(09-17-2014, 02:42 PM)OutsiderFan link Wrote:The interesting thing is that since there is no metric for measuring OL efficiency (aside from what the offense produces on a play-by-play or aggregate basis), we are sort of left to throw up our hands as to what specifically needs to improve for the OL to evolve into a strength from not a weakness, but more foundation of inconsistency.
Of course there isn't really any statistic that measures the contribution of one position group all alone, though it is more obvious with Oline. For example, any passing statistic is not just a measure of the QB: somebody has to catch the ball, usually run with it after catching (though there are stats that try to take this out), and the QB has to remain standing - preferably in the pocket, have throwing lanes, etc.
I agree with the baseline argument in that article that the biggest issue for the Stanford offense so far is the Oline, though I don't like much of the argument made. I don't see the average yds gained on a Hogan scramble as much of a measure of the effectiveness of the Oline, perhaps the number of times he scrambles might be. The sacks stat by itself is too small a number to be statistically reliable at this point though there is an issue in pass protection.
However, now at last I see some of the potential which up til recently seemed to be based primarily on recruiting rankings: there were times vs S-C. that they really were moving some elite level DL players, vs Army - when Shaw appeared to think "enough of this, let's secure the win" - they power-ran the offense right down the field with Garnett pulling around creating (or sometimes just into) brobdingnagian holes.
Our top three running backs are averaging 7.9 yds/carry (Sanders), 5.8 (Young), and 5.9 (Wright), for an overall average of 6.5 yds/carry on 18 carries per game. This compares to last year Gaffney averaging 5.2 yds/carry on 23.6 carries per game, in 2012 Taylor averaging 4.8 yds/carry on 24.8 carries per game, in 2011 Taylor and Gaffney averaged 5.6 yds/carry on 24.3 carries per game. This year's averages are pretty good and make me wonder if we will start relying more heavily on the run game than we have so far - more like usual over the past several seasons.
A lot of the bad plays seem to have been some sort of mental error, which one would think is more fixable than simply getting beat.
The two late sacks vs S.-C seem to have been wrong blocking assignments for the play.
The chop block while officially on Wright, was really on Garnett who initially took a different guy then lunged at the blitzing LB when a) Wright was in position to make the block, and b) Garnett was not going to be able to make enough of a block to do any good anyway.
On the 4th down and 1 at the S.-C 3 yd line there was a general lack of push, but the biggest single issue seemed to have been Caspers pulling not blocking the right guy (Cravens I think).
The penalty nullifying Wright's TD run vs Army was a completely unnecessary hold on Bright many yds downfield.
So, there is certainly hope. I think the OLine will be very good in 2015. I hope we see some of that in 2014 as well.
p.s. "foundation of inconsistency" - nice use of self-contradictory paradox.