OU's Offensive Line - Experience and size.

by ajax77777 on Aug 19, 2009 8:27 PM CDT Comment 11 comments

I've been hearing and reading a lot about OU's inexperienced O-line this off-season. Most recently in The Elusive Shadow's post. I started to wonder, considering how much Stoops loved to hammer opponents all the way to the final whistle, how many minutes these guys had played the last couple of years.

I blame growing up as more of a basketball fan than football fan on my interest in the minutes played statistic.

Well, since the minuscule amount of effort I was willing to put into this research failed to turn up anything, here's some info on OU's projected starting line experience:

Trent Williams - Fairly Experienced. Not going to say anything else.

Brian Simmons - He played in every game in '08 for a total of 421 plays. That's an average of about 30 snaps a game, not too shabby. It would appear that while he hasn't been chosen as a starter for his previous few years (he's a Senior) they trusted him enough to contribute.

As The Elusive Shadow said, after those two the experience falls off sharply.

Ben Habern - Played in a total of 3 games in '08. His efficiency was impressive against Baylor. He had 9 knockdowns in 9 plays. Essentially from what I can tell, he's barely played any college football.

Stephen Good - Played in half (7) the games in '08. Not much else about 2008.

Cory Brandon - Played for a total of 148 snaps in 9 games. That's an average of 16 snaps in each of the games he saw action in.

As far as size goes, according to Soonersports their respective weights are:

318

288

291

310

for a total of 1525 (305 avg.)

This compares with 1555 (311 avg) in '08 and 1612 (322.4 avg) in '07.

Texas' O-line totaled 1550 (310 avg [pdf link]) before Spring started.

I read the FSU SBN blogs post about D-line size (weight) correllating to effectiveness against the defending the run and was wondering if O-line size has any similar correlation.

How will the lack of experience and smaller size change OU's sucess this season? Most of the commenters over at CC Machine seem to think it won't matter. What do y'all think? Anyone care to enlighten me in regards to the importance of size on the O-line rather than D-line?

Poll

OU?

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Barking Carnival's

Meet the OU Offensive Line – is pretty funny.

by ajax77777 on Aug 19, 2009 8:29 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

First of all, excellent poll

Secondly, one thing I should have noted is the smaller size these new Sooner lineman have (the only time I mentioned this was when I was comparing Loadholt to Williams and when I noted that this year’s line might be a bit more nimble). What this means is anyone’s guess, if anything.

by TheElusiveShadow on Aug 19, 2009 8:53 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

ou O-Line

The only team that the ou o-line might struggle with is Texas, and possibly whoever they play in a bowl game. I don’t think any team in the Big 12 has a D-line to lose sleep over except Texas and ou.

by Longhorns84 on Aug 19, 2009 9:18 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

But that's the million dollar question

It’s not so much that they’ll struggle against most of their schedule, which they should be mostly fine against. The question is if they can come through in the big games. The main reason OU lost to us last year was because they lost the much anticipated battle between their O-line and our D-line. If they lose it again, they shouldn’t bet on a win.

by TheElusiveShadow on Aug 20, 2009 1:17 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Don't forget Miami

They might not be what they once were, but they’ve still got tremendous athletes all over the defense – big ‘uns, too. This is the kind of game Miami has made its name off of for nearly 30 years now. You know Randy Shannon is going to unload every clip he’s got in that one.

In conference, I agree, they probably won’t struggle with anyone but Texas.

Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.
- Thomas Jones

by beast in bama on Aug 20, 2009 5:02 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Disagree

I think, considering the other 3 games that make up the first four games of Miami’s schedule, that Shannon might just write the OU game off early and focus on getting his team ready for one of the teams they will be more likely to get a W against, like VT or GT.

If you're so sure of what it ain't, how about telling us what it am!

by circa1015 on Aug 24, 2009 7:22 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

i have nothing to add but im pretty sure that is the best poll in the history of this site

by titans10 on Aug 19, 2009 10:23 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

agreed

by GoComets! on Aug 19, 2009 10:56 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Doubt if the size differential means much

since most of the difference was one player (Loadholt). Experience is another issue. Hard to say how important it is . . . OU’s line in ’05 was sucky (heavy losses off the ’04 team that was blown out by USC in the MNC). This one has more experience and skill than that one. And a way better QB situation (Thompson, Bomar as a RS freshman).

Still, the combination of four new offensive linemen and the loss of two stud receivers has to put the heat on Bradford to make near-perfect reads and throws. Tough task.

by edsp on Aug 20, 2009 12:23 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Many difference between 05 and 09 + size does matter

1. In addition to seconding the points made by edsp, another difference: offensive coordinator. Chuck Long ran the show in 2005, now Kevin Wilson. Wilson is much better at molding the system to the QB (evidence Bomar’s Holiday Bowl, Thompson’s 2006 season).

2. I’m glad the OL is slightly (2% of body weight) smaller. These guys are all fat (very strong, but fat), and on the DL speed has been the way to beat OU recently.

by hamglaze on Aug 20, 2009 6:23 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs