Anyone else think the O-line is tired of reading about how bad they were

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gopherdudepart2

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I gotta think the O-line the "bubbas" as a group are real tired of taking all of the blame for last season's team struggles. The starting five must be real tired of hearing about who is coming in and who else is going to start from the group of 10, pick your name, is going to take the starting spot. I know I would be like you want my spot your going to have earn every bit of it, because It's "my" spot.

I for one am really hoping all five guy's that started from the O-line come in with a HUGE chip on there shoulders, compete as hard as they can, get a little nasty and really start pushing people around. This group, the line can be pretty good, and I would like to see the improvement they made as a group as the season wore on last year continue. There are some large human beings in the group that can play, hopefully they come in good shape and really push themselves to be better, than the rest.

Finally one, would have to think the backs also might have a chip on there shoulders, Bennet and Eskeridge, must be real tired of hearing about which Freshman is gearing up to take there spots. Minnesota doesn't have a Big10 back or any legacy anymore. "Minnesota can't run the football". If I were Bennet or Eskeridge I would be real offended as to why everyone think's they can't do it.
Here's to the competition gearing up for fall camp because it is real close.
The confidence in the "room" with all of that talent has to be a lot higher than the rest of us would give credit for.

There are a lot of guy's in that room, coaches, players that are winners, have been winners, and come from winning programs and are used to success, why shouldn't they expect it. We might not as fan's but the Gophers as a group must expect there going to be pretty good.
 

Its good for them

to hear their play last year was completely unacceptable. They either need to really step it up or get someone in who can do the job. Weber has to have a little time at least to throw and we need a much better running game. If they improve our pass protection and our running game this could be quite a good team. The team could really surprise. If they play like last year --I dont want to think about our record.
 

+1

One of the great motivators in all of sports is the ´Nobody believes in us´ meme. This is true for the Gophers as a whole, and is particularly true of the Offensive line. I like what I saw from the Big Uglies this spring, and expect them to play well this fall. I think these guys are gonna be absolutely nasty in the OOC season and keep that momentum going into a solid performance in Big Ten play.

Bennet and Eskeridge---I really just don´t think they are Big Ten quality backs. Bennet is serviceable but Eskeridge just doesn´t have it. I fully expect the frosh (particularly Devon Wright) to steal their jobs. There´s no question that they will be motivated to prove me wrong.
 

Work in prorgress. I think by the end of the year the pass protection was actually pretty good. I think they'll improve the run blocking this year. Once these things are established it becomes easier to bring in new guys as their roles and expectations are more plainly visible. If Weber can reign in his post traumatic Fisch syndrome I think we'll be pleastantly surprised.
 

+1
Gophers are not really mean until they are mad. Go MAD Gophs (Make A Difference)
 


In light of what has been rather consistantly spouted about the OLine, they should be literally PISSED OFF! I mean, they should be preparing cans of WHOOPASS to disperse indiscriminately at The Bank and throughout the season.
 

I believe the OLine returns 4 starters- correct me if I'm wrong. Obviously, talent is important and without it, experience won't do much for you but experience on the OLine is one of the most important factors for team success. The Wall St. Journal does sports articles from a purely statistical alanysis perspective and they have a nice little article about this from last year. Alabama was a clear exception to their general rule of 65 combined Oline starts heading into the year but let's face it, they were so talented everywhere on the field. Almost no program in the country can match the talent they had accross the board last year.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123984090891223207.html

Back to the Gophers. I believe this group has talent. I also think having consistency from the coaching staff will be huge for them. Tim Davis and Hammock returning is so important for a group that has seen so much turnover in the coaching staff in a short time. Add in the motivation of wanting to improve from last year and I'm willing to bet that the Oline will be a pleasant surprise.
 

Awesome post!

Umm, except for a couple things. Like 2008, when they averaged 100 rushing YPG, just like 2009. I guess the coaches forgot to tell them to play with a HUGE chip on their shoulder" or play "literally* PISSED OFF" after 2008.

But don't worry, we have "purely statistical alanysis [sic] perspective," which demonstrates how important OL experience is. Wait, oops, the teams he said to "look out" for finished 41-23 and the "teams to worry about" finished 52-14. I'm going to run some purely statistical analysis and say the a 0.788 winning percentage is better than 0.641.

* Literally? Maybe that explains the gold pants in the home opener.
 

Haha. Spelled correctly or not, I added that solely because of the source. A lot of people don't think of the WSJ as a place to get sports info. They generally focus on statistical trends opposed to opinion that you find with most other sports media. A lot has been debated about the topic since that article came out. 65 starts might be an arbitrary number that the author used because of the season before. I've heard that it has pretty much held true over past decade. 8 of 10 Final AP poll top 10 teams had 50 or more starts last season.

Numbers aside, are you suggesting experience doesn't help an oline? Do you think continuity with the players and for once the coaching staff makes any difference?
 



ChestHair said:
Numbers aside, are you suggesting experience doesn't help an oline? Do you think continuity with the players and for once the coaching staff makes any difference?
Click to expand...

Everything remaining constant I would say yes that matters. Experience and continuity with a group that does not know what they are doing only leads to more of the same. I am not saying that is the case with this crew, but experience and continuity are not a magical elixir.

Not terribly insightful, I know...
 

At TCF the fans could saw good O-line run play examples of a group that just sealed off a side for a run i.e. WI and CA, even South Dakota did it. Then the U O-line wolud take the field and you did not see that cohesivness.
 

ChestHair said:
I believe the OLine returns 4 starters- correct me if I'm wrong. Obviously, talent is important and without it, experience won't do much for you but experience on the OLine is one of the most important factors for team success. The Wall St. Journal does sports articles from a purely statistical alanysis perspective and they have a nice little article about this from last year. Alabama was a clear exception to their general rule of 65 combined Oline starts heading into the year but let's face it, they were so talented everywhere on the field. Almost no program in the country can match the talent they had accross the board last year.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123984090891223207.html

Back to the Gophers. I believe this group has talent. I also think having consistency from the coaching staff will be huge for them. Tim Davis and Hammock returning is so important for a group that has seen so much turnover in the coaching staff in a short time. Add in the motivation of wanting to improve from last year and I'm willing to bet that the Oline will be a pleasant surprise.
Click to expand...

I too have cited that article. Good point about Davis, I forgot the link but his units have improved significantly in year 2 everywhere he has been.

I would also point out the Gophers had 3 starters on the O-line play hurt for all of or most of last year (respectively). These guys are all healthy now. Hard to block consistently when you can only block with one shoulder (as Wills did all last year), etc.
 

I have to imagine they are too busy getting ready for the upcoming season to spend much time worrying about what the football pundits are saying. It's those of us who are hungry for any Gophers information who worry about that.

I think the Gophers could surprise the football pundits this year. The pundits have an attitute of "there are question marks, so rather than doing research, lets assume that all of those questions will have bad answers." I'm not bashing them (well, not much), but they just don't put the same level of research into all of the teams.
 



ChestHair said:
Numbers aside, are you suggesting experience doesn't help an oline? Do you think continuity with the players and for once the coaching staff makes any difference?
Click to expand...

Here's a non-exhaustive list of some things that help to make an OL (as a unit) good, in no particular order:
1. Talent
2. Coaching
3. Experience
4. Depth

Ceteris paribus, experience is a good thing. It is not the only thing, and probably not the most important thing. (As everyone knows, playing "PISSED OFF" or with a "HUGE chip on their shoulder" are the most important things.)

The WSJ analysis is a bit of a joke, because "experience" as they measure it is a product of talent, not an independent factor. A redshirt freshman or sophomore who displaces a junior or senior due to superior talent will get more starts. That shows up as experience, but it's an outcome, not an input.
 

Got your message Ghost of Bronco

Only talent, coaching, experience, and depth matter when it come's to O-line improvement. Attitude or playing with a little chip because of disappointment in previous play and being told how bad you are by all of the pundits as a motivator does not matter in the least. Sometimes that stuff can help you overachieve a little on your talent level. We have experienced guy's that have played a lot of game snaps, with this QB, they should be better for having seen a lot of the field for that reason alone. I for one think the group has quite a bit of talent even if it has not blossomed quite to the level we all as Gopher fans hope.

In the end we have 8 guy's to fill the top five spot's and the guys push each other, the guy's that play have the ability to stay healthy with a little cohesion for the group. For too long the Gophers have had to start a lot of young guy's in the line here is hoping they can start gaining the depth that get's them to playing 4th and 5th year guy's more. you don't need to be verbose or a loud mouth like me to figure that one out. We have 4 guy's for sure that have played a lot of ball.
 

Time does not heal all sucktitude

ChestHair said:
I believe the OLine returns 4 starters- correct me if I'm wrong. Obviously, talent is important and without it, experience won't do much for you but experience on the OLine is one of the most important factors for team success. The Wall St. Journal does sports articles from a purely statistical alanysis perspective and they have a nice little article about this from last year. Alabama was a clear exception to their general rule of 65 combined Oline starts heading into the year but let's face it, they were so talented everywhere on the field. Almost no program in the country can match the talent they had accross the board last year.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123984090891223207.html
Click to expand...


You must have missed MV's recent and fascinating article on perhaps one of the best blogs on the web. Allow me to excerpt:

To illustrate if there is any correlation between OL starts and wins, I performed a basic regression analysis of the 2009 OL starts vs team wins.
OL-Starts.png

That coefficient of determination (r squared) number? It’s close to zero, meaning there is an extremely weak (i.e. none) correlation or fit between OL starts and wins. Case in point: Alabama and Boise St returned among the lowest combined starts in CFB last season, yet ended up with the most victories (14). Colorado State, on the other hand, returned the most experienced line in college football, yet only won 3 games. While the regression analysis I used is rather crude and would likely illustrate a stronger relationship between the change in sacks allowed or yards per rush season-over-season (which I’m too lazy to do at this point), it does show there is no direct correlation between wins and OL experience.
Click to expand...
 

ulfr said:
You must have missed MV's recent and fascinating article on perhaps one of the best blogs on the web.
Click to expand...

Very interesting, I guess Colorado State's OL wasn't PISSED OFF enough.

My only (tiny) problem with his analysis is using wins as the dependent variable. Given that the OL has no effect on defensive performance, it would be better (as he also admits) to use some offensive metric as the dependent variable (e.g. yards per game). Even then, the OL isn't the only variable you'd want to consider. If you were to add in metrics for QB, RB and WR and run a full regression (yes, I know the independent variables aren't really independent), you'd likely be able to isolate the true effect of OL experience.
 

I remember hearing that Fisch and Davis didn't see eye-to-eye last year either. I'm sure that had some impact on the OL play. Davis and Horton have a history, so hopefully they'll be on the same page a little more.

I really think we'll see better play all around this year on offense. Year 2 in the same system will pay huge dividends, IMO, and is being way underrated by many people.
 

I cant agree more.

The longer a team plays in a system the better they are going to be. It is really to bad Brewster decided to go away from the running style offense when he got this job. I understand bringing in your own guys but he shouldnt have switched to the spread. It would have put us 2 or 3 years ahead of where we are now.

Year 1 big transition to the spread.
Year 2 big improvement
Year 3 new offense and more struggles.
Year 4?
 

WolfontheProwl said:
The longer a team plays in a system the better they are going to be. It is really to bad Brewster decided to go away from the running style offense when he got this job. I understand bringing in your own guys but he shouldnt have switched to the spread. It would have put us 2 or 3 years ahead of where we are now.

Year 1 big transition to the spread.
Year 2 big improvement
Year 3 new offense and more struggles.
Year 4?
Click to expand...

Year 5 Profit!
 

WolfontheProwl said:
The longer a team plays in a system the better they are going to be. It is really to bad Brewster decided to go away from the running style offense when he got this job. I understand bringing in your own guys but he shouldnt have switched to the spread. It would have put us 2 or 3 years ahead of where we are now.

Year 1 big transition to the spread.
Year 2 big improvement
Year 3 new offense and more struggles.
Year 4?
Click to expand...

While I agree with your premise, I think the timeline is a little off. In year one (2007) our rushing yardage was about the same as in 2006. There were mostly senior offensive lineman in 2007. In 2008, the rushing yardage nosedived with the new set of linemen. In 2009 we changed the OC and the OL coach. Rushing yardage in 2009 was about the same as in 2008 (poor both years). One would expect an improvement this year with a simpler offensive scheme, the OL coach being in his second year and lots of senior linemen that have played together. We shall see.
 

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