O-Lin Grades vs. Buffalo

Name                       Plays     Points    Grade  Pancakes Decleaters Knockdowns

John Prior                               34               57           1.67              3                       0                3

Jon Lechner                           49                92          1.87               4                       0               4

Mike Lucas                             74               143          1.93              4                       0              4

Ryan McGrath                        51                94           1.84              5                       0               5

Mike McQueen                      40                 71           1.77              0                      0                0

Lucas Powell                          74              141          1.90             2                        0                2

Troy Watson                          23                 38           1.65             0                       0                 0

Durraell Wood                       25                45           1.90              0                       0                 0 


Perhaps Mr. Prior was not yet 100%

Youngsters; Lucas, Powell, Wood showed up well.

How does Johnson getting to probable impact this group?  Lechner has played tackle.

The center of the line (lucas, powell, lechner) graded ok, but I agree - clearly Prior isn't 100%, and McQueen has room for improvement. That's the most important position, too, as it protects TT's blindside. TT is going to perform a lot better if he isn't having to keep looking over his shoulder.The other tackle wasn't much better. I don't think McGrath is 100%, either, and Watson also has room for improvement.

As I said in the other thread, the intentional grounding resulted when both tackles were beaten on the same play.

To get the running game going, we'll also need to see a lot more pancakes/decleaters all across the front. They are really missing Herman in that regard.

Comparing grades by position this year (nine games) to last year (first ten games - that's all the data  i have). The numbers for pancakes and decleaters are averages per game.:


              This year                      Last year                  Difference
       Grade  Pancakes  Decleaters    Grade  Pancakes Decleaters    Grade  Pcake   Declt 
LT      1.84    2.8        1.1         1.85    4.9       2.9         -.01   -2.1    -1.8 
LG      1.83    3.5         .8         1.86    8.3        .5         -.03   -4.8     +.3
C       1.86    5.8         .2         1.91    8.6        .3         -.05   -2.8     -.1
RG      1.85    4.8         .7         1.89   10.5        .8         -.04   -5.7     -.1
RT      1.81    4.4         .4         1.90    7.8       2.0         -.09   -3.4    -1.6
Total   1.84   21.3        3.2         1.88   40.1       6.5         -.04  -18.8    -3.3

Note that these aren't totally accurate as players change position sometimes, so I divided their pancakes, etc, between the two positions. There is a huge difference in pancakes. Grades are basically down in all areas - this offensive line isn't as good as last year, clearly. OK, so how about even earlier years? My data isn't complete, but I gave it a shot:

       Grade  Pncks   Declt  Rush Avg/play  Sacks Against  Avg Off/Play   Tot Off/Game
2013    1.84   21.3    3.2        3.9            9              5.9           406.7
2012    1.88   40.1    6.5        4.4           27              5.8           444.8
2011    1.86   30.0    6.0        4.6           23              6.1           446.4
2010    1.82   23.1    3.2        4.3           22              5.5           326.1
2009    1.81   17.7    5.4        3.4           29              5.1           348.5
2008    1.75   16.0    7.8        3.9           23              5.6           361.4
2007    1.70   22.7    8.7        3.8           26              5.3           362.8
2006    1.67   23.5   13.7        3.9           20              4.5           276.6
2005    1.67   20.7   15.5        4.5           19              4.8           303.0
2004       no data                2.9           52              5.0           340.0

The number of pancakes most years has been about 20 a game, but last year was unusually high. The number of decleaters has been steadily dropping, but the overall grade has been steadily rising (grade inflation??). I wondered if that reflected a shift from a passing attack to a running one. The data shows that Ohio hasn't changed the run/pass mix all that much over the years, though rushing attempts are down somewhat this year.

       #Rush Plays  #Pass Plays   %Rushing    Sacks/pass attempts
2013     333          289            53.5%            3.1%
2012     596          402            59.7%            6.7%
2011     599          428            58.3%            5.4%
2010     496          272            64.6%            8.1%
2009     455          402            53.1%            7.2%
2008     392          386            50.4%            6.0%
2007     472          344            57.8%            7.6%
2006     525          331            61.3%            6.0%
2005     427          264            61.8%            7.2%
2004     340          346            49.6%           15.0%

Conclusions:
On the whole the data shows that this offensive line is not as good as last year, which I think we all knew, but neither is it horrible. This year's line has done a particularly good job of not giving up sacks, but part of that is TT's experience, I think, in knowing when to throw it away. The average gain per rushing attempt is down a lot from the last couple years, but at 3.9 a carry it's actually better now than in most of the years 2005-2009, and dramatically better than under Knorr.

Yes, I'd like to see the running game better, but it isn't as bad as I thought. I guess I'm spoiled by the last couple years, too. Note, though, that the average gain per offensive play is actually up slightly from last year, and at the 2d highest level under Solich, so it isn't all bad.

One more stat I thought of to check--- avg carry by leading RB's by year: That should reflect the effectiveness of the core "up the middle" attack. I also computed what percentage of the offensive plays are handoffs/pitches to the RB.
    RB Carries  Yds   Avg/Carry  Pct of Off Plays     Who?
2004   222      992      4.5        32.4%        (McRae 3.9, Roush 5.4)
2005   253     1381      5.5        36.6%        (McRae 5.5, Owens 5.2)
2006   301     1413      4.7        35.2%        (McRae 4.9, Owens 3.7)
2007   294     1434      4.9        36.0%        (McRae 4.9)
2008   248     1153      4.6        31.9%        (Garrett 4.5, Harden 5.2, Davidson 3.9)
2009   275     1118      4.1        32.1%        (Garrett 4.2, Davidson 3.9, Harden 3.9)
2010   189      799      4.2        24.6%        (Davidson 3.9, Harden 4.8)
2011   446     2106      4.7        43.4%        (Harden 5.3, Blankenship 5.0, Boykin 4.1)
2012   420     2244      5.3        42.1%        (Blankenship 5.1, Boykin 6.0, Patterson 5.7)
2013   259     1136      4.4        41.6%        (Blankenship 4.5, Boykin 3.8, Patterson 6.1)

I found a few things here interesting:
1. First of all, the average per carry was higher in 2005 (a bad year), than in 2006 - a good year.
2. The average per carry was consistently higher with McRae than in any year that followed, except for 2012, a stat that I don't find surprising at all. He was one heck of a back.
3. I see that RB carries as a percentage of all plays declined significantly for the next few years after he left, which wasn't surprising considering they weren't as effective.
4. The last three years, under TT, and with the pistol offense, RB carries as a percentage of plays rose significantly from when they ran the power I, a stat I wasn't expecting.
5. Yards per carry this year are the 3rd lowest in the last 10 years, but the number of times it is being used is the 3rd highest. Thus, there is some support for the premise that they either need to find a fix to make it work better, or they could diversify the offense away from it somewhat.

The Buffalo grades have me curious about the future. Will McQueen, Lucas, Powell, Wood and Watson be better than Prior. Lechner, Allen, Herman and McGrath? 

L.C.--You are enormous.

O-Line is not only ones blocking, that edge block or the POA is more important on many runs.

Hard to figure grades like that as poor as our run gme was.  Then, again, is 1.86 good?  I wonder how Buffs rated?

As I understand, 2 is a completed block, 0 is failed. It is also possible to get a 1 (kinda blocked?). Pancakes and decleaters are exceptional blocks where you take the defender to the ground, or knock him down. They also  used to give us information on important things like penalties, sacks, and QB pressures, which are the negatives. I'm not sure why they don't give us that information anymore, but it stopped appearing after the Miami game last year. Without it, you can't really get a complete picture because you have only the positives, and not the negatives.

The odd thing is that the offensive line grades have trended higher in recent years, and I don't have a good feel for why that is. Partly I think it was the switch to zone blocking, and partly it is more pocket passing, but there may also be some grade inflation at work, I don't know. Certainly we don't see a massive improvement in the running game related to the higher grades, though we do see less sacks, but that probably also due to TT's experience.

I do a combo-score that factors in the grade, the pancakes, and the decleaters, and it seems to correlate well to winning or losing.. When the combo score is over 4.1, the Bobcats rarely lose, and when it is under 4.0, they rarely win. There is also a strong correlation between my combo score and the average yds/carry by running backs. If you don't want to use my combo score, I'd say Pancakes correlates best to avg carry, far better than the grade itself.

Here are some game by game numbers:

            Grade   Pancakes  Decleaters  My combo score  RB Avg/Carry
Louisville   1.81      16         1            4.02           3.2
NTSU         1.83      33         4            4.11           5.4  
Marshall     1.82       9         3            3.96           1.8
Peay         1.86      29         6            4.11           5.8
Akron        1.78      20         2            4.02           4.1
CMU          1.86      23         8            4.07           3.6
EMU          1.82      18         1            4.02           4.3
Miami        1.91      26         4            4.10           6.4
Buffalo      1.84      18         0            4.02           4.2

The highest scores I have recorded for my combo score were by Herman, last year, at 4.23, and Carlotta last year at 4.20. Lechner is running those kind of numbers this year, too, when he has been able to play. Since players almost always go up from one year to the next (for example, Herman scored 4.02, 4.06, 4.12, 4.23 in his four years, and Carlotta scored 3.98, 4.02, 4.08, 4.20), the most impressive numbers I see this year are Lucas at 4.08, Wood at 4.05, and Powell at 4.08, which are truly exceptional numbers for two Freshmen and a Sophomore. The future looks very bright - those guys will be a force to reckon with when they are Juniors and Seniors.

Mmhmm, and it was not pretty. Avg score was a bit under 1.77, lowest since the NTSU game in 2009. My adjusted score was 3.92, lowest since Toledo in 2010. There were a grand total of 6 pancakes (4 by Lechner), and no decleaters, and the only other game that low since my records started was Wyoming in 2008.

Were there any bright spots at all? Well, Lechner had a passable score, though not one of his better games, and while Johnson did not return, Mark Smith did return, and scored a perfect 2.0 in his short stint in the game (13 plays) at center, behind Powell. He played well at LG in 2010-2011, but redshirted last year, and was hurt in fall camp this year. I suppose another bright spot is that Freshmen-Sophomores continue to gain experience, which bodes well for a couple years down the road. Lucas, Watson, Powell, McQueen, and Everhart all played and had a learning experience.

I'm not a very good Xs and Os type of guy, but the first thing that came to mind here is that this represents way too many "Beau's up the middle."  Is that a reasonable hypothesis based on this data?

L.C., I understand what you are saying, but "Beau up the middle" has seldom yielded more than a yard or two at best.  Boykin up the middle has done a little bit better on occasion.  It would seem to me that an OC worth his salt would not call these very much and would instruct TT to be very careful to not audible into this play unless he's very sure of success.  I would assume that TT has a wide variety of plays he can audible, but it seems we don't see more than two or three with "up the middle" seemingly the almost default choice.  I did notice one interesting phenomenon in I believe two different games where after several Boykins up the middle that when Beau came back in he was able to get greater yardage.  It's kind of like Boykin softened up their defense to the point that Beau did better with the up-the-middle play.  Isn't that the kind of tendency that an OC should notice?  I'm asking these questions because I truly wonder about them.  I don't pretend to be much of an expert in this area.

I've seen every game.  Our play-calling is about the same every game.  I've too oft noted the type of variety we can bring..to mention again would even bore me.

The refusal (player? coaching?) to run the off-tackle read option which we've used to such great effect in prior years is very confounding.

The line isn't opening huge holes.  But we're not making opposing defenses defend much--which might create holes by way of not allowing defenses to pack the middle.  Watch us a time or two and you've seen our entire repertoire.  We don't do nothin' new.