Why PFF Says Notre Dame Had The 13th Best Offensive Line In 2019
In an offseason full of team departures and drama, one of the most publically criticized members of the Notre Dame program has been offensive line coach Jeff Quinn.
Due to several poor performances by the offensive line in 2019, many outside voices have proposed that Quinn be moved to tight ends coach, an analyst role or even for him to be let go from the program altogether.
So when Pro Football Focus stated that in 2019 Notre Dame had the 13th best offensive line situation all off college football, people were shocked or even perturbed.
How could an offensive line that performed so poorly throughout the season be ranked that high?
The simple answer: Pro Football Focus doesn't see it that way. Instead, they believe many of the criticisms levied toward the Notre Dame offensive line were false accusations.
"They were one of the lines across the country that I think got blamed wrongly," said Cam Mellor, Lead College Football Analyst for Pro Football Focus.
Pass Blocking
Much of this has to with Pro Football Focus viewing Notre Dame's offensive line as an elite pass-blocking unit. Per their grades, the offensive line had a pass-blocking efficiency grade of 94.2, which was second only to Louisiana Lafayette at 94.4.
This was roughly the same grade the Notre Dame offensive line had through week seven of the season, which is impressive considering they lost starters Tommy Kraemer and Robert Hainsey in week nine and week 10.
When grading out pass blocking, Mellor says they look at more than the number of sacks, quarterback hits, hurries and pressures an offense allows and instead focus on who they believe to be responsible for each play.
For instance, according to their numbers, Notre Dame allowed 16 sacks in 13 games this season, but only two are credited to the offensive line — both to starting left guard Aaron Banks.
Pro Football Focus actually views Notre Dame quarterback Ian Book as responsible for 11 sacks (two belong to quarterback Phil Jurkovec and one to wide receiver Chris Finke).
"He invited pressure," Mellor said. "A quarterback can do that in multiple ways. They can leave the pocket early, they can jump up in the pocket if they feel what they think is pressure coming from the back and then get themselves into more trouble."
This view of Book should not come as a surprise, as he was often criticized early in the season for having a poor pocket presence, especially against Virginia on Sept. 28 when Pro Football Focus credited the Notre Dame signal-caller with two sacks, two quarterback hits and four pressures.
On the season, he was also responsible for 39 of the teams 114 quarterback pressures, 21 of the 75 hurries and seven of the 23 quarterback hits, each number higher than any individual Notre Dame offensive lineman was credited with.
Book did improve later in the year — albeit against weaker competition — and was only credited with three sacks in the last five games of the season and zero quarterback hits.
Run Blocking
The pass-blocking prowess doesn't, however, address the offensive line's perceived inability to block in the run game, which was the primary criticism from fans and experts this season.
As a team, Notre Dame earned a Pro Football Focus run-blocking grade of 80.6, which was the 12th best rating in the FBS, but that's based on the performance of the wide receivers and tight ends in the run game, as well as the offensive line.
Still, Mellor credits much of Notre Dame's run-blocking success to the line.
"For the year, the run blocking it was good. It wasn't as good as the pass protection numbers were," he said. "But there were multiple holes through the middle of the offensive line."
Mellor said that based on their numbers, Notre Dame running backs were averaging two yards per carry before contact, much of which is credited to the offensive line.
But one thing the numbers don't account for is a coach's play calling.
For instance, if former offensive coordinator Chip Long were to intentional avoid running between the tackles because of a lack of faith in the offensive line, that would not show up in their grades. A team is only evaluated based on how they perform on the plays they run, even if a lot of that production comes on jet sweeps from Braden Lenzy.
The Notre Dame offensive line was also evaluated on how it performed throughout the entire season, which includes the first half of the season when the starting offensive line was fully intact.
Hainsey's solid run-blocking grade of 72.7 was much higher than Josh Lugg's average grade of 63.1. Lugg, of course, took over at right tackle after Hainsey went down with a season-ending injury against Virginia Tech. Kraemer and his replacement, Trevor Ruhland, had similar run-blocking grades, with Kraemer earning a 63.3 and Ruhland a 59.6.
It's also worth noting that penalties are not heavily weighted into a player's overall grade.
So even though starting left tackle Liam Eichenberg was flagged 11 times this season, which led the team, it did not have much of an impact on his overall grade of 80.5. That was the second-highest grade on the team among offensive starter and first along the offensive line.
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