Clemson Football Participation: Offensive Line

Once again we are returning to an annual series by taking a look at the snap totals for Clemson football. We've broken down each position by snap totals based on players and class. All of the snap data can be found on the Clemson website in this handy little game notes pdf. A quick reminder that all of this data is only for snaps on offense or defense. It does not account for any snaps played on special teams. Today we are going to take a look at the wonder world of the offensive line.

The biggest thing about this chart is the lack of depth we show on the OL. We've hammered it home before on the site and this shows you how ugly it is. Despite what the coaching staff may or may not say, they do not have faith in our overall OL. Three of our OL effectively played every snap in every game, there were about 1,000 snaps this season, and a fourth, Ryan Norton, basically played an entire season because of the injuries to Jay Guillermo.

Even on the best OLs that is a bit unusual. You would expect more of a rotation in the 2-deep, though not what you will see on the DL. Maybe 1 guy plays a lot, especially at center, and if one specific spot has low depth you will have another with a high snap count. But to have 3-4 guys that high is frankly atrocious. Had we taken another injury or two to the OL then we'd have been in even worse shape. And it isn't like the OL was that talented to begin with anyway.

The good news, we are getting rid of some dead weight this year on the OL. The bad news is we are unlikely to see a large improvement in OL play because of it. Despite a quality 2015 class on the OL, it will likely be another year or two before we see the benefits of bringing in some real talent. If we are lucky we may see some benefits this year, but given the complexity of playing on the line I'm going to be a bit cautious about predicting success this year. At least the 2016 class looks like it is coming along well on the OL as well though. If Dabo continues his current OL recruiting strategy we may finally have another piece of the puzzle to becoming a national power.