One Less Day Til Football Season 2010, Post 5: The Offensive Line
by Rodger Sherman on Aug 3, 2010 9:01 AM CDT
in Northwestern Wildcats Football
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PrintI just realized I did a really crappy job of spacing these posts out. We're a normal-sized month away from football season, which leaves us 24 days away from game week, which leaves me 24 days away from NORMAL FOOTBALL SEASON POSTING SCHEDULE. To quote wordsmith Waka Flocka Flame, "O let's do it."
(Also, get prepared for how boring this post is.)
Days Left Til Football: 31
One Less Day Til Football Season 2010, Post 5: The Offensive Line
Do you have a long-winded, meaningless thing to write about playcalling terminology this time?: Hell no! This is easy, son!
Who did it last year?: Three positions had starters for all 13 games last year: Left tackle was Al Netter, right guard was Doug Bartels, and center was Ben Burkett. Netter and Burkett are juniors started every game since redshirting, and both are on various all-Big Ten watchlists, so, they're good. Bartels is a junior and has started all but five games in his career, so, that's good too.
The others had people switching off as the year went on. Left guard had Desmond Taylor to start the year, but injuries put Keegan Grant in, and after Brian Mulroe recovered from his injury, he started the Outback Bowl. And right tackle saw Kurt Mattes give way to Neal Dieters as the year went along, with Patrick Ward getting playing time almost every game.
So, for the most part, pretty solid unit. They gave up 32 sacks which isn't great - that's tenth in the conference - but considering how pass-heavy our attack was, it could've been worse. They weren't able to open up much for a dismal running game, but did always seem to block well for Kafka's runs, and gave him the time necessary to throw a lot of the time.
Who's Got Next?: Let's go position by position, starting from the most to least locked down. (Remember, coach Fitz said at media days yesterday he expected this position to go "eight-deep".
Left Tackle: Still Netter. If Netter could have dinner with any person in history, it would be Martin Luther King Jr., according to his profile page. Intriguing.
Center: Burkett. I like to imagine Burkett also has a civil rights leader as the person he'd most like to dine with.
Right Tackle: Patrick Ward, NU's only four-star recruit on the team, played a lot of right tackle, and seemingly has his job settled.
Left Guard: Grant is a senior, and has the most experience at the position, but at 6-foot-2 would be the tiniest lineman NU has to offer. It looks like Brian Mulroe will end up getting the job he earned last year, with Grant getting spot playing time - another example of Fitz trending towards youth in the trenches.
Right Guard: Bartels started every game here last year, but the coaching staff likes Neal Deiters, a 6-foot-8 guy who I had more to this sentence but holy crap 6-foot-8 is really tall. Deiters had played a decent amount of right tackle, but with Ward the seemingly more talented lineman, and Deiters the more flexible one, he's been moved over a spot. I consider this to be the least settled position because the depth chart literally says "OR" between their names, implying a starter isn't decided yet.
So, left tackle, center, and right tackle look like they'll be one-man gigs, while the others are sort of up-for-grabs and will see people switching in and out.
Is that an improvement? Offensive lines are about consistency. This unit did great when they were thrown together hastily as freshmen. Now it's two years later, and three of the guys that were freshmen together in 2008 - Netter, Burkett, and Bartels - are still there, with two years more experience. And then you throw two younger guys in Ward and Mulroe who have played in the past - and you have a line with no seniors on it with no completely inexperienced players. Not to mention that the team is legit big now: for years, the word on NU's line was that it was filled with tiny guys and that we had to play a quick-hitting spread because our line was so damn small. If we start Netter-Mulroe-Burkett-Deiters-Ward, our average starter is 6-foot-6 (rounding up from 5 3/5 inches) and 294 pounds. That's a big unit, although still kinda light on weight for a Big Ten team, but moving in the right direction to be a legit front unit.
I hope you're all bored now, because I sure am. (Goodness, this was boring.) We move onto the defensive side of the ball tomorrow.
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Don't pass the OL too quickly...
The OL is an extremely important facet of the offense, and while last year’s unit did OK, their run blocking was rather poor (Kafka didn’t run all that much last year, and when the QB does run, OL blocking doesn’t necessarily correlate to how well the run does) and as you mentioned they gave up a lot of sacks (credit Kafka for getting rid of the ball early a lot of the time to avoid pressure).
While experience is good, getting talent on the field is better, and Fitz has some of his most prized recruits, who happen to be on the OL, getting on the field. Netter and Burkett may be the best at their respective positions in the league (just check the preview mags). Ward is expected to be the real deal, hence why Fitz burned his shirt last year to get his feet wet. Dieters didn’t do a great job at RT last year, but he’s been moved to G which may help him out. Finally, expect Mulroe to get on the field a lot, although Grant will get some playing time, likely as a backup.
Also, this unit has dealt with injuries scattered through the last two seasons, which has prevented them from coming together as a true unit, something that a good OL must do. Read Fitz’s comments this year and he’s looking forward to these guys coming together, which is something they’ll hopefully be able to do.
The potential is definitely there, but we’ll see. And we probably won’t get a great look until October given the complete lack of quality in each September opponent.
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JHodges
HailToPurple
i hope it doesn't seem like i'm overlooking the ol...
i just found it hard to write a lot about them.
i genuinely think a lot of any good team’s success begins and ends with the ol, and the fact we have a lot of returning players, and those players are talented, says a lot for what nu can do.
by Rodger Sherman on Aug 3, 2010 1:09 PM CDT up reply actions
Right side, STRONG SIDE!
I gotta say — Dieters and Ward are huge, and could pave a LOT of big holes for the RBs/Persa to run through….could be fun to see in action.
I’m expecting this unit to be the most improved on the team, actually — although the media will recognize that improvement because we’ll actually have a MUCH better running game. Still, you gotta love how Fitz and the staff have gone about recruiting/building the program — starting with building strong/deep/experienced lines on both sides of the ball….
Feel free to hate the comparison...
…because it’s Iowa.
I think Fitz’s recruiting is very similar to that of Kirk Ferentz’s. Both of these guys don’t have a desire for great skill players, but would rather recruit very good, motivated men to run the lines. You look at the players at Iowa who get the name recognition, and they’re either linemen or linebackers. (Note: With some minor exceptions, such as Shonn Greene from two seasons past.)
Fitz is motivated much the same way. He’d rather have good (not great) skill players but have guys in the trenches to get them room to make plays. Our defensive line last year would’ve been great had it not been for the inconsistency with injuries, particularly with Wootton.
I don’t particularly like the Sacks Allowed statistic when it comes to offensive lines, because it doesn’t say anything about what a team’s style of play is. Is there an easy way to determine Sack% (frequency of sacks per QB dropback)? I realize that statistic is still skewed by a quarterback’s habits, but it’s a better indicator than Sacks Allowed.
good points
i would do sacks allowed/qb passes, but the fact that kafka scrambles so frequently makes that stat nearly impossible.
by Rodger Sherman on Aug 3, 2010 1:07 PM CDT up reply actions
Optimism
The returning quality of the offensive line gives me more hope than any other information I’ve heard. Every quarterback gets substantially better when he isn’t on his back.
As far as the sack totals, someone once asked me if I thought Kafka was responsible for getting sacked so much and my response was “He got sacked a lot?” Looking at the stats on ESPN, it looks he got sacked once every 19 drop backs which doesn’t seem too bad to me. ESPN doesn’t break it down by game, but it never seemed to me like sacks were a particularly big problem.
Northwestern Football - All games decided on the last play or your money back.
Sack comment
Remember that NU’s sack numbers may be better than most when normalized against number of pass dropbacks given that the NU passing game utilizes short/quick passes very often. This means that the QB gets the ball out of his hands very quickly, limiting the chances of sacks. This was especially evident in 2007 where I think CJ Bacher would have been sacked a lot more if not for getting rid of the ball quickly so often.
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JHodges
HailToPurple
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