[BostonCard]

As for the dline ranking of #49, it does feel generous, but how low can it go for a power 5 program? Even the bottom 2-3 teams in a Power 5 conference should make the top, say, 80, shouldn’t they? And I don’t think we’re that low in our conference.

There are 65 power five teams (10 in the Big Twelve, 12 in the Pac-12, 14 each in the Big Ten and SEC, and 14 + Notre Dame in the ACC).  Thus, 49th is not that great; we probably fall behind a few G5 teams, but keep in mind that some teams (say, Kansas) are complete messes and might as well be FCS teams.

The bottom line is that compared to most of the teams we will play, our DL will be matched up against a superior OL.  Thankfully, I expect that our OL will be superior to most of the DL's they play.

BC

[BostonCard]

As for the dline ranking of #49, it does feel generous, but how low can it go for a power 5 program? Even the bottom 2-3 teams in a Power 5 conference should make the top, say, 80, shouldn’t they? And I don’t think we’re that low in our conference.

There are 65 power five teams (10 in the Big Twelve, 12 in the Pac-12, 14 each in the Big Ten and SEC, and 14 + Notre Dame in the ACC).  Thus, 49th is not that great; we probably fall behind a few G5 teams, but keep in mind that some teams (say, Kansas) are complete messes and might as well be FCS teams.

The bottom line is that compared to most of the teams we will play, our DL will be matched up against a superior OL.  Thankfully, I expect that our OL will be superior to most of the DL's they play.

BC