play

 

[Giddyup]

Yes I expect Harry to have this highly touted o line to be ready to go against all competition wk 1.. this isn’t n Illinois

 

[Crazy Balki]

Yes I expect Harry to have this highly touted o line to be ready to go against all competition wk 1.. this isn’t n Illinois

Well, then I'd like to call you back down to this planet we call Earth.

ND's upperclassmen OL classes were not recruited well. Period.

So you have an interior that's short on talent, because again, the recruiting for multiple cycles on the OL was bad. Then you have your best player out for the biggest game of the year and have to replace him.

And you expect Harry to overcome all this? In week 1? Against one of the most talented rosters in the nation? Against one of the best DC's in the game? Dude, get real. He's an OL coach, not a miracle worker.

He's not going to fix bad recruiting for multiple cycles on top of poor coaching, similar to how Stuckey isn't going to fix receivers out of the gate.

If Quinn had recruited better, maybe we wouldn't be stuck with Correll and Lugg as our best options at those positions. Those two are simply not good enough and the fact that we have to rely on them to start is due to poor recruiting and development from Harry's predecessor.

 

[T-Boone]

I thought Quinn recruited well. It was HH last class that wasn’t good.

 

[Crazy Balki]

I thought Quinn recruited well. It was HH last class that wasn’t good.

The 2019 and 2020 classes were also bad, so Quinn didn't immediately turn things around until the '21 class.

2019 had several mis-evaluations such as Correll, Carroll and Olmstead, all three having physical limitations that prevented or are preventing them from being high level players for ND. Jury's out on Kristofic.

2020 only had 2 players, both of which were projects and neither have panned out.

You can whiff on back-to-back OL classes, especially when they make up your Junior and Senior class.

 

[ab2cmiller]

I thought Quinn recruited well. It was HH last class that wasn’t good.

Correct. Quinn's first class was loaded with talent from analysts perspective (Correll, Carroll, Kristofic and Olmstead). Those 4 linemen were our 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th highest rated recruits in that class. But a combination of underperformance and injuries have resulted in almost nothing to show from it. Combine that with HH's disaster of a class the prior year, you end up in our current situation.

 

[ab2cmiller]

Crazy Balki summed it up better than I did.

 

[NDMatt91]

I took a look at Harry's classes (2013-2018). All rankings are 247 composite:

2013 (5): Hunter Bivin (#97), Steve Elmer (#115), John Montelus (#152), Mike McGlinchey (#172), Colin McGovern (#193)
Hits: 2

2014 (4): Quenton Nelson (#61), Alex Bars (#109), Sam Mustipher (#225), Jimmy Byrne (#311)
Hits: 3

2015 (2): Tristen Hoge (#89), Trevor Ruhland (#462)
Hits: 0

2016 (3): Tommy Kraemer (#26), Liam Eichenberg (#80), Parker Boudreaux (#403)
Hits: 2

2017 (4): Robert Hainsey (#84), Josh Lugg (#120), Aaron Banks (#166), Dillan Gibbons (#374)
Hits: 2, 2 TBD (Lugg, Gibbons)

2018 (3): John Dirksen (#515), Luke Jones (#516), Cole Mabry (#716)
Hits: 0, 1 TBD (Jones)

9/21 hit rate (43%), however it could increase depending on how Lugg, Gibbons, and Jones perform this year. Boudreaux and Hoge started for UCF and BYU, respectively, but I don't count them as hits. 8 NFL players, and Elmer certainly would've been in the NFL had he not given up football. FWIW, Driskell said he was told that Nicholas Petit-Frere would've committed to ND on NSD if Harry didn't leave.

 

[Sea Turtle]

I wonder what Alabama, Georgia and Ohio States hit rate is on o linemen.

43% isn't very good. There is a developmental problem at ND somewhere along the line.

 

[IrishLax]

I wonder what Alabama, Georgia and Ohio States hit rate is on o linemen.

43% isn't very good. There is a developmental problem at ND somewhere along the line.

You usually recruit about 16 linemen at a time so a 43% hit rate means ~7 NFL players on your roster at a time, and accounting for some of them being underdeveloped/too young that means 4-5 NFL players on your line at a time with 2-3 NFL players developing behind them. Which seems more than adequate.

 

[ulukinatme]

I have faith Harry will get things turned around. We'll be better sooner than 6 games in, it took Quinn half a season just to stop the bleeding and he had the benefit of playing against a lot of poor defenses 2nd half of last season. The miscommunication issues are very fixable, our guys are smart. The physical limitations might take longer, our interior OL can't be getting pushed around.

 

[Crazy Balki]

I wonder what Alabama, Georgia and Ohio States hit rate is on o linemen.

43% isn't very good. There is a developmental problem at ND somewhere along the line.

That isn't a developmental problem. That was a recruiting problem.

When Harry put in the effort and landed good classes, his hit rates were very good. His 2013 and 2014 classes were crucial to building a Joe Moore finalist in 2015 and a Joe Moore winning line in 2017. And his 2016 and 2017 class was the foundation of another Joe Moore finalist unit in 2020, when you had Eichenberg, Kraemer, Banks and Hainsey.

The problem is that you had dud classes like 2015 and 2018, where Harry took minimal numbers and lower quality players.

However you have to remember that this was Harry under Brian Kelly. Harry is under Freeman's watch now, and that means there is an expectation and demand that every coach is going to recruit their butts off. Kelly didn't demand the same accountability from Harry, thus it resulted in complacency setting in. Freeman won't let Harry get complacent. That's the key difference. So long as Freeman keeps Harry accountable for landing 3-5 quality linemen every year, Harry's going to develop some very good linemen moving forward.

 

[NDMatt91]

I wonder what Alabama, Georgia and Ohio States hit rate is on o linemen.

43% isn't very good. There is a developmental problem at ND somewhere along the line.

From the same period (2013-2018 recruiting classes):

Alabama: 10/27 (37%)-4 TBD (3 still in college, 1 recent UDFA that was just waived)
Georgia: 10/28 (36%)-2 TBD (2 still in college)
Ohio State: 7/23 (30%)-2 TBD (still in college)

A "hit" is a player who was drafted/made an NFL roster or would have had they not given up the sport (Steve Elmer). UGA's numbers are much better since Kirby arrived (2016-2018 classes). 8/12, including 2 TBD's. TBD's are included in the total.

 

[irishtrain]

I saw a run where they were trying to block 8 guys-4th quarter- and its because there is no skill at wideouts and a young inexperience QB I hate double hate to say it but one of the best o lines in the country and a tremendous tight end will go to waste this year. The defense seems to be really good but they cant score points, hell maybe they can and may have to. There is nothing wrong with this o line that a normal offense wouldnt fix.

 

[Crazy Balki]

I saw a run where they were trying to block 8 guys-4th quarter- and its because there is no skill at wideouts and a young inexperience QB I hate double hate to say it but one of the best o lines in the country and a tremendous tight end will go to waste this year. The defense seems to be really good but they cant score points, hell maybe they can and may have to. There is nothing wrong with this o line that a normal offense wouldnt fix.

I'm not as pessimistic of this team's talent being wasted.

Yeah, Mayer moving on sucks, but Raridon and Staes look like absolute studs in the making, and I saw a lot of really good things from Bauman and getting Evans back will be huge for our in-line blocking.

And as for the OL, a big reason the OL will be good moving forward is Alt and Fisher, both of which will be back next year. And you're going to replace Lugg and Correll, with significantly better players.

 

[Sea Turtle]

To me, a hit is someone who is plays well and isn't a a weakness. Only so many guys are nfl players.

I doubt that only 36% of Alabamas o linemen are good college players and are not a weaknness.