O-Line Stats Part Two

This is part two of Poseur's two part series on o-line stats

Now that we have developed a formula for rating offensive lines, let’s apply it to the 2006 season and see if we can draw any sort of conclusions. First, the numbers for the pass blockers.

Team	Sks	Mod Att	Sks/Att	PSCORE
ARKANSAS	9	311	2.980	1.467
TENNESSEE	19	434	4.578	0.843
GEORGIA	17	359	4.971	0.690
LSU	19	387	5.163	0.615
VANDY	19	356	5.638	0.430
FLORIDA	23	422	5.764	0.380
SOUTH CAROLINA	24	413	6.170	0.222
ALABAMA	28	421	7.125	-0.151
MISS ST	29	389	8.056	-0.514
KENTUCKY	39	475	8.945	-0.861
OLE MISS	29	309	10.357	-1.412
AUBURN	35	317	12.411	-2.214
Average	24.167	382.75	6.739

Two things stick out: Arkansas was much better than everyone else and Auburn was much worse. Let’s take on Auburn first because it’s become sort of an accepted belief Auburn will have a bad line this year in their quest to replace two All-SEC linemen.

Well, their offensive line could not be worse, and those awards were a mistake (okay, maybe not for Grubbs). Allowing over 12 sacks per 100 pass attempts is Oakland Raiders level of bad. It is so bad you don’t even immediately notice how bad Ole Miss’ pass protection was. And it comes without a built-in excuse. Teams with running quarterbacks tend to allow more sacks because the running quarterback occasionally gets caught for a loss and that counts as a sack.

Which makes Arkansas even more impressive. 2.98 sacks per 100 attempts? Arkansas’ line was absolutely dominant in pass protection. The only other surprise is that Tennessee’s maligned offensive line ranked second best in the conference.

Rushing

Team	Mod Rush	Mod Yds	Yds/Att	RSCORE
ARKANSAS	530	3129	5.904	2.080
LSU	431	2009	4.661	0.713
VANDY	366	1683	4.598	0.644
FLORIDA	453	2074	4.578	0.622
SOUTH CAROLINA	390	1727	4.428	0.457
AUBURN	435	1722	3.959	-0.060
GEORGIA	409	1535	3.753	-0.286
TENNESSEE	363	1270	3.499	-0.566
OLE MISS	393	1312	3.338	-0.742
ALABAMA	427	1396	3.269	-0.818
KENTUCKY	372	1008	2.710	-1.434
MISS ST	365	935	2.562	-1.597
Average	411.167	1650	4.013

And… there’s Arkansas again. They had three 1st team All-SEC lineman, and it seems the SEC got that one right. They were the best run block and best pass block unit, and they did both by fairly wide margins. In fact, their gap in run blocking makes their advantage in pass blocking almost seem slight. LSU had the second best run blocking line, and they were closer to 10th place than they were to SEC-leading Arkansas.

No real surprises at the bottom, with Mississippi State bringing up the rear. But Kentucky and Alabama probably didn’t expect to have such poor running games. Kentucky had one of their best seasons in a decade, and it came with a line that couldn’t open up a hole for anybody. Alabama’s expected improvement needs to come from some serious improvement in the run blocking. Because last year’s effort won’t get in done.

Overall

Team	PSCORE	RSCORE	OLINE
ARKANSAS	1.47	2.08	354.72
LSU	0.62	0.71	132.83
VANDY	0.43	0.64	107.37
FLORIDA	0.38	0.62	100.24
SOUTH CAROLINA	0.22	0.46	67.90
GEORGIA	0.69	-0.29	40.42
TENNESSEE	0.84	-0.57	27.75
ALABAMA	-0.15	-0.82	-96.87
MISS ST	-0.51	-1.60	-211.05
OLE MISS	-1.41	-0.74	-215.43
AUBURN	-2.21	-0.06	-227.39
KENTUCKY	-0.86	-1.43	-229.48

Not surprisingly, Arkansas is #1. But what is interesting is that the teams neatly organized themselves into three tiers:

TOP TIER
Arkansas, LSU, Vanderbilt, Florida

Three of those teams make sense, but Vandy? Now, some of that could be a factor of who on earth would bother to blitz Vandy, but the running game speaks for itself. Vanderbilt’s line performed well all season long. I’d also like to point out that LSU’s line ranked second without having a single player ranked 1st or 2nd team All-SEC. Florida is widely considered the second best line, with three All-SEC linemen (one 1st teamer), but they really weren’t that far off from second place.

MIDDLE TIER
South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama

Actually, Bama is much worse than the other three teams listed but they are much better than the bottom four so they hang out on an island. I just lump them in with the others to be nice. And for symmetry.

Strangely enough, SC ranks as the toughest line but they are the only one of the four without an All-SEC lineman,

BOTTOM TIER
Miss State, Ole Miss, Auburn, Kentucky

These teams were flat out lousy.

Actually, Auburn’s run blocking was decent, but their pass blocking was so terrible it almost ranked them as the worst line in the league. Kentucky gets that dubious honor despite having one of their best overall seasons. They did it the old-fashioned way, by stinking in all phases of the game.

And what are we going to do with the state of Mississippi?

But let us all bow before Arkansas. And be thankful most of their line graduated and they will hopefully return to mediocrity.