Conversation piece

[lionheartkc 6,150]

Compelling that the three tallest blue lines during the Malzahn offensive era coincide with a dual threat QB leading the offense. Just sayin.

They also coincide with established offensive lines.

Our 0 line this yr is very established and highly ranked from a recruiting standpoint.

Highly ranked, yes. Established, not at all.

Established by they are not a young bunch that has never had success

They began the season very inexperienced. Austin Golson had never even played center before.

But he was an sec starter prior so not inexperienced. Inexperienced is guys who have never played. Our o line should have been a sting suite. Hell, our back/up center has even started

You obviously have no idea how an offensive line works. To be established, they have to play together. The offensive line is all about rhythm and working as a unit. They could all have 5 stars, and they still wouldn't be a top line without at least a year together.

[looney 794]

How did we win 8 games in 2011... Based on the OP chart, I mean.

Honestly, side by side with 2012 doesn't look like 5 games difference, right?

Football is funny.

[lala 327]

Compelling that the three tallest blue lines during the Malzahn offensive era coincide with a dual threat QB leading the offense. Just sayin.

They also coincide with established offensive lines.

Our 0 line this yr is very established and highly ranked from a recruiting standpoint.

Highly ranked, yes. Established, not at all.

Established by they are not a young bunch that has never had success

They began the season very inexperienced. Austin Golson had never even played center before.

But he was an sec starter prior so not inexperienced. Inexperienced is guys who have never played. Our o line should have been a sting suite. Hell, our back/up center has even started

You obviously have no idea how an offensive line works. To be established, they have to play together. The offensive line is all about rhythm and working as a unit. They could all have 5 stars, and they still wouldn't be a top line without at least a year together.

I understand how it works and am not going to allow any excuses on the o-line play. How many teams have the luxury you are referring tool. Headed into this year we were as established as any O-line in the Sec.

[Mikey 16,577]

Great info in the charts! Thanks for doing the work.

Brief comment: It's Gus's offense. No matter who is named "OC", it's Gus's offense. We bought when we hired him. Me, I've got confidence that Gus is the right man for the AU head coaching job.

[AUinMS 0]

Three things stand out to me, Jason Campbell, Cam Newton, and Nick Marshall.

[lionheartkc 6,150]

Three things stand out to me, Jason Campbell, Cam Newton, and Nick Marshall.

Yup... and if you had the opportunity to ask all 3 of them, they would give credit, and rightly so, to their offensive line and blockers.

[lionheartkc 6,150]

You obviously have no idea how an offensive line works. To be established, they have to play together. The offensive line is all about rhythm and working as a unit. They could all have 5 stars, and they still wouldn't be a top line without at least a year together.

I understand how it works and am not going to allow any excuses on the o-line play. How many teams have the luxury you are referring tool. Headed into this year we were as established as any O-line in the Sec.

Reality check... we had 2 players on our line this year with any significant playing time together... 2. On top of that, we had one guy learning a new, and the most complex, position, and another guy coming off of an injury and trying to knock the rust off. That is FAR from established. The 2010 O-line was together 4 years before becoming a force. The 2013 line was together for a year and had 2 superstars on it. The 2014 line lost 1 of those superstars... just 1, and their production dropped by over 1200 yards.

HOPEFULLY, with a year under their belts, this O-Line can gel in the off season, but to expect them to be a force this year is ludicrous. I was happy to see that they handled pass protection as well as they did for most of the season.

[slipadeedoodah 24]

Dabo Swinney was 6-7 his 3rd year. Gus will be fine.

[AUld fAUx@ 2,584]

I like plots because they help me organize and absorb multiple pieces of related information simultaneously, which makes it easier to see basic trends and formulate/draw conclusions. I also think they are interesting because while they contain factual, non-subjective information, people can still draw highly subjective and differing conclusions from them. Anyway, I thought I would post one I made recently to see how your thoughts compare with mine. So please, discuss.

EDIT: There was an error in the defensive yds/gm for '15. Should be accurate now.

T'would appear, 3yrs of offense during the Chizik (HC) years were attributed to (OC) Malzahn. Three years of Malzahn (HC, and so far) offense were attributed to (HC) Malzahn. Intentional?

I thought about listing Lashlee as OC, but since there's so much debate about who's actually calling plays and since its Malzahn's offense either way, I went with Malzahn. Also, since there has been so much discussion lately about the sustainable effectiveness of "Malzahn's offense," It also made it easier to draw conclusions to that end. Whomever you want to attribute the numbers to is up to you.

Acknowledged, understood, and appreciated.

Also, many (and belated) thanks for your excellent presentation which definitely helps to "organize and absorb multiple pieces of related information simultaneously." Just an eyeball review suggests a cycle in offensive production of a period ~3-4 years. Total production changes across coaches/coordinators/years, but the up/down pattern sure looks real. Such a pattern might suggest (as has been mentioned by others) the life cycle of a cohesive, "gelled" offensive line. I present an analysis of your same years which, by no means conclusive, may further the (extremely interesting) conversation.

A regression of Points per Game (PPG) against all upperclass (Sr or Jr) offensive linemen (including TEs here) on the roster is below. Such a simplistic dataset obviously ignores the number of stars a recruit had, whether they were coached-up to NFL standards, whether they even started, and what style of offense we were playing. It also ignores who who else was on the team and whether or not they had a weapon (sorry - that duel-thread QB theme never gets old).

The correlation is highly significant ("p-value," for the non-Sats amongst us, the chance that such a correlation could occur by random chance is less than 3.3%). The correlation is, however, not very powerful ("R-square," the amount of PPG that can explained by UpperclassOL is barely 38%). Something else, accounting for the majority of scoring, is going on. The biggest outliers are both with 6 upperclassmen (years identified above; I have also ID'd this year for perspective). Something or many somethings, not explainable by upperclass OL, are very different between in 2013 vs. 2008. 2008 was a severely underperforming team by this model, and 2013 kicked butt. Coach? QB? Who was the center? These should at least be a focus of further conversation.

Please note that even if we delete 2008 and 2013 from the dataset, "other" (non-OL) considerations shrink but remain.

Over 60% of variation is explained by #upperclassmen in OL positions, and the chance that such a pattern could be spurious dwindles to ~0.6%. Again, however, > 35% of PPG has to be attributed to other factors. I have identified the years in which he's datapoints were generated. One upperclass lineman seems to account for ~ 2 PPG, but there would still appear to be a pre-Malzahn/post Malzahn effect.

What's our pipeline look like?

Hope this feeds the conversation, and provides fodder for the off-season.

In the mean-time, WDE and Beat Bama.

[lionheartkc 6,150]

2008 was a severely underperforming team by this model, and 2013 kicked butt.

Something is wrong here... our 2008 Offensive line was 3 sophomores and 2 seniors with more sophomores and a junior as back-ups. Almost all of these guys were starting for the first time. That was the foundation of what became our 4 seniors and a junior offensive line that owned everyone in 2010.

If you are determining what year the players were by running a 4 year cycle, that won't work, since new players could come in and take the position from upperclassmen at any point in the timeline.

[AUld fAUx@ 2,584]

2008 was a severely underperforming team by this model, and 2013 kicked butt.

Something is wrong here... our 2008 Offensive line was 3 sophomores and 2 seniors with more sophomores and a junior as back-ups. Almost all of these guys were starting for the first time. That was the foundation of what became our 4 seniors and a junior offensive line that owned everyone in 2010.

If you are determining what year the players were by running a 4 year cycle, that won't work, since new players could come in and take the position from upperclassmen at any point in the timeline.

Mr./Ms. Lionheart - Humble apologies for lack of clarity? Out of (admitted) laziness, and in my zeal to include info possibly relevant to those interested in recruiting/development/attrition cycles, I based analysis on Sr/Jr on the roster, without regard to starts/play time. According to Scout.com archives: 2 Seniors on the roster, 4 Juniors on the roster, 18 total OL (including TE) on the roster in '08.

As you so eloquently point out, those who played in '08 would probably have to be characterized as a largely young line. As for the '08 youngsters, they're included in the whopping 10 upperclassmen of 2010.

[lionheartkc 6,150]

2008 was a severely underperforming team by this model, and 2013 kicked butt.

Something is wrong here... our 2008 Offensive line was 3 sophomores and 2 seniors with more sophomores and a junior as back-ups. Almost all of these guys were starting for the first time. That was the foundation of what became our 4 seniors and a junior offensive line that owned everyone in 2010.

If you are determining what year the players were by running a 4 year cycle, that won't work, since new players could come in and take the position from upperclassmen at any point in the timeline.

Mr./Ms. Lionheart - Humble apologies for lack of clarity? Out of (admitted) laziness, and in my zeal to include info possibly relevant to those interested in recruiting/development/attrition cycles, I based analysis on Sr/Jr on the roster, without regard to starts/play time. According to Scout.com archives: 2 Seniors on the roster, 4 Juniors on the roster, 18 total OL (including TE) on the roster in '08.

As you so eloquently point out, those who played in '08 would probably have to be characterized as a largely young line. As for the '08 youngsters, they're included in the whopping 10 upperclassmen of 2010.

Ahhhh... yea, rosters can be deceiving. 3 of those 4 Juniors must have been scout team, because they aren't even on the depth chart.

Oh. and it's Mr. Lionheart

[AUld fAUx@ 2,584]

2008 was a severely underperforming team by this model, and 2013 kicked butt.

Something is wrong here... our 2008 Offensive line was 3 sophomores and 2 seniors with more sophomores and a junior as back-ups. Almost all of these guys were starting for the first time. That was the foundation of what became our 4 seniors and a junior offensive line that owned everyone in 2010.

If you are determining what year the players were by running a 4 year cycle, that won't work, since new players could come in and take the position from upperclassmen at any point in the timeline.

Mr./Ms. Lionheart - Humble apologies for lack of clarity? Out of (admitted) laziness, and in my zeal to include info possibly relevant to those interested in recruiting/development/attrition cycles, I based analysis on Sr/Jr on the roster, without regard to starts/play time. According to Scout.com archives: 2 Seniors on the roster, 4 Juniors on the roster, 18 total OL (including TE) on the roster in '08.

As you so eloquently point out, those who played in '08 would probably have to be characterized as a largely young line. As for the '08 youngsters, they're included in the whopping 10 upperclassmen of 2010.

Ahhhh... yea, rosters can be deceiving. 3 of those 4 Juniors must have been scout team, because they aren't even on the depth chart.

Oh. and it's Mr. Lionheart

Thank you sir.

[lionheartkc 6,150]

Thank you sir.

Thank you for adding a lot to one of the more stimulating conversations on the board.

[hewlejd 6]

2008 was a severely underperforming team by this model, and 2013 kicked butt.

Something is wrong here... our 2008 Offensive line was 3 sophomores and 2 seniors with more sophomores and a junior as back-ups. Almost all of these guys were starting for the first time. That was the foundation of what became our 4 seniors and a junior offensive line that owned everyone in 2010.

If you are determining what year the players were by running a 4 year cycle, that won't work, since new players could come in and take the position from upperclassmen at any point in the timeline.

Mr./Ms. Lionheart - Humble apologies for lack of clarity? Out of (admitted) laziness, and in my zeal to include info possibly relevant to those interested in recruiting/development/attrition cycles, I based analysis on Sr/Jr on the roster, without regard to starts/play time. According to Scout.com archives: 2 Seniors on the roster, 4 Juniors on the roster, 18 total OL (including TE) on the roster in '08.

As you so eloquently point out, those who played in '08 would probably have to be characterized as a largely young line. As for the '08 youngsters, they're included in the whopping 10 upperclassmen of 2010.

Ahhhh... yea, rosters can be deceiving. 3 of those 4 Juniors must have been scout team, because they aren't even on the depth chart.

Oh. and it's Mr. Lionheart

Thanks for the plot, AUinTLoosa! Most of the challenge of creating an insightful and interesting plot is choosing the axes/variables. PPG vs Upperclassman OL was a good idea.

It's true that the number of upperclassmen on the roster is not necessarily an accurate indicator of the experience and ability of an o-line since generally only 5 of the players see the field at a time (and hopefully the same five for the sake of continuity). However, I don't think it would be completely unreasonable to suggest that it could still be useful as a rough indicator. My reasoning is that even if the upperclassmen are not starters, their presence on the roster would suggest that the underclassman who beat them out are probably capable of performing somewhere above the average for their experience level. I feel better about a sophomore who beat out a senior with two more years of growth, strength training and experience (at least in learning the blocking schemes etc.) on him than I do one who is simply the best of the three sophomores on the roster. Even for a guy with an average ceiling, 2 years can make a big difference at that age (especially on the o-line where size and strength are at a premium). Just a thought.

[hewlejd 6]

@AUinTLoosa a couple additional thoughts on explaining 2008 vs 2013:

1. Jay Prosch
   
2. A mobile quarterback always makes his line's job easier.
   
3. 2013 was a much more run-heavy offense. Perhaps O-linemen develop faster as run blockers than pass blockers (or maybe run blocking skills translate better between HS and college)? Maybe someone with some o-line knowledge/experience could offer their thoughts.
   

[McLoofus 35,182]

^It is my understanding that linemen strongly prefer run blocking to pass blocking.