How Important is Offensive Line play

The Wall Street Journal is on board with a new little article that asks whether the experience of your offensive line might be a key point in your college football team winning, and offers some basic evidence that it might.

I find this an argument that seems to have a lot of potential. I believe that the line is the key to winning football, and that the success of BG's skills players in this decade has been as much because of the players who are on the line.

Based on the Wall Street Journal analysis, we stand about in the middle. The Falcons have 49 offensive line starts coming back.

Brady Minturn (13 career starts), Ben Bojicic (12 career starts) and Shane Steffy (24 career starts)

This is one less than Alabama, which is listed as "a team to worry about."

Worry? Us? Huh? No really. Obviously it is a little more complicated than this, because not every position is equal, and some reserves receive more snaps than other reserves, and sometimes (hello EMU) the players who have started together for a long time are, also, not very good.

But, all that is hard to glean for people looking for quick and dirty measures of who might be good. So, just to say this.

In general, it makes sense to me. The O-line places a premium on teamwork, and a seasoned offensive line is as good a building block as a veteran QB. If not better.