O-Line Youth

[thewolverines24]

There are 9 teams (Stanford, Baylor, Clemson, Auburn, S. Carolina, LSU, A&M, UCLA, and ND) in the top 25 with 3 years or less average experience. 7 of these teams are in the top 15. A few, including LSU and UCLA have offensive line that is significantly younger than Michigan. Amazingly, even with those very young offensive line with freshmen and sophomores, they have managed not to have historically bad offenses with a competent rushing attack.

Based on this data, I think blaming our offensive line woes just on experience is not correct. It does not help, but lack of experience does not automatically mean that they will bad. When you have two NFL tackles, you should be able to perform at least average, if not better.

I knew Auburn was doing well with a young line, but I had no idea 7 of the top 15 teams had o-lines as young or younger than ours. Hip hop hooray!

 

[TheVictors]

that's some solid and frustrating research there, buddy.

 

[deathroh]

What good does it do if you can block DE's, but not DT's or blitzing linebackers? Lumping the entire o-line together in an excercise like this isn't exactly fair. For the last two weeks the G-C-G combo has been...true freshman - rs soph walkon - rs freshman tackle. That's an issue. THE issue, imo.

 

[RABID]

What good does it do if you can block DE's, but not DT's or blitzing linebackers? Lumping the entire o-line together in an excercise like this isn't exactly fair. For the last two weeks the G-C-G combo has been...true freshman - rs soph walkon - rs freshman tackle. That's an issue. THE issue, imo.

And Fitz is still back there "blocking" the linebackers.
("Come on Dorn, get in front of the damn ball! Don't give me this "ol?" bullshit!" - Lou Brown)

Gimme Green.

 

[thewolverines24]

What good does it do if you can block DE's, but not DT's or blitzing linebackers? Lumping the entire o-line together in an excercise like this isn't exactly fair. For the last two weeks the G-C-G combo has been...true freshman - rs soph walkon - rs freshman tackle. That's an issue. THE issue, imo.

It doesn't do any good. We have all seen that. This data just shows that there are other o-lines with as much or more youth than Michigan, but they aren't struggling in the same way. They are actually good.

 

[deathroh]

It doesn't do any good. We have all seen that. This data just shows that there are other o-lines with as much or more youth than Michigan, but they aren't struggling in the same way. They are actually good.

If having good, experienced tackles is irrelevant when you have a disaster in the middle, why include them in this analysis? All it does is skew the data.

 

[deathroh]

And Fitz is still back there "blocking" the linebackers.
("Come on Dorn, get in front of the damn ball! Don't give me this "ol?" bullshit!" - Lou Brown)

Gimme Green.

He hasn't been put in the best situations, but he blocking attempts have been pretty pathetic at times. Maybe Green should have sex with his gf.

 

[biggunsbob]

Just frustrating the lack of improvement ..That is all on coaching not the players.. I am very fearful that we have really inferior coaches then other teams.. Hope I am wrong.

 

[thewolverines24]

If having good, experienced tackles is irrelevant when you have a disaster in the middle, why include them in this analysis? All it does is skew the data.

I'm just saying it's irrelevant for Michigan because of how we've seen the offensive line play. It's not irrelevant in general. It doesn't matter what we put out there, it's going to be awful. This is not the first year of it either. They couldn't run block for any RBs last year, but it's even worse now.

 

[Michchamp]

He hasn't been put in the best situations, but he blocking attempts have been pretty pathetic at times. Maybe Green should have sex with his gf.

what?

 

[deathroh]

what?

*his blocking attempts, not he. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

[Michchamp]

what about the sex with his gf part? what would that accomplish? i don't get it.

 

[deathroh]

what about the sex with his gf part? what would that accomplish? i don't get it.

Ahh, I see. I should have said Gardner or something like that. Better yet Morris since he's the up and comer. Definitely not someone that plays the same position. That doesn't make any sense.

 

[bamf_16]

It doesn't do any good. We have all seen that. This data just shows that there are other o-lines with as much or more youth than Michigan, but they aren't struggling in the same way. They are actually good.

HUUUUUUUUUGE difference between "3 years or less" and 3 interior linemen who've started 5-7 games total. Two seniors and the freshmen/ RS freshmen in the middle is a little different than 5 juniors across the line who would fit your criterion.

 

[RABID]

he hasn't been put in the best situations, but he blocking attempts have been pretty pathetic at times. Maybe green should have sex with his gf.

lmao

 

[thewolverines24]

HUUUUUUUUUGE difference between "3 years or less" and 3 interior linemen who've started 5-7 games total. Two seniors and the freshmen/ RS freshmen in the middle is a little different than 5 juniors across the line who would fit your criterion.

Auburn starts two true sophomores, a RS freshman, and two juniors.

LSU starts two RS freshmen, two RS sophomores, and a RS junior.

UCLA starts two true freshmen, a sophomore, a RS sophomore, and a junior.

Those are the three youngest lines in the top 25 and two of those teams are top 15. They don't even come close to having the issues we do on the o-line. I know youth is part of the problem, but I just think there is more to it than that. Other teams are proving to have successful, young o-lines.

 

[RABID]

I blame Obamacare.

 

[deathroh]

I'm just saying it's irrelevant for Michigan because of how we've seen the offensive line play. It's not irrelevant in general. It doesn't matter what we put out there, it's going to be awful. This is not the first year of it either. They couldn't run block for any RBs last year, but it's even worse now.

It is irrelevant in general. If your interior is a sieve it doesn't matter how good your tackles are. They've tried to mitigate that by going tackle over but we've seen how well that's worked. Some more imagination out of that set would have been nice.

That said, I'm not trying to derail your narrative or anything. Funk/Borges/Hoke could very well be a major part of the issue. I just don't think that minimizing the youth/inexperience issue that UM has in the middle by lumping in the tackles is fair play.

 

[thewolverines24]

It is irrelevant in general. If your interior is a sieve it doesn't matter how good your tackles are. They've tried to mitigate that by going tackle over but we've seen how well that's worked. Some more imagination out of that set would have been nice.

That said, I'm not trying to derail your narrative or anything. Funk/Borges/Hoke could very well be a major part of the issue. I just don't think that minimizing the youth/inexperience issue that UM has in the middle by lumping in the tackles is fair play.

I understand and my goal is not to say that youth is not a major part of the problem. We all know that it is. It's just frustrating to see other teams in similar situations having much more success. UCLA has two true freshmen starting on the line and their starting RB averages 6 ypc. Their freshman RB averages 4.4 ypc. Auburn is really young and they have three RBs over 450 yards. One has almost hit the 1000 yard mark. He's at 921.

I'm frustrated and I want to see some improvement through the last games of the season.

 

[deathroh]

That would be nice