Myth of Big 10 Size
[Ed (Misopogon): Bumped to diary for general diary-worthiness]
If, like me, you've heard "So and so is too small for the Big Ten" and wondered if that statement could be supported by data, you might find the following information interesting.
At the expense of some tedious data entry and time, I looked at the depth charts on the Rivals site for teams from several conferences. Shown here are the average weights for the O- and D-lines. (I thought those would be a reasonable proxy for overall team size.)
| Conference | O-Line | D-Line |
|---|---|---|
| Big Ten | 304.2 | 282.3 |
| Big 12 | 303.9 | 273.0 |
| SEC | 308.6 | 279.5 |
| ACC | 299.6 | 273.9 |
| Big East | 298.7 | 272.0 |
| Pac 10 | 297.7 | 273.6 |
| CUSA | 295.5 | 268.1 |
| MWC | 301.1 | 271.7 |
| Sun Belt | 289.5 | 256.1 |
| WAC | 297.9 | 262.3 |
Comments:
- Notice that our conference doesn't have the biggest offensive linemen. That would be the SEC.
- Our defensive linemen are noticeably bigger than those of other conferences (SEC excepted). I suppose that might be a reflection of the SMASHMOUTH football favored by Wisconsin, MSU, et al. Not sure, though...
- You have to go to the Sun Belt (!) conference to get relatively small offensive linemen. The Mountain West and WAC conferences are right there with the big boys.
Anyway, the numbers show that the Big Ten isn't anything special size-wise.
Big Linemen
Another of my favorite myths or areas of silliness is this remark, which you often hear in pre-game shows: "X's offensive line outweighs Y's defensive line by Z pounds!!!" Of course it does. Any reasonable person understands that offensive linemen have a bigger average size. For the conferences, the average difference ranged from 21.9 to 35.6 pounds. Why state the obvious?
While we're on the subject of myths, one other thing:
The Badgers have just four offensive linemen in the NFL.
For all the glowing praise that Wisconsin's trained mastadons get, you'd think they'd have more players at those positions in the NFL. Four? Not overly impressive ...
October 5th, 2010 at 9:36 AM ^
certainly isn't going to promote eighth-grade juvenile humor at all...
October 5th, 2010 at 9:47 AM ^
Lili von Shtupp: It's twue, it's twue!
October 5th, 2010 at 9:58 AM ^
Would it be kosher if I stooped to, say, tenth-grade level juvenile humor?
O.K. here goes....
[name redacted] begs to differ, just ask him...he'll show you.
October 5th, 2010 at 10:56 AM ^
Larry Harrison? He loves the ladies, but from a distance, while he loves himself.
October 5th, 2010 at 9:48 AM ^
I have also heard that it all turns to dick at midnight. This is at least a 9th grade quality joke.
At some point the quality of the weight gained will have to factored in, especially for defensive players. O-line can carry some bad weight due to the nature of the position but to be a good football player you must be able to move and bend your hips above all other things.
October 5th, 2010 at 9:45 AM ^
Personally I'd be curious to see some body fat percentages for various conferences. This might be observer bias, but I've noticed a lot of other conferences big boys are also rather fat. guts hanging out, hands on their hips and sucking air. The pinnacle of this being Mount Cody from Alabama.
I guess my theory is based on watching bowls. It seems like every year one SEC line of slow moving chubby fellows gets tossed into the shark tank full of pissed off Wisconsin, Penn State or Iowa linemen who spend the entire game running the Power-I down the throat of the SEC Team without any problem.
So basically Big10 is known as the power conference for producing big, angry linemen because our schools tend to snap up a lot of guys with the proper frames to hold the muscle, whereas some other conferences get a big boy and sent him off to KFC as part of his practice.
October 5th, 2010 at 1:16 PM ^
Don't forget that Bama also produced Andre Smith on the other side of the ball, the man with arguably the best boobies in the history of the NFL scouting combine. His Baywatch moment during the 40 yard dash still gives me nightmares.
October 5th, 2010 at 9:46 AM ^
the "that's what she said" thread.
October 5th, 2010 at 10:07 AM ^
DAMN! beat me to it :P
October 5th, 2010 at 9:53 AM ^
ESS EE SEE GIRTH!
October 5th, 2010 at 10:19 AM ^
Dorrestein, Omameh, Molk, Schilling, and Lewan = 301 avg
van Bergen, Martin and Banks = 289 avg
Oh and if you add Craig Roh on defense, you get 280 avg
So our guys are not too small ... they fit right in
I guess the question for buleheron is: did you use starters, two deep, or every OL / DL on the roster? If the latter, then the actual starting line or two deep line average weights may be different.
October 5th, 2010 at 10:55 AM ^
You make a good point about our D-line. They're not the "midgets" of RichRod myth.
As for your question, I looked only at the weights of the starters. On defense, I used only D-linemen in the total. (I didn't take the heaviest linebacker in cases where only three linemen were listed.)
October 5th, 2010 at 10:59 AM ^
and, FWIW for those inquiring minds who want to know: the average weight of all the OL and DL on the roster are as follows: OL: 297 / DT/DE: 273
October 5th, 2010 at 10:36 AM ^
Anyway, the numbers show that the Big Ten isn't anything special size-wise.
According to your numbers, the Big 10 has the largest D-Line and 2nd largest O-Line. How does this not confirm that the Big 10 is bigger than most conferences? What were expecting, the numbers to be 20% higher than everywhere else?
October 5th, 2010 at 10:56 AM ^
Ryano, I consider a few pounds insignificant when the average is around 300.
I certainly wasn't expecting big differences, but (again) the "TOO SMALL FOR THE BIG TEN" drumbeat seems relentless and I'll bet you'll find more than a few fans who honestly believe our boys are 10-20 pounds bigger, on average, than those of other conferences. (These people might also obsess about how Indiana "kept the ball away from our offense.")
Remember when it was announced that McGuffie was headed for Rice? Some people here (of all places) suggested that he'd be better off in a conference "where the players are smaller."
---
Unrelated:
To all the jokers making fun of the title, yeah, I thought about that (and decided to keep it). It reminds me of the time I was playing Taboo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taboo_%28game%29) and described reading as "a recreational activity that you do by yourself" to a room of 30+ people. The snickering began immediately. :) I was saved by someone who blurted out the correct answer after a few seconds.
October 5th, 2010 at 11:07 AM ^
Granted the O-line is more or less the same, but the Big 10's D-line IS 10 lbs bigger than the other conferences. Given the large sampling size you have here, I consider that to be a huge difference.
October 5th, 2010 at 12:13 PM ^
I agree that there's a difference on the defensive side. (Note that the SEC is pretty close.) Whether it qualifies as huge is a judgment call, of course.
Even so, I don't think a 270-pounder would be "too small" for our conference. A bit undersized, perhaps.
Most of the fuss seems to be about the O-line, so that's what most interested me.
---
Is my point clear? All I wanted to show here is that the differences don't measure up to all the hoopla about the special Big Ten "road graders." I've watched too many bowl games where the commentators can't seem to resist talking about "Big Ten size" and "SEC speed" (another topic).
October 5th, 2010 at 10:42 AM ^
There are plenty of fat kids to go around, that doesn't mean they're good...looking at the skill players would be more telling.
October 5th, 2010 at 10:42 AM ^
is essentially an overweight high school team.
October 5th, 2010 at 10:50 AM ^
If we take this analysis one step further, an argument can be made that Michigan may not face an offensive line bigger than UMass's for the rest of the year. The interesting question is how the UMass O-line compares talent-wise with the other strong lines in the Big Ten. Maybe a team with a run game like Wisconsin isn't as scary as it might otherwise have been?
October 5th, 2010 at 10:53 AM ^
Big does not equal good. Wisconsin ran for 165 yards against the #10 run defense (MSU - though MSU ran for 175 yards on them).
October 5th, 2010 at 11:09 AM ^
That must taken some serious at work time! Very nice.
<br>
<br>A couple other posters alluded to it, but the biggest difference isn't size, it's size and athleticism. It's easy to find enormous people in America, but not many can move like Jake Long.
October 5th, 2010 at 12:43 PM ^
Jake was looking a little "pizza a night" beefy last night.(I am sorry Mr. Long, sir ...)
October 5th, 2010 at 11:23 AM ^
I wonder if there would be an actual substantial difference as you get further away from the LOS- LB's, RB's, etc. For instance, are Big Ten Linebackers more accustomed to filling the gaps along with their DLine bretheren, and therefore have more necessary girth?
October 5th, 2010 at 3:01 PM ^
when it comes to filling gaps. But we all know it's not the size of your line, but the technique and strategy with which you use it.
October 5th, 2010 at 11:30 AM ^
What's the standard deviation of the data for weights? It's hard to say one's significant over the other without more information about the spread of the weights.
Also, it's possible to imagine a 400lb good ol' boy (ex. Terrence Cody last year) skewing the data in some of the sets.
October 5th, 2010 at 12:16 PM ^
October 5th, 2010 at 2:57 PM ^
Got a spreadsheet with the data (GO GO GOOGLEDOCS)? It's not too hard for someone who knows what they're doing to answer these questions about significance.
October 5th, 2010 at 12:34 PM ^
All of this talk about size - we all know it's pad level that really matters.
October 5th, 2010 at 9:51 PM ^
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