We haven’t suffered quite enough yet. Before we fully turn the page to recruiting, spring practice, and next fall we have to work our way through the positional units and their 2016 performance. Today, I’ll take a look at the offensive linemen at a position that should be bringing back its coach from this past season.
2016 Snap Count
RT Alex Bars, r-JR- 816
C Sam Mustipher, r-JR- 814
LT Mike McGlinchey, 5th SR- 813
LG Quenton Nelson, r-JR- 812
RG Colin McGovern, 5th SR- 446
LT/RG Hunter Bivin, 5th SR- 216
C/RG Mark Harrell- 196
LG Ruhland, r-SO- 24
RG/C Hoge, r-SO- 23
RT Montelus- 20
BOLD denotes out of eligibility/transfer
Eligibility is for 2017 season
Barring a major off-season positional battle at center (more on this below) we know with a comfortable certainty each of the linemen who totaled at least 800 snaps will be 4 starters next fall. But that doesn’t mean the fun with those players has to end right now.
Out of those 4 bodies it’s Quenton Nelson who has the least amount of concerns heading into 2017. He had a lot of hype building up coming into last season and met those expectations more than anyone else on the unit.
Mike McGlinchey could be put down for having a disappointing year. He too also came into the season with enormous expectations as possibly the top tackle in the country and saw his stock take a bit of a hit by the end of the campaign. As it were, McGlinchey nipped any NFL Draft buzz in the bud and declared his intention to return weeks before the regular season concluded. He clearly didn’t look as comfortable at left tackle but we doubt he gets moved off that edge next year.
Rising senior Steve Elmer left school for a job opportunity prior to 2016 and it’s eerie how similar of a player Alex Bars is at this point in his career. We may even see Bars slide inside to right guard just like Elmer did from right tackle later in his career.
Mustipher’s job is probably safe. At the very least, we can safely assume he’ll be starting the season as the starting center. We’ve seen off-season competition in the past but the incumbent almost always gets the chance to prove himself in games first. Plus, Mustipher was fine overall. He had some snapping issues–and not just in the NC State game–and the worst thing that could be said is that he was a sizable step back from his predecessor Nick Martin.
The good news if you’re Mustipher is that Harrell is out of eligibility and Tristen Hoge is now way behind the curve. We talked about this last off-season, too. There was some thought that the loser at center could start at right guard but it was also likely that that the player would move dangerously close to being stuck as a backup for several years.
The return of McGovern and Bivin offers some intrigue–together they serve as a returning starter but of course they both can’t start at one position. If you’re a skeptic neither offer much of a high ceiling for 2017. Both picked up starts last year but neither finished the year as a starter. Starting the season with either probably won’t be met with a lot of happiness among the fan base.
New Faces
RT Tommy Kraemer, r-FR
LT Liam Eichenberg, r-FR
RG Jimmy Byrne, r-JR
LG Parker Boudreaux, r-FR
OG Robert Hainsey, FR
OT Aaron Banks, FR
OT Josh Lugg, FR
OG Dillan Gibbons, FR
The question mostly everyone wants answered for 2017 is where Kraemer and Eichenberg fit in to the puzzle. We’re talking about a pair of Top 80 national players who have received some high praise from Brian Kelly.
There’s a problem though if you look above. A full six players entering either their fourth or fifth year on campus and they all have experience. The 2017 season does not look like the year where will be seeing a bunch of new faces on the offensive line. Then again, with the winds of change in South Bend maybe we’ll see some radical shifting and a couple of these blue-chip linemen living up their potential as youngsters.
Still, it’s difficult to see both Kraemer and Eichenberg becoming starters. Moving Bars inside to right guard and having one of the redshirt freshman play tackle will likely be the most popular move of the off-season. If that occurs Tristen Hoge may never start until his 5th season.
Grade: C+
There are two ways you can look at this line. In the vacuum of wider college football, and especially a team that just went 4-8, they weren’t half bad and even had some quality moments. However, looking through the lens of Notre Dame’s talent level and recruiting prowess this was a very disappointing season.
To be fair, the line really suffers in comparison to the 2015 version which was perhaps the best since 1997 at Notre Dame. All told, the 2016 line finished with the same amount of average carries (36) as the prior year but with 45 fewer yards per game. Although there’s more blame to spread around the pass blocking also left a lot to be desired, too.
Bottom line, they have to be better. Much better. Virtually every player in the two deep was a Top 150 national recruit with several Top 100 recruits sprinkled in the mix. There’s experience, talent, and rising young stars ready to push for more playing time. Do they have to rush for 300 yards a game? Do they need to match the 2015 unit? No, but if we don’t see a significant uptick in ability next fall we can probably write off the season as doomed from the start.
Would seem crazy if Hoge doesn’t end up starting until his 5th year. Do you think there is a chance we see Hoge basically competing with Kraemer/Eichenberg for that 5th starting spot. Like one of these combos for C-RG-RT, or do you think Hoge and Mustipher are Centers only?
Mustipher-Hoge-Bars
Mustipher-Bars-Kraemer/Eichenberg
Hoge-Mustipher-Bars
Mustipher-Kraemer/Eichenberg-Bars
I’m not sure. I really thought Hoge would start this past year or at the very least play a ton of snaps. Now that we witnessed 3 players used ahead of him at guard I’m a little worried. Makes me wonder about an injury.
Injury or the fact that recruiting rankings don’t always shake out the way people think they should. This is actually more common along OL, if I recall correctly. It probably has something to do with the fact that it’s one position that really requires physical and mental development and is a big leap in those regards from HS to college. In HS, the big kids can often simply push around the little kids. In college, they’re all big.
I’m not doubting Hoge, and I still have high hopes for him like others. It’s just that the pecking order sometimes changes once these kids get on campus and start to develop. You see a lot of highly drafted OL that come into college unheralded or even at positions like TE or DE.
Mustipher Hoge Bars kind of sounds like a delicious holiday treat
Be it a reputation pick or not, McGlinchey was a 3rd team All-American this year. Much like Mustipher catching heat for a drop-off in not being a Martin, McGlinchey’s biggest crime might not being as good as the Z Martin/Ronnie Stanley level that we’ve been seen. McGlinchey still has room for improvement (too many false starts, for one) but for talent vs criticism I think he’s right up there with Kizer for getting maybe too much negativity for his mistakes while actually still being pretty good.
I remember hearing in summer that Kraemer got quick looks at 1st team RG however it didn’t seem like it was seriously considered for the season. I would hope he gets a serious shot at it again, not a fan of the McGovern/Bivin combo. Or, as mentioned, bump Bars into RG and that opens RT for one of Kraemer or Eichenberg to start.
And, as I’ve said before, now with at least 4/5 very experienced players with years worth of cohesion maybe, hopefully, the 2017 OL will be the solid, “strength of the team” type of unit that we all were anticipating if would be in 2016.
There’s still a lot of talk about McGlinchey being a 1st round pick. At BBV (the Giants SBNation site) a lot of posters want McGlinchey in the 1st. I’ll assume they didn’t see that he said he was coming back but he still has a bunch of hype.
To me, Mustipher’s biggest issue isn’t that he’s not Martin, it’s that in the most critical time of the game, he had 3 or 4 bad/early/crazy/WTF ARE YOU DOING??? snaps, at least 2 of which cost us at least a chance to win a game.
I’ll keep beating this drum. I think the OL suffered from inconsistencies and conditioning issues, and possibly a lack of a strong leader who willed them to production. But I really believe the OL was hurt this year by playcalling. The run game leaned too heavily on read-option and the passing game too heavily on play action to set up deep vertical routes. Those are great change-ups, but read-option is not great for getting an OL moving downhill and setting a physical tone and all of the vertical passing did little to help with pass protection issues. There wasn’t much attempt at any rhythm or tempo in the passing game to slow down or counter the pass rush.
As for the returners and what to do with the superstar sophs – with a new starting QB, you’d rather have experience at OL if they are talented. It will be interesting to see how the returning tackles fair next year. The sophs won’t both be able to start, but hopefully ND can play with a few more leads next year to get guys in and they won’t always be as lucky on the injury front as they were at OT last year. Kraemer and Eichenberg will both be needed.
If nothing else, it’s important to note that OL is a different animal when it comes to early playing time and development. Especially at an established program. It’s just not as easy to throw kids out there for experience as it is across the other side of the line of scrimmage. There are physical and cohesion requirements that make it tougher to get guys up to speed and involved early. So while it would be great to be able to rely on those upcoming stars, it’s not a bad problem that they have the opportunity to go through normal development stages.
Of course, based on last year, nothing should be a given. If either of them beats out an incumbent, so be it.
Our blocking scheme is zone. In terms of performing blocks there isn’t a difference between a read-option and an inside zone. I think their are some old film room posts that go over this. We have predominantly (maybe entirely) used zone blocking since Heistand came in. True you don’t get “moving down hill” with zone blocking, but that isn’t related to play calling.
Not that I think play calling was good. BK regularly abandoned the run for seemingly no reason. I am also personally a fan of man blocking schemes, probably because that’s what my teams always used, but some of the most effective running teams use zone blocking. I don’t believe one is inherently better than the other (although zone tends to need more athletic OL).
We’ll be starting a new QB next season who has almost no game experience. If you’re building a line for that situation, do you try to put together your best group of maulers (i.e. kick Bars inside, Leichenberg to RT, Hoge battling for C) and try to crush teams on the ground? Or do you try to stick with basically the same line as this year, to try to create continuity and continue to improve on pass protection (this group is probably weaker in the run game at C and RG though)?
For as often as I laugh at the RTDB crew, I think I would be very interested in going with the less experienced group. It could definitely lead to some growing pains, but the potential to create a read-option monster with that lineup is very enticing.
RingTDB is no laughing matter!
I think it would also be helpful for both conditioning and depth (particularly given seniority in 2017) for more players to get in the rotation.
Hiestand seems to coach NFL style usage, in that the back-ups seldom play. While that should give us a lot of experience in 2017 at 4 positions, in 2018 it will be the opposite.
I too agree that the OL left a lot to be desired last year. According to those rankings we would see after games, Mustipher consistently rated at the bottom. Hoge must look awful for him not to get a crack at playing more. Again, part of the NFL style usage, the starters are much better than the back-ups, and you seldom revisit starting decisions.
I imagine though that last year was probably the most spread out in snaps, but really just at RG.
Very impressive in how you managed to mix up the words of the review to make the title…
“Offensive Line Review” then becomes “Review: Line=offensive.”
I’d be curious to look at the advanced stats wizardry and I’d imagine that the 2016 O-line was worse (if not much worse) than the 2015 O-line in those statistics, but I can’t help but think that the youth at receiver really hurt the explosiveness of our running game this year. Last year’s receiving corp was pretty good at blocking IIRC and it seems like getting a couple solid blocks by receivers downfield is the difference between a 10-15 yard run and a 40 yard TD a lot of the time.
Completely agree. I’d love to see more advanced stats. This year’s Offensive line was a step backwards, but Deshone was holding the ball longer, we didn’t have Prosise, and I just feel like there was not as much fear of the deep ball (ESB is not Fuller).
We ranked 38th in offensive S&P. That’s a bad number given our talent, but it’s hard for me to put that all on the line. I felt like we had our usual “meh” run blocking and above average pass blocking.
And I also have major problems with the playcalling (see especially: NC State). But it’s hard for me to know how that would affect the line.
Quasi-relatedly: has Bill C. ever put out what our S&P ratings would be if the NC State game were removed from our stats? I think that would be a more accurate overall view of the season, as that game was something other than football. With it our defensive S&P appears better than our offensive S&P, but I’m sure they would flip just by taking that one game out.
You make a great point. I’ve never seen any manual adjustments for those anomaly games. Something to remember when evaluating the rankings next year!
The NC State game is the type of game OLine men revel in! Raining and muddy, that’s when the hogs get down and dirty! I understand the play calling in that game didn’t really give them a chance. Weather is one of the reasons why I prefer man on man blocking schemes vs zone blocking. Put the big hog mollies in drive and let them move forward instead of laterally.
The O-Line stats are indeed down across the board with the exception of power success rate (generally runs on 3rd/4th and 2 or less, also goal line carries from inside the 2). It’s a stat with fairly small sample size so I wouldn’t put too much stock in it year to year.
But our adjusted sack rate dropped from the 50’s in rank to 90s, opportunity rate from top 10 to 48th, and adjusted line yards from 2nd to 15th. Our rushing efficiency was actually pretty similar year to year, but rushing explosiveness fell off a cliff. Some of this is missing Prosise and Adams likely being banged up, but a good deal is also blocking that didn’t get to the second level as often and give the RBs room. Also worth considering is the loss of a trio of receivers in Fuller/Brown/Robinson that blocked extremely well with mostly freshmen that struggled at times in that area.
On the adjustments for NC State, I know it’s been requested from Bill to consider but I think it’s pretty difficult to extrapolate one game from the equation or he’d have done it already (maybe for the ’17 preview?). My educated guess would be that the offense would jump 10ish spots and the defense drop 10ish with the impact.
It felt like False Start Production was another stat that managed to buck the trend of downward motion across the board.
I went back and watched every game from this season over again once or twice and focused on certain things and our OL play was certainly one of them. I think our OL didn’t play as well as expected but I do think they played better than how they were spoken about by fans. I think they were very solid in pass protection. Kizer did see pressure at times but it was often when he had held onto the ball too long or the defense was simply overmanning the rush/block ratio. Our run game wasn’t very good. Average at best in CFB and at ND, that isn’t good enough.
I think the major problem was that other than Nelson, every player was either a first time starter or playing at a new spot. McGlinchey is a big, tall, mean dude but with his frame there’s no reason he shouldn’t be 320 and I hope the new S&C coach sorts this out. Nelson was elite as advertised and should be a future 1st Rd. pick. Mustipher was actually a solid pass and rush blocker but his handful of poor snaps and mental errors left a bad taste in people’s mouths. McGovern was the weakest link but still played decent and didn’t commit penalties. His injury plagued career plus underclassmen emerging will very likely result in him not returning for a 5th season. One hing I don’t see people mentioning is that Bivin played really well in McGovern’s place when called upon and could possibly come back as a 5th year Sr. I actually think there’s a decent chance he could start in ’17 as Kelly likes seniority. Although not often talked about, Alex Bars, a former highly touted recruit, had a very good season. He would sometimes get beat by speed rushers but not often enough to be troublesome. He’s fantastic in the run. Being 6’6, 320 lbs doesn’t hurt.
Next season I think the starting lineup will be this
LT – McGlinchey (No brainer, needs to focus on the snap count and gain at least 15 lbs.
LG – Nelson (I personally think he’s that best player on the team)
C – Mustipher (I’d be shocked if Huge beat him. Won’t happen)
RG – Bivin/Kraemer (Bivin gets the nod IF he returns, Kraemer starts otherwise as he’s too talented to keep on the sideline)
RT – Bars – (should be even better this year and could possibly return in ’18 at LT)
I know this was a lot to read but I have a lot of thoughts on our OL. GO IRISH
Great write up. I am sorry you put yourself through re-watching the games.
Ain’t that always the case with the OL (well except for the Cowboys this year, if ever there were a case for a position group winning MVP, this would be it).