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Key leading indicator of CFB team performance - OutsiderFan - 06-14-2017

OL starts brought to you by Phil Steele:

https://www.philsteele.com/Blogs/2017/JUNE17/DBJune13.html

Look at #9, 123, 126, and 129 in particular. 


Re: Key leading indicator of CFB team performance - fullmetal - 06-14-2017

Stanford is in a three-way tie for 57th, good for 7th in the Pac-12.  I wonder where we were last year...

Re: Key leading indicator of CFB team performance - Farm93 - 06-14-2017

SJSU #1 - The theme about importance lost a bit of credibility right there.

Stanford with the various jumbo packages requires the OL two deep to be a bit more involved week to week.    In many cases those jumbo packages are used at critical times in the biggest games, often on the road.

In a lot of programs the non-starters only appear if there are injuries, or in garbage time against a non-conference cupcake at home.

Re: Key leading indicator of CFB team performance - OutsiderFan - 06-14-2017

(06-14-2017, 09:25 AM)Farm93 link Wrote:SJSU #1 - The theme about importance lost a bit of credibility right there.

How?  Just because a team has the most returning OL starts in the land, it doesn't follow it will have a great season.  This data does provide a possible foreshadowing of a successful SJSU season to come.

Re: Key leading indicator of CFB team performance - Farm93 - 06-14-2017

(06-14-2017, 10:03 AM)OutsiderFan link Wrote:[quote author=Farm93 link=topic=16980.msg194765#msg194765 date=1497457526]
SJSU #1 - The theme about importance lost a bit of credibility right there.

How?  Just because a team has the most returning OL starts in the land, it doesn't follow it will have a great season.  This data does provide a possible foreshadowing of a successful SJSU season to come.
[/quote]
Vegas over-under implies SJSU will finish last in their conference.  Vegas is foreshadowing a very unsuccessful season to come.  I don't know if SJSU will have a great season, but I am inclined to think Vegas' implied last in the conference is likely even with the most experienced OL in FBS.

Re: Key leading indicator of CFB team performance - CTcard - 06-14-2017

(06-14-2017, 09:25 AM)Farm93 link Wrote:SJSU #1 - The theme about importance lost a bit of credibility right there.

I agree with the thought that the statement itself says nothing at all about the importance of this stat for improvement going forward.

Much more serious in that regard is the article's own description of last year's #1 in this stat, Bowling Green, which then proceeded to have serious declines in it's offensive output across the board. I would assume that across the board the correlation would be better, but Steele makes no attempt to make the case.

A bigger criticism would be that Steele never says just what he thinks this state tells us. Presumably its not absolute performance of the OL - no one thinks San Jose State (#1) or UCF (#5) is going to have a better OL straight up than, say, Alabama (#60) or Michigan (#80). Something closer would be improvement over last year, but that would likely involve some kind of comparison of this year's experience vs last year's. More likely it tells us something about how close the players might perform versus their own potential; that's rather vague but pretty sure Alabama's OL personnel have a higher ceiling than SJSU's.

I also always wonder about the accuracy of Steele's numbers, though in this case he seems pretty close at least with respect to Stanford - I counted 69 returning starts vs his 68.


Broadly speaking, I would say it's rather obvious that experience on the OL is important. However, it is probably not linear in the manner this statistic suggests. By that I mean that some experience, and more importantly experience together, clearly is important. But, two years  of experience is not twice better than one year. Further, three guys together for one year is far more useful to developing synchronization than one guy having three years of experience.

With four returning starters from the end of last year, and six guys who have started on the roster, Stanford seems well positioned to perform closer to their own potential than did last year's unit, which had two returning starters, and I think two who had ever started. However, of the guys on the roster as of spring, I have some concerns as to just how high that potential is.

Re: Key leading indicator of CFB team performance - washingtonismoney - 06-15-2017

I suspect a fair amount of the benefits of experience are experience as a *unit*. So for example, Stanford's rearranging the line a bit (Tucker possibly going inside, Bright outside, etc.) might suppress some of the value of experience.