Redemption Starts Up Front

(The Rock Report) - Lou Holtz used to say that you could tell how good a team was going to be by how good the offensive line looked. Many things have changed over the past years, but this one hasn't: successful teams win at the point of attack. LSU beat Florida last year by bulldozing them and they did it without a star quarterback or star running back. They simply owned the line of scrimmage.

Under Charlie Weis, Notre Dame has become a finesse team. Here's a look at rushing statistics under Weis:

2008
Average Per Rush............ 3.4
Average Per Game............ 113.4

2007
Average Per Rush............ 2.1
Average Per Game............ 75.2

2006
Average Per Rush............ 3.9
Average Per Game............ 125.7

2005
Average Per Rush............ 3.6
Average Per Game............ 147.1

The high point here is 3.9 yards per rush and 147 yards per game. How does that compare to teams that are performing well? Poorly. Here's the breakout of some of the top teams by year as compiled by TreeD:

2008 ... YPR ... YPG
USC ... 5.05 ... 195
OSU ... 4.59 ... 191.58
UM ... 3.91 ... 147.58
OK ... 4.77 ... 205.54
FL ... 5.96 ... 229.77
UT ... 4.43 ... 176.92
ND ... 3.4 ... 113.4

2007
USC ... 4.97 ... 198
OSU ... 4.62 ... 196.92
UM ... 3.97 ... 164.92
OK ... 4.65 ... 190.71
FL ... 5.34 ... 200
UT ... 5.01 ... 207.54
ND ... 2.1 ... 75.2

2006
USC ... 4.08 ... 130
OSU ... 4.6 ... 169.85
UM ... 4.27 ... 175.54
OK ... 4.45 ... 177.14
FL ... 4.71 ... 160
UT ... 4.38 ... 162.62
ND ... 3.9 ... 125.7

2005
USC ... 6.44 ... 260
OSU ... 4.66 ... 196.67
UM ... 3.89 ... 161.58
OK ... 4.05 ... 177.5
FL ... 3.87 ... 146.75
UT ... 5.91 ... 274.92
ND ... 3.6 ... 147.1

Notre Dame is never going to win at a high level until our lines can control the line of scrimmage and right now we're a lousy finesse team. Don't let the Hawaii game fool you, if Notre Dame played USC again in a bowl game, we likely would have lost 38-3 again.

I knew Georgia wasn't a national championship caliber team this year because their offensive line was so young and patchwork. Alabama, on the other hand, fielded a strong offensive line and had the mammoth Cody anchoring the defensive line. Bama didn't have a great quarterback. They played hard-nosed aggressive football and won at the point of attack.

We have to recruit the talent and get the right coaching staff in place, but more than that, Weis has to let his offensive line play aggressive by running schemes that allow them to attack rather tango. It's hard to get aggressive when your first is sideways and you're thinking too much.

Ironically, I have more confidence on the other side of the ball, even with our maturity issues. With Oliver gone, Notre Dame can find a quality defensive line coach who can take our young talent and coach them into an aggressive defensive line, but there's a lot of work to do here. Notre Dame defensive linemen had exactly 4 sacks during the regular season. If you count Fleming, Neal and Richardson, we had 6.5 sacks from our defensive linemen.

SACKS                 UA-A    TOT    SD     MICH    MSU     PUR     STAN     NC     WASH    PITT     BC     NAVY    SYR

SMITH, H............   2-3    3.5    -       -       -       -       -       -    2.0-21     -       -    0.5-1   1.0-4
KUNTZ...............   3-1    3.5    -       -       -       -    2.0-16  1.0-8      -       -       -    0.5-2      -
SMITH, B............   2-0    2.0    -       -       -       -    1.0-12     -    1.0-11     -       -       -      DNP
FLEMING.............   1-1    1.5    -       -       -       -    1.0-8      -       -       -       -       -    0.5-1
BROWN, S............   1-0    1.0    -       -       -       -    1.0-12     -       -       -       -       -       -
CRUM................   1-0    1.0 1.0-7      -       -       -       -       -       -       -       -       -       -
QUINN...............   1-0    1.0    -       -       -       -       -       -       -    1.0-3      -       -       -
NEAL................   1-0    1.0    -       -       -       -       -       -       -    1.0-8      -       -       -
HERRING.............   0-1    0.5    -       -       -       -       -       -       -       -       -       -    0.5-2
JOHNSON.............   0-1    0.5    -       -       -       -       -       -    0.5-4      -       -       -       -
RICHARDSON..........   0-1    0.5    -       -      DNP      -       -       -    0.5-5      -       -       -      DNP

On offense changes are coming. Latina is also likely gone, but will it matter? If Charlie brings in another OL coach only to mandate the same passive schemes, the likelihood is that we'll see more of the same.

The other irony in all of this is that the knock on Notre Dame used to be that we couldn't recruit the top skill positions, but Notre Dame still routinely churned out top offensive linemen. Now, we're recruiting the skill positions as well as any team in the country, but we're losing the bigger battle up front... the battle Notre Dame could usually count on winning.

If Charlie is going win at Notre Dame (and by that I mean a national championship) he's not going to do it while we're continually losing the battle in the trenches.

Charlie's legacy will be determined at the line of scrimmage.

Redemption starts upfront.

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