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Top Pac-12 Offensive Linemen - msqueri - 04-15-2022

I wanted to take a look at what returns at offensive line for Pac-12 teams. Last year we had a high number of returning starters but when you dug into it our group of third year players were babes in the woods compared to the hordes of fourth, fifth, and even sixth year linemen availing themselves of a year after the 2020 COVID-19 mulligan. As a result, in a comparative/competitive sense Stanford's 2021 offensive line was problematic. I've been so curious to dig into how much of a difference a year will or won't make. 

The way I'll look into this is to rank all the linemen in the Pac-12 who had 400+ snaps last year at a major college football school (i.e., returning starter-level players) based on their PFF grades (divided up visually into tiers based on my eyeball of where to slice and dice):

1. Andrew Vorhees (USC) - 90.2
2. Marco Brewer (Oregon State) - 88.6
3. Brett Neilon (USC) - 86.2
4. TJ Bass (Oregon) - 86.0
5. Justin Dedich (USC) - 85.7

6. Braeden Daniels (Utah) - 84.4
7. Brandon Kipper (Oregon State) - 80.1

8. Joshua Gray (Oregon State) - 77.5
8. Drake Nugent (Stanford) - 77.5
10. Ryan Walk (Oregon) - 77.3

11. Ben Scott (Arizona State) - 73.5
12. Ben Coleman (Cal) - 71.9
13. Walter Rouse (Stanford) - 71.4
14. Matthew Cindric (Cal) - 71.0
15. Jonah Monheim (USC) - 70.7
16. Ladarius Henderson (Arizona State) - 70.5

17. Alex Forsyth (Oregon) - 69.6
[Grant Stephens (Washington State) - 69.1 - including for completeness but not ranked because he was playing at Northern Colorado (FCS)]
18. Victor Curne (Washington) - 68.9
19. Raiqwon O'Neal (UCLA) - 68.7 (at Rutgers)
20. Chris Martinez (Arizona State) - 68.6 (at San Diego State)
21. Sataoa Laumea (Utah) - 68.2
22. Henry Bainivalu (Washington) - 67.8
23. Branson Bragg (Stanford) - 67.6

24. Bobby Haskins (USC) - 65.7 (at Virginia)
24. Barrett Miller (Stanford) - 65.7
26. Steven Jones (Oregon) - 64.6

27. Keaton Bills (Utah) - 62.3
28. Malaesala Aumavae-Laulu (Oregon) - 61.9
28. Paiton Fears (Arizona) - 61.9
30. Jake Hornibrook (Stanford) - 60.9
31. Jarrett Kingston (Washington State) - 60.5
32. Josh Baker (Arizona) - 60.3
33. Courtland Ford (USC) - 59.7
34. Duke Clemens (UCLA) - 59.6
[Ulumoo Ale (Washington) - 58.3 - included here for completeness but not ranked due to position switch to DL]
35. Josh Donovan (Arizona) - 57.8
36. Casey Roddick (Colorado) - 57.3

37. Jon Gaines II (UCLA) - 54.1
38. Jordan Morgan (Arizona) - 53.1
39. Konner Gomness (Washington State) - 52.3
40. Ma'ake Fifita (Washington State) - 48.5

41. Jake Wiley (Colorado) - 41.0
42. Frank Fillip (Colorado) - 40.1
43. Myles Hinton (Stanford) - 36.9

Observations: 

* Stanford doesn't have any of the returning elite linemen. What we do have is tremendous depth of proven experience across the starting line. USC and Stanford are the only programs with six returning starter-level snap linemen. [It's funny that USC's fans are wringing their hands over OL depth.....the difference between a contending program and a non-contender is that the contender is genuinely talking about second and third string when it talks about depth and can be concerned even when it has one of the best starting groups in the conference.]

* On paper USC pretty clearly has the best line in the conference. Their offense should be fearsome. Oregon State has some question marks but to have three of the top eight on paper makes them a pretty clear #2 up front. Eyeballing the above one would likely slot Stanford in as the fourth best OL in the conference after USC and the Oregon schools. 

* Normally I would say that there's a plausible chance Stanford could leap frog one or more of those teams on the logic competitors might have weak links who undermine the play of the proven guys. Alas, Stanford is at as big of a risk of that as anybody, as Hinton looks in line to start and is one of the worst "proven" players in America at any position (691 of 693 OL in America!). 

* If I'm right Stanford should be expected to have the #4 line in the conference (closer to #3 than #5 on paper I'd say), that's not dominant but it's good. I think it's really notable that among all returning starter Pac-12 linemen every single one of our non-Hinton starters is middle of the road or better. There shouldn't be an excuse for this line to struggle....unless it really becomes Hinton torpedoing things, which shouldn't be allowed to fester with Hornibrook waiting in the wings. 

What would be great, of course, is if we can somehow have one of the two best lines in the conference. That would unlock a lot. We'd most likely need multiple if not all three of Nugent, Rouse, and Bragg to be all-conference for that.

RE: Top Pac-12 Offensive Linemen - winflop - 04-15-2022

Offense will not be the problem this year, just like last year. Defense will once again be undersized and thin.

RE: Top Pac-12 Offensive Linemen - msqueri - 04-15-2022

(04-15-2022, 12:32 PM)winflop Wrote:  Offense will not be the problem this year, just like last year. Defense will once again be undersized and thin.

Offense was a problem last year. We were 113th in scoring offense, 122nd in total offense, 101st in yards per play, 126th in rushing offense, 117th in yards per carry, 82nd in passing offense, 82nd in passer rating, 94th in yards per passing attempt, and 82nd in Offensive FEI (my favorite stat as the way Shaw coaches makes conventional stats underrate our offense and overrate our defense). Offense, like defense, was an enormous problem last year. If your point is that defense has tended to be more of a problem than offense in recent years, I absolutely agree. But Stanford's offense last year was horrendous. Not even top 80 in the nation.

Aside from the weird pandemic-shortened season in which stats are less reliable and certainly foolhardy to compare across conferences, we haven't had a top 60 offense since 2018. In terms of scoring offense, it's been since 2017. Stanford having offensive talent is not the same thing as offense not being a problem. Not under this coaching staff.

I am inclined to think that having McKee + a veteran OL + arguably the best and certainly top 2-3 skill position groups in the conference will produce at least a solid offense. But, especially with the RB situation and the coaching staff's track record, I don't know if the offense will actually be good. Good offenses in today's college football score 31/32 points per game and you're not really a notable offense unless you're averaging 35+. Is that what we're going to see? In the last six seasons (many of which had enviable NFL talent on offense: McCaffrey, Schultz, Smith, Love, Arcega-Whiteside, Parkinson, Fehoko, Dalman, Mills, Little), the single best scoring offense we've had was 32.4 points per game. Good but not great. I think that's Shaw's ceiling. We'll probably be in the 25-40 range of offenses nationally.

One can say that's not a "problem" but it's nowhere near good enough with the level of defense Stanford puts out there. An offense in the 30s and a defense in, say, the 90s is not a good or relevant team. Ultimately, you're absolutely right to focus more on the defense but we do need a lot out of the offense.

RE: Top Pac-12 Offensive Linemen - old spanish trail - 04-15-2022

(04-15-2022, 01:05 PM)msqueri Wrote:  
(04-15-2022, 12:32 PM)winflop Wrote:  Offense will not be the problem this year, just like last year. Defense will once again be undersized and thin.

Offense was a problem last year. We were 113th in scoring offense, 122nd in total offense, 101st in yards per play, 126th in rushing offense, 117th in yards per carry, 82nd in passing offense, 82nd in passer rating, 94th in yards per passing attempt, and 82nd in Offensive FEI (my favorite stat as the way Shaw coaches makes conventional stats underrate our offense and overrate our defense). Offense, like defense, was an enormous problem last year. If your point is that defense has tended to be more of a problem than offense in recent years, I absolutely agree. But Stanford's offense last year was horrendous. Not even top 80 in the nation.

Aside from the weird pandemic-shortened season in which stats are less reliable and certainly foolhardy to compare across conferences, we haven't had a top 60 offense since 2018. In terms of scoring offense, it's been since 2017. Stanford having offensive talent is not the same thing as offense not being a problem. Not under this coaching staff.

I am inclined to think that having McKee + a veteran OL + arguably the best and certainly top 2-3 skill position groups in the conference will produce at least a solid offense. But, especially with the RB situation and the coaching staff's track record, I don't know if the offense will actually be good. Good offenses in today's college football score 31/32 points per game and you're not really a notable offense unless you're averaging 35+. Is that what we're going to see? In the last six seasons (many of which had enviable NFL talent on offense: McCaffrey, Schultz, Smith, Love, Arcega-Whiteside, Parkinson, Fehoko, Dalman, Mills, Little), the single best scoring offense we've had was 32.4 points per game. Good but not great. I think that's Shaw's ceiling. We'll probably be in the 25-40 range of offenses nationally.

One can say that's not a "problem" but it's nowhere near good enough with the level of defense Stanford puts out there. An offense in the 30s and a defense in, say, the 90s is not a good or relevant team. Ultimately, you're absolutely right to focus more on the defense but we do need a lot out of the offense.

Thanks, Square, for the neat analysis. As always, I'm hopeful, but I'm very curious re what the "tweaks" are to the OL scheme that "better fits the guys we have". Any info or thoughts?

RE: Top Pac-12 Offensive Linemen - msqueri - 04-15-2022

I'm very curious what those tweaks are as well. I'm not really an Xs and Os guy and have been hoping somebody could help shed light on that. I can't quite figure whether we're talking about tweaks to better reflect the strengths of the offensive linemen, to better reflect the strengths of the skill position players (e.g., more all-purpose back types rather than bell cow power backs), or some combination. My provisional guess is it's a little bit of both but mostly about the offensive linemen. But that's a low confidence guess and, in any case, I don't really know what it means. I think I'd get ahead of my understanding of Xs and Os pretty quickly if I started speculating on zone/man/gap schemes and what we might be tweaking. Would love to hear if others have thoughts.

RE: Top Pac-12 Offensive Linemen - Hurlburt88 - 04-15-2022

while I expect the offence to be "decent", I struggle with too much optimism given the poor run performance in the scrimmage against a defense that I don't believe in.   Would love more reports from practice, or insight from people with more expertise.

RE: Top Pac-12 Offensive Linemen - gailtate - 04-15-2022

A good drill-down for sure. Thanks. And yet another glimpse at the difference between what the program once was and what it is today.

RE: Top Pac-12 Offensive Linemen - BostonCard - 04-15-2022

Good analysis.  We do bring a lot of experience back at OL, and if you discount the 2020 season, these guys are more like juniors, now in their second full year under our new coach, which is when they ought to turn the proverbial corner.

Now that’s the starry eyed analysis… the more realistic analysis notes that especially in the OL, the line’s efficiency is more than just the sum of the individual linemen’s ratings, and one weak link, *cough, cough* can derAil an otherwise decent line performance.  I hope that we will have a very good line and that will lead to at least a good, if not great, offense.  However, I think the line, and offense, will merely be ok, and with what I expect to be an awful, awful, defense, it is hard to predict more than a handful of wins.

BC

RE: Top Pac-12 Offensive Linemen - magnus - 04-15-2022

Using last year's O stats doesn't seem fair.  We lost our QB and most of our receiving weapons for a good chunk of the season.  Just having them healthy for a full season should result in much better numbers.