Since the Florida debacle (and a not-at-all reassuring performance against Chattanooga), there's been a lot of discussion here about the offensive line play, and some very understandable frustration with line coach Don Mahoney's results. So I thought it'd be a nice time to take a more quantitative look at this line, and some other recent programs in similar situations- charting the teams with the fewest returning starts on the offensive line over the last three years, along with the number of tackles for loss they allowed. To be honest, I was a little surprised at the results.
You may think you know inexperience. You do not know this much inexperience:
'14-'15 Fewest Returning Offensive Line Starts & TFL/G
Team | Returning OL Starts | Rank | TFL/G | Rank | Sagarin SOS Rank |
Tulsa | 31 | 118 | 5.5 | 58 | 59 |
UMass | 30 | 119 | 6.71 | 102 | 110 |
Utah St | 27 | 120 | 7.83 | 120 | 53 |
Stanford | 26 | 121 | 4.5 | 22 | 41 |
Boise St. | 26 | 121 | 7 | 109 | 63 |
Air Force | 25 | 123 | 4.83 | 34 | 126 |
La. Tech | 24 | 124 | 5.67 | 63 | 39 |
San Jose St | 23 | 125 | 6.6 | 97 | 86 |
Ohio St | 21 | 126 | 5.8 | 69 | 62 |
Penn St | 20 | 127 | 7.67 | 116 | 54 |
Tennessee | 6 | 128 | 8 | 122 | 6 |
As you can see from the chart, there's total inexperience, there's "Kirk Ferentz at The Gathering of the Juggalos" inexperience, and then there's Tennessee's 2014 offensive line (In case you're wondering, Tennessee's '13-'14 line has the fewest returning starts of any FBS team in the last three years). That, and... they're really, really bad.
But as you can see, returning starts on the offensive line tracks pretty closely to tackles for loss- the only exceptions being Air Force, who runs the triple-option, and Stanford, who I'd be remiss not to mention plays roughly elevenybillion lineman on every snap- and both of whom play immeasurably softer schedules. More to the point- nobody playing this green a line is doing very well. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, PAAAWWLL, and teams with offensive linemen who have no idea what they're doing tend to give up a lot of plays behind the line of scrimmage.
But "Trey!" I hear you saying. "The top two teams in the country are both from Mississippi this year! YOUR SIMPLE CONCEPTS OF STATISTICS AND CORRELATION MEAN NOOOOTTTTHHHIIIINNG." And fair enough, I'd say. Which is why I made more charts:
'13-'14 Fewest Returning Offensive Line Starts & TFL/G
Team | Returning OL Starts | Rank | TFL/G | Rank | Sagarin SOS Rank |
SMU | 29 | 116 | 6 | 63 | 67 |
Utah | 28 | 117 | 6.5 | 88 | 3 |
Cal | 28 | 117 | 7.58 | 118 | 4 |
Texas Tech | 27 | 119 | 7.08 | 110 | 42 |
Kansas | 27 | 120 | 7.42 | 116 | 28 |
UMass | 26 | 121 | 6.58 | 92 | 83 |
Troy | 25 | 122 | 6.5 | 88 | 102 |
FAU | 23 | 123 | 5.83 | 59 | 112 |
Southern Miss | 20 | 124 | 7 | 105 | 90 |
La. Tech | 15 | 125 | 8 | 121 | 144 |
FIU | 9 | 126 | 8.83 | 124 | 97 |
'12-'13 Fewest Returning Offensive Line Starts & TFL/G
Team | Returning OL Starts | Rank | TFL/G | Rank | Sagarin SOS Rank |
TCU | 28 | 118 | 5.31 | 52 | 16 |
Cincinnati | 28 | 118 | 5.15 | 46 | 80 |
Toledo | 26 | 119 | 5.54 | 60 | 92 |
N. Illinois | 24 | 120 | 4.14 | 6 | 121 |
SMU | 24 | 120 | 5.69 | 65 | 74 |
Hawaii | 20 | 121 | 7.08 | 111 | 114 |
Wake Forest | 19 | 122 | 6.42 | 94 | 59 |
Virginia Tech | 17 | 123 | 6.54 | 101 | 47 |
Penn St | 17 | 123 | 3.92 | 2 | 58 |
UAB | 17 | 123 | 7.08 | 111 | 94 |
Rice | 15 | 124 | 6.46 | 96 | 109 |
So as you can see, the pattern overwhelmingly holds- the exceptions being the '12 Jordan Lynch-led Huskies playing a comically weak schedule and that '12 Penn St. team, which was a sorta.. uh.. peculiar situation. Nobody else in '12 or '13 cracked even the top 50, and most did much worse. When you factor in strength of schedule, things look even grimmer.
Taken all together, the 33 teams with the fewest returning starts over the last three years averaged 83rd in tackles for loss allowed- despite an average strength-of-schedule of 70th. And that's with an average of 22.75 starts, better than a full-season's-worth more than Tennessee's improbable 6. The complexity of the position and the absolute necessity of every-down consistency make offensive line, likely more than any other group, heavily dependent on development. There are things good - or even great - coaching just can't immediately overcome.
Now, none of this completely abrogates the dismal performances we've seen from the line this year- and I'd imagine Tennessee's coaching staff would be the first to tell you that. While realistically, the Vols probably aren't doing too much worse than one would project given the inexperience, they certainly aren't exceeding that estimation, either. But these numbers should at least give an idea of what degree of improvement, if any, is reasonable to expect from this group- and show how steep is the hill yet to climb.
(Returning starts from old copies of Phil Steele, TFL/G Allowed from the irreplaceable cfbstats.com, and Sagarin SOS from... Sagarin)