09-29-2018, 04:30 AM
The offensive line is definitely underperforming to this point but Bryce Love has also gained too much weight which has had an impact on his agility and explosiveness.
To Love's credit, in my opinion, he looked 3-4 pounds lighter and perhaps 1/2 step faster in last week's Oregon game (Sept 22nd) in comparison to how he looked against USC on Sept 8th. He still didn't look as agile and as explosive as he did in 2017. I think Love simply either overshot his target/optimal weight and/or gained the weight too quickly.
If he loses more weight as the season progresses, I predict his [Bryce] performance will improve.
Back in my youth, I was a sprinter and running back in high school with smaller joints. The result was that weight gain (including muscle) had more of a negative impact on my agility and explosiveness than it did for guys with larger joints.
Watching video of Bryce from 2017 in comparison to 2018, I think his gaining weight has improved his ability as a blocker in pass protection but it has had a negative impact on his ability to make big plays in the run game. Unless he corrects this, his draft stock will drop as teams would prefer a Chris Johnson type game-breaker with questionable blocking skills in pass-pro versus a RB with good pass-pro skills but lacks the "big play" ability. No RB is getting picked in the 1st round just because he's good in pass-pro.
Bryce has dropped from RB#1 to RB#6 in this year's draft class based on current evals of an NFL Scout that I've known for 18-19 years.
2017 vs 2018 - This has very little to do with production but it is about quickness, agility, and explosiveness. This is something that has been a passion of mine for years and actually led me to conduct somewhat related independent research in Human/Sports Performance as an undergrad. Now this was over 20 years ago at the Nike-Coach K Human Performance Lab (K-Lab) in Durham but I am still confident in stating that his weight gain has negatively impacted his performance "to this point" in 2018.
2017-Several runs by Bryce
Stanford vs USC-(September 9th)
https://youtu.be/6KXOLw7_4EM?t=1
Stanford vs San Diego St-(September 16th)
https://youtu.be/5gLzJSHhBTs?t=235
Stanford vs Arizona St (September 16th)
https://youtu.be/v4aTQk0YhJA
2018-Several runs by Bryce
Stanford vs USC-(September 8th)
https://youtu.be/m8r6hpzKgTc?t=19
https://youtu.be/m8r6hpzKgTc?t=27
https://youtu.be/m8r6hpzKgTc?t=60
Stanford vs Oregon-(September 22nd)
https://youtu.be/3f58bJ94Uy4?t=106
To Love's credit, in my opinion, he looked 3-4 pounds lighter and perhaps 1/2 step faster in last week's Oregon game (Sept 22nd) in comparison to how he looked against USC on Sept 8th. He still didn't look as agile and as explosive as he did in 2017. I think Love simply either overshot his target/optimal weight and/or gained the weight too quickly.
If he loses more weight as the season progresses, I predict his [Bryce] performance will improve.
Back in my youth, I was a sprinter and running back in high school with smaller joints. The result was that weight gain (including muscle) had more of a negative impact on my agility and explosiveness than it did for guys with larger joints.
Watching video of Bryce from 2017 in comparison to 2018, I think his gaining weight has improved his ability as a blocker in pass protection but it has had a negative impact on his ability to make big plays in the run game. Unless he corrects this, his draft stock will drop as teams would prefer a Chris Johnson type game-breaker with questionable blocking skills in pass-pro versus a RB with good pass-pro skills but lacks the "big play" ability. No RB is getting picked in the 1st round just because he's good in pass-pro.
Bryce has dropped from RB#1 to RB#6 in this year's draft class based on current evals of an NFL Scout that I've known for 18-19 years.
2017 vs 2018 - This has very little to do with production but it is about quickness, agility, and explosiveness. This is something that has been a passion of mine for years and actually led me to conduct somewhat related independent research in Human/Sports Performance as an undergrad. Now this was over 20 years ago at the Nike-Coach K Human Performance Lab (K-Lab) in Durham but I am still confident in stating that his weight gain has negatively impacted his performance "to this point" in 2018.
2017-Several runs by Bryce
Stanford vs USC-(September 9th)
https://youtu.be/6KXOLw7_4EM?t=1
Stanford vs San Diego St-(September 16th)
https://youtu.be/5gLzJSHhBTs?t=235
Stanford vs Arizona St (September 16th)
https://youtu.be/v4aTQk0YhJA
2018-Several runs by Bryce
Stanford vs USC-(September 8th)
https://youtu.be/m8r6hpzKgTc?t=19
https://youtu.be/m8r6hpzKgTc?t=27
https://youtu.be/m8r6hpzKgTc?t=60
Stanford vs Oregon-(September 22nd)
https://youtu.be/3f58bJ94Uy4?t=106