Offensive line.
- Thread starter mybrotha
- Start date
Yeah Mike it;s hard to remember the exact year right? I think you'd have to say Chris Hinton was our best ever modern day O lineman.
I think Hinton graduated in 83 or 84.
The line that blocked for DA in 2000 was the Fab Five recruiting class, no? They were pretty good too.
Ranked top-to-bottom:
1996 (great)
1995 (great)
2000 (great)
2005 (very good)
2003 (good)
2004 (good)
Decent
1997
2001
2015 (to date)
2008
2009
2012 (some Colter/Mark camouflage)
Needed work
2011 (colter/Persa camouflage)
2010 (Persa camouflage)
2007
2006
Needed serious work
2002 (a mess)
1999 (a mess)
1998 (a mess)
2013 (a mess)
2014 (a mess)
1996 (great)
1995 (great)
2000 (great)
2005 (very good)
2003 (good)
2004 (good)
Decent
1997
2001
2015 (to date)
2008
2009
2012 (some Colter/Mark camouflage)
Needed work
2011 (colter/Persa camouflage)
2010 (Persa camouflage)
2007
2006
Needed serious work
2002 (a mess)
1999 (a mess)
1998 (a mess)
2013 (a mess)
2014 (a mess)
Someone with a lot of time on their hands needs to list out the primary 5 starters on each line...that would be an interesting read.
Good work, MRCat. Do you think the 2015 line has a chance to bump up to at least the "good" level if both Mogus and Frazier came back from their injuries? If Park can snap consistently, and with the baptism under fire for the younger guys, I see a lot of potential. May be difficult this year, but next year could be good/great?
One of the things that excites me about this team is that while we've had a good start this year I think we have the potential to be better on both sides of the ball next year.
We lose Lowry, Gibson, Robbins, Smith, VanHoose, Henry... I like our young guys on defense, but not sure how we're going to be better after losing those guys.
Will Harris or Walker leave early for the NFL? I don't think so, but it's not out of the question.
DL will be okay next year. Losing Lowry, Deonte, and Robbins will hurt. Youth is already in the rotation. Barring injuries, we have IO and X-Wash on the edge, and Lancaster and Kuhar inside. Thompson looks like a good Big Ten DT already. Hearing good things about Goens and Gaziano. Replacing Lowry will be the key.
2000 was a very good OL but those were Barnett's fab five line recruits. Lines under Patton (which included Streif and Essex for part of the time) were pretty good (look at Indiana's line now) but since he left not so good.
Gibson and Lowry are special players who would start on any Big 10 team. Replacing them won't be easy.
Interesting to note, in this subjective but educated assessment. None of the "serious work" teams had a winning record, the ones just above that were losing records or right around .500 (although the end of 2010 season is slightly misleading re the OL anyway), the "decent" showed 3 successful (by NU standards) teams, one with high hopes (2015), one "competitive' but a losing record (97) and the 01 team that had the RAW tragedy, (RIP)
Of course the top ones were 3 B1G champs, three other pretty good teams, all of which could run the d**n football. So it starts with the OL. Also worth noting that MRcat sees us as having only two 'decent' lines since 09, including this year.
That said, it would be interesting to see what would have happened to the "great" lines had they been blocking for Jacob Schmidt, no disrespect intended, vs, DA1, DA2, Sutton, Wright, Herron, etc. Could a back of the quality of DA1 also be creating some of the camouflage?
Finally, good to have some positive press for Mark / Colter. We had a lot of collateral damage after that special year due to union/transfer/injuries, etc, but they were flat out electric in 2012. I have both a #5 AND a #2 jersey for that reason. Edge of your seat every time they had the ball, esp li'l #5
Lowry is 290 and Gibson is 265. IO is 250 and XWash is 240. Obviously, they can gain wait in the next year, but I'm concerned about being stout against the run next year when we're taking 65 lbs off of our ends.
Without a good OL you are not going anywhere. That is why people have singled out that unit as one that has generally under performed and the fact it has been in that under performing status so often is of real concern.
There was some of that, but at times there were also some huge holes that Mark just had to burst thru.
Yep - IU's O-line the past couple of yrs has been underappreciated.
Pretty elementary and yet amazing how so many (including analysts) are not cognizant of this.
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Take a look how Wisky RBs have fared in the NFL.
While Gordon seems to be doing fine - more often than not, UW RBs don't do much in the NFL (the most recent one being Montee Ball who was cut by the Broncos despite being a 2nd round pick).
Wisky RBs have been the beneficiary of good-to-great O-lines.
A corollary to that at the QB position would be USC QBs - other than Palmer, USC QBs haven't done much in the NFL (and the Jets being in the AFC Championship twice w/ Sanchez had a lot more to do w the level of talent on those Jets teams, esp. on D).
When these former USC QBs no longer had the advantage of having superior talent around them - they, for the most part, have faltered.
MrCat95 isn't the only former 'Cat to think that this year's O-line is decent (and improved upon from last season's).
From Nate's take on the 1st 4 games and overall assessment of position groups on Inside NU.
Offensive line
I've seen pretty decent improvement from a year ago. The offensive line has kept a freshman QB pretty clean so far this year. Of course, you'd like to see a little more push in the run game, but overall, the unit is progressing. Bad snaps are an issue, and health could become a concern, but I think we can be slightly optimistic about this group.
http://www.insidenu.com/2015/9/30/9...te-williams-analysis-2015-wildcats-undefeated
For what it's worth, I've been seeing/saying the same thing.
It has been servicable but hard to say how strong a unit it is because it has not been healthy
Sure, it could go either way depending on how all 5-9 guys develop and improve as the season progresses. I've seen several guys already make meaningful improvement in the first four weeks. I don't think any single player is that critical. The question is how effective is the 4th or 5th best guy on the line and how do they execute as a group.
This group has a lot of room for improvement, but I like how the physicality has improved over the last couple of years. They have more room for improvement in pass blocking than run blocking IMO.
I think the oline will definitely improve with Frazier and Mogus back, no doubt. I also think if Mertz had not had a slew of injuries early on and developed more as a tackle we would be in great shape. Yes Mertz is doing well as a guard, but he has a tackle body. Park is solid as center he has stepped up big time, and Olson is solid at RT. DePietro is another that will come back and make his mark on the line at LG.
The younger O line guys have great potential and are helping us out immensely right now., But if we can get Mogus, DePietro, Frazier back we can breathe easier.
Go Cats !
Mertz and Park have been our best performing (and most physical) OL this year IMO. Many of the others have shown steady improvement. The OL as a whole has done much better job getting a hat on all defenders at the point of attack, which has reduced the number of TFLs or no-gainers and made the run game far more efficient. It's not been over-powering or explosive by any means, but has pretty consistently been able to get 2-4 yards on first down creating manageable 2nd down and then ultimately 3rd down situations. Of course, JJ has a knack for squeezing out an extra yard or two every down, which is huge. 3rd and 3 or 4 is a much, much easier down than 3rd and 6 or 7.
Yes, yards per carry is a nice stat, but probably an even more important stat (rarely tracked) is the percentage of run plays that gain less than 2 yards. We had a much higher percentage of those a year ago and they seem fairly few and far between this year. That's largely why we can move the football much better and gain field position even when we ultimately often end up punting anyway. It's a slow grind, but we far more consistently move the ball 20-30 yards before punting this year rather than going 3 plays and punting like last year.
This has the added benefit of keeping the offense out of sure fire passing situations, which ultimately slows down the pass rush (when the defense rushes 4) and limits blitzing opportunities by defense. It's riskier to blitz on 3rd and 3 than it is on 3rd and 7. The best pass blocking often comes from a good run game, which prevents a DL from pinning its ears back (and ignoring run defense responsibilities) and going after the QB.
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