I would assume that a certain percentage of us that would be sad to see RR go would also be very sad because it would mean Mike Barwis would leave. From the voice and attitude to the Brock story, he has been a huge positive at the University. One of the things that excites me about his program is the emphasis on replacing bad mass, fat, with good mass, muscle.

In interviews with him and players, it comes across that your first year with him is amazingly dificult.  So I've always wondered, does the change take place? And, does this make playing young even more dificult? For a young player must not only learn to play the game at a higher rate with a higher level of sophistication, they must also do it while massively transforming their bodies. This could lead to big problems as seen by the defense this year.

So what follows is a big chart based on official team rosters 2008-2010.  The % column is the percent body weight change, and the bottom is the overall % change for that position group that year.

Hmmmm.

I will preface my this by acknowledging that this is probably a terrible analysis. I once spent good time and money with someone with a doctorate trying to teach me an intro to stats. It did not go well, my future studies avoided stats classes.

In every position group besided WR, the overall % weight gain was larger in year 2 vs. year 1 under Barwis. Anecdotal evidence supports the first year being a mix of removing bad weight and putting on good weight.

Looking at the large changes taking place with OL, DL, and LB, it's obvious that these players should not be playing young. Or at least we should not be judging them so much based on performance in their first couple of years.

This also seems true with the smaller explosive athletes at RB and Slot. These players all underwent pretty massive changes. Shaw especially lost a good amount of weight and put it back on. I think he was noticeably a more powerful runner this year when healthy.  This also goes for Vinnie, who not only had to recover from a massive injury, he put on a large amount of weight.  

There is a lot more analysis to be done if this info was to be truly useful. I feel I need to adjust for age for example. But like I said, I'm pretty terrible at stats, so maybe someone else can use this info paint a clearer picture. Just wanted to share it and see what others thought about it and the idea of the dificulty of playing young under Barwis.