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The state of the OL

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Go Canes!! said:
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Billy D Williams said:
I know the importance of experience, but lets keep it real. Many of those starters were Jags and given 500 starts wouldn't be much better without an influx of talent. We should be better, but I'm sure most are in a wait and see mode.
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Yea starts don't mean a dam thing unless the kid is developing and improving with each year/start. Zion Nelson has shown a ton of improvement since year one so those starting numbers mean something to a guy like him.
 
305to954 said:
The Oline has been a question mark coming into every season since 2015
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In reality yes... but there is a thread or two every year about how much better our OL is going to be this year. I dont see how being a question mark every year you've have played somehow turns the entire unit into something special just because they were forces to play more games than everyone else.
 
DTP said:
You realize they keep the same stats for everyone , right? Most of the top rushing teams have quarterbacks that run for a lot of yardage. You know what else? Most teams pad their stats against the weaker opponents on their schedule too. You can pick and choose they numbers you want to support your argument but fact remains that there were roughly 60 teams that ran for fewer yardage per game. Nobody is calling the running game great but it wasn’t bad either.
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Says the guy whose comparing our OL to Clemsons.... Louisville had a running QB... They had the 29th best rushing offense. Virginia Tech had a running QB... they had the 10th best rushing offense... FSU had a running QB... they had the 31st rushing offense... GT had a running QB and they had the 44th best rushing offense.... **** even Virginia had a running QB and they had a better rushing offense than us. Thats puts us in last place in the ACC as far as a rushing offense is concerned by teams with a running QB in the ACC. Is that a fair comparison? Is being last in the ACC not bad? You shooting for top 15 in the ACC good?
 
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Go Canes!! said:
Take away UNC and...
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120 yards per game... Still top 100... IN the UNC game our backs had 22 yards on 15 att... Thats 1.47 yrds per carry against a team whose rushing defense was ranked in the 70s at the time. Syracuse's backs, whose rushing offense was ranked 125th, avg 2 yards a carry against UNC.
 
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clg003 said:
Says the guy whose comparing out OL to Clemsons.... Louisville had a running QB... They had the 29th best rushing offense. Virginia Tech had a running QB... they had the 10th best rushing offense... FSU had a running QB... they had the 31st rushing offense... GT had a running QB and they had the 44th best rushing offense.... **** even Virginia had a running QB and they had a better rushing offense than us. Thats puts us in last place in the ACC as far as a rushing offense is concerned by teams with a running QB in the ACC. Is that a fair comparison? Is being last in the ACC not bad? You shooting for top 15 in the ACC good?
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You said the rushing offense was “absolutely pitiful” I gave you reasons why it wasn’t. I also said we rushed for more yardage per game than Clemson. We did. You said QB rushing yards don’t count. I said otherwise. You can cherry pick stats to help prove your point but the macro numbers say that Miami was an average rushing team in 2020. ****, you can even call them below average if you want. It’s still nowhere near “absolutely pitiful”. They averaged 145 rushing yards per game against conference opponents and 246 against non conference teams. Once again, not dominant but certainly not even close to “pitiful”.
 
clg003 said:
120 yards per game... Still top 100... IN the UNC game our backs had 22 yards on 15 att... Thats 1.47 yrds per carry against a team whose rushing defense was ranked in the 70s at the time. Syracuse's backs, whose rushing offense was ranked 125th, avg 2 yards a carry against UNC.
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The point wasn’t literal. You can’t back out our best performance just like you can’t back out worst
 
DTP said:
You said the rushing offense was “absolutely pitiful” I gave you reasons why it wasn’t. I also said we rushed for more yardage per game than Clemson. We did. You said QB rushing yards don’t count. I said otherwise. You can cherry pick stats to help prove your point but the macro numbers say that Miami was an average rushing team in 2020. ****, you can even call them below average if you want. It’s still nowhere near “absolutely pitiful”. They averaged 145 rushing yards per game against conference opponents and 246 against non conference teams. Once again, not dominant but certainly not even close to “pitiful”.
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Cherry picking... We are literally commenting on a tweet that says our guys have started the most games ever therefore they will be good. LOL...

If you have the ability to take off the orange and green colored glasses and look at legit unbiased offensive line stats analysis have a peek, but I warn you its going to show you how pitiful our line really was. Well that is until they add their games started by a unit stat in there. Not sure why they haven't done that yet... writing them now.

2020 COLLEGE FOOTBALL OFFENSIVE LINE STATS | Football Outsiders

through games of Monday 1/11/21 Offense Line Yards Rk Std. Downs Line Yards Rk Pass. Downs Line Yards
www.footballoutsiders.com www.footballoutsiders.com
 
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clg003 said:
Cherry picking... We are literally commenting on a tweet that says our guys have started the most games ever therefore they will be good. LOL...

If you have the ability to take off the orange and green colored glasses and look at legit unbiased offensive line stats analysis have a peek, but I warn you its going to show you how pitiful our line really was. Well that is until they add their games started by a unit stat in there. Not sure why they haven't done that yet... writing them now.

2020 COLLEGE FOOTBALL OFFENSIVE LINE STATS | Football Outsiders

through games of Monday 1/11/21 Offense Line Yards Rk Std. Downs Line Yards Rk Pass. Downs Line Yards
www.footballoutsiders.com www.footballoutsiders.com
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DMoney said:
A couple weeks ago, I posted this number:




Now, with the addition of Justice Oluwaseun, that number bumps up to 186 career starts on the OL. That's a staggering number. Consider this: if we go with our starting lineup from spring, we'll have 78 career starts on our bench alone. For comparison, the 2019 OL began the season with 30 career starts (almost all of them from Donaldson).

While experience is huge on the OL, it's not the only thing. Alabama and Georgia don't dominate the LOS just because they have experience. They do it with high-end talent. Big athletic dudes who move people.

We aren't there yet, but we've made some progress. If we go with our spring starters, we'll have three HS All-Americans and a fourth guy (Zion) who is one of the more gifted linemen in the conference. Donaldson and Rivers in particular should make a huge difference at guard. Going forward, we need to sign a couple legit behemoths (6'4+, 320+) to complement highly talented smaller guys like Laurence Seymore, Ryan Rodriguez and Issiah Walker.

The Oluwaseun transfer accomplishes several things. It gives us a very smart (two-time All-Academic) and experienced player with weight room strength. He provides crucial depth if Jakai Clark is not ready for the start of the season. And he brings two years of eligibility if we need a bridge to the 2021 interior OL class. It's hard to miss bringing in high-character transfers on the OL. You're only as good up front as your weakest link, and these guys bring insurance.

The OL improved a lot in 2020, but it still wasn't good or even solid. This is the year to expect a true leap.
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Imo we don’t need ol recruits to be behemoths, just well-evaluated talented athletes with physical development potential. Nelson’s probably our best OL. He wasn’t any behemoth. Dinaldson was a behemoth and he’s struggled with weight. OL is a numbers game. But you have to know what traits to a oid or you’ll wind up with no depth. Which has been one of our issues for a while.
 
Ethnicsands said:
Imo we don’t need ol recruits to be behemoths, just well-evaluated talented athletes with physical development potential. Nelson’s probably our best OL. He wasn’t any behemoth. Dinaldson was a behemoth and he’s struggled with weight. OL is a numbers game. But you have to know what traits to a oid or you’ll wind up with no depth. Which has been one of our issues for a while.
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Size matters when you’re talking about the top level. Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Oklahoma and Notre Dame recruit giants for a reason. We struggled to get push last year with three centers on the interior.

Stoutland did a good job of identifying NFL body types. It can be done at Miami.
 
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DMoney said:
Size matters when you’re talking about the top level. Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Oklahoma and Notre Dame recruit giants for a reason. We struggled to get push last year with three centers on the interior.

Stoutland did a good job of identifying NFL body types. It can be done at Miami.
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You’re mixing issues, imo.

What they recruit isn’t really relevant to us unless and until we can out-recruit them for the same kids they’re recruiting. Because they’re not recruiting ‘size.’ They’re recruiting the top talented kids who are also big. Higher probability recruits for sure. But we’re not pulling their kids and not many of those kids grow up in so fla. So we have to then pick to an extent greater than Alabama does between ‘size’ and ‘talent.’.

When we’ve picked ‘size’ thinking we were doing something like the top teams, we’ve as often as not wound up with guys who weren’t particularly good. and even guys with talent can underperform when their bodies get too big (Donaldson, e.g.). We struggled to get push last year (and plenty of other years) because our kids weren’t good enough or powerful enough, not so much because they weren’t big enough.

We need to stop thinking this is some formula where you check the physical boxes and presto you’re in the elite group. Evaluating OL is about projecting what they can be in 3-4 years time and assessing whether they have the character to get themselves there. It’s no coincidence that our best OL - and the kid with the highest NFL draft potential according to all sites I’ve seen - showed up a scrawny 240 lb. kid.

There are lots of big kids, lots of skinny kids, lots of tough kids without enough athletic ability. OL evals are about picking well amongst your options, not thinking you’re following the pack when their options are nothing like our options. Cyrim Wimbs was a ‘behemoth’ for us. Chris Barney was. Alabama gets Alex Leatherwood.

Stoutland is a great evaluator. Definitely not in any way saying it ‘can’t be done’ at Miami. If anything, I’ve been saying the opposite of that for 20 years. It can be done. But ‘it’ is finding the best recruits amongst our choices whether they’re zion nelson or whoever. Our big guy recruits recently have been hillary, herbert, campbell, donaldson, rivers. Hopeful on Rivers. The others aren’t recruiting blueprint success stories at this time. I don’t want us to copy a formula unless we can apply it to the same pool of talent. Otherwise we need our own formula and it may be different.
 
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Cookie917 said:
Two things can be true.... Yes more starts together does not mean bad players suddenly turn good but you would also prefer to have an experienced line than an inexperienced one.
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Starts together (and experience generally) is a big deal. It matters a lot. It’s just not the only thing that matters. But for any given group of kids, it’s huge.
 
Ethnicsands said:
Our big guy recruits recently have been hillary, herbert, campbell, donaldson, rivers.
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Before that, we had a run of Franklin, Washington, Linder, Feliciano, Seantrel and Flowers. Those are the types of guys we need.

Good little is better than bad big. Seymore and Rodriguez would qualify as "good littles." But good big beats good little.

Our best chance at good bigs are Donaldson and Rivers. We don't really have anyone else in the pipeline. That is an area I'll be watching very closely in this class.
 
DMoney said:
Before that, we had a run of Franklin, Washington, Linder, Feliciano, Seantrel and Flowers. Those are the types of guys we need.

Good little is better than bad big. Seymore and Rodriguez would qualify as "good littles." But good big beats good little.

Our best chance at good bigs are Donaldson and Rivers. We don't really have anyone else in the pipeline. That is an area I'll be watching very closely in this class.
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Franklin, Flowers and Seantrel were amongst the best OL prospects I have ever seen. Those guys we take every year, evals weren’t tough. Obviously Seantrel was one of the highest rated OL in the past 2 decades. Flowers and Franklin passed the ‘grand momma’ test. Probably have exchanges with @LuCane on this board over flowers, and the prior board over franklin. So no tough choices there.

Linder was also an obvious kid. 4* prospect from STA with offers from UF (under Meyer), FSU, Notre Dame and UGA, and who we could assess well. Not just offers, either - he took OVs to UF and ND. Good family.

BW (if that’s the Washington you’re referring to) was a highly rated 4* (borderline 5*) kid from a pipeline school with terrific explosiveness. He was an obvious take also. His offers coming out included Clemson, Florida, LSU and UNC under Butch (going off Rivals here).

Feliciano was a good Stoutland eval. Small school, lower profile kid, less highly rated.

I agree we want better kids but unless stoutland returns we’re going to be relying on someone else’s evals. Taking obvious prospects makes sense but highly rated doesn’t mean obvious, or some of our recent kids would have done better. Milo was highly rated. Herbert was. They were just poor evals. Campbell, Reed and Scaife also 4* kids.

Evals aside we’ve also under-recruited the position, IMO. Too many years we’re taking too few kids. This is a numbers game position given need for physical development so we need to max our percentage chance by taking more kids.
 
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