On standard formations, the offensive line (OL) consists of Center, 2 Guards, 2 Offensive Tackles and sometimes 1 or 2 Tight ends. Right in front of the OL, the denfensive line (DL) lines up. The DL consists of 1 or 2 Defensive tackles, and 2 defensive ends.
OL tend to be heavier than DL.This make sense, since defensive linement are the ones who need to be agile to sneek between the holes to sack the QB. On the other hand you the OL needs to hold its ground and essentially be the ‘unmovable object’.
In this post, I analyze the 3 most recent (2015-2017) rosters for top NCAA Football, and oklahoma football. This posts focuses on weight of the OL. I explore which school has the heavier guys, and which schools develops the heaviest players.
Schools:
- Texas
- Alabama
- Clemson
- Baylor
- Georgia
- Ohio State
- Michigan
- Notre Dame
- Wisconsin
- UCF
- Texas Tech
- oklahoma
Weight by School
The average OL weight is 300lbs. Alabama was the heaviest OL in 2016, the year they won the National Championship. However, in 2017, the heaviest OL average belonged to Ohio State and Texas Tech. The 2017 champion, UGA, has the 5th heaviest line average in this analysis. Therefore, as we all know, weight alone isn’t going to win a Championship.
Player Evolution
For this last part, I want to see if there is a program that does a better job at bulking players up. The sample is reduced to players active in during all seasons between 2015-2017. The idea of doing so, is to avoid Juco players boosting the averages, or players going pro and reducing the avg weight of the team. I also reduced the sample size by limiting to 6 schools (Alabama, Ohio State, ou, Texas, Wisconsin, and Georgia).
As we can see, Wisconsin is excelling and bulking players up. As we can see, the avg weight of the OL increases year after year. I expected all teams to have a positive slope, since after all players are maturing physically. However Alabama, Georgia, AND Ohio State slimmed down their OL. The negative slope might mean players are getting leaner. Perhaps 2016 was a bulking season for some, and 2017 was the season where excess fat was shreded to be ready for primetime.
