Do throwing linemen make better linemen?

[Ohio Pete]

College coaches are always trying to find little tips in the recruiting process about who might have potential to be a standout. One of the barometers that has become universal in the evaluation process is the 40-yard dash time. By now, we all know that most of these times are bogus, so we just try and take the results with a few grains of salt. But, at least it's something, right? Recently, Mark Branstad, a former high school teacher/track coach, crunched a lot of numbers and detailed some very fascinating trends regarding elite college linemen.

 

Full disclosure: Mark and I have had traded e-mails over the past few weeks, but what he pointed out Tuesday I think is really cool, insightful stuff as it relates to players who threw the shot or discus in high school:

 

"Of the 15 tackles listed on www.mockingthedraft.com, 12 threw the shot put and or discus in high school, as well as all four offensive tackles named in the article by Mike Detillier. What about the three d-tackles that did not throw? Well, one was a state champion heavyweight wrestler in New York, the other two were individual standouts in baseball and basketball. As always here's the breakdown: (All listed heights and weights according to various recruiting site sources.)"

 

Four Senior Offensive Tackles: And yeah these guys were huge in high school …

 

Russell Okung / Oklahoma State -- (6-5, 250) Fort Bend George Bush HS -- 155-09 discus

 

Trent Williams / Oklahoma -- (6-5, 290) Longview HS -- 45-06 shot put

 

Ciron Black / Louisiana State -- (6-5, 315) Robert E. Lee HS -- 54-05 shot put

 

Adam Ulatoski / Texas -- (6-6, 270) Southlake Carroll HS -- 45-09 shot put

 

Ten Senior Defensive Tackles:

 

Ndamukong Suh / Nebraska -- (6-4, 278) Grant HS, OR. -- 61-09 shot put state champion

More

 

.....

 

"Potentially, the valuable part of all this to football recruiters (while providing some real science to the process) is a database I'm constructing with the help of a database engineer/computer scientist from Houston. Basically, I'm taking all the specific track data on each player and placing each stat and data piece in a sortable Excel file along with apply specific football ranking metrics. When it is finished, we should have some reliable probability and correlation models regarding specific track events/stats and their relevance to football performance and NFL draft status."

[Ohio Pete]

Note that our latest commit, Ryne Reeves, qualified for State in shot put as a sophomore.

[HuskerJen]

Note that our latest commit, Ryne Reeves, qualified for State in shot put as a sophomore.

 

I would think a sport like wrestling would be more beneficial for OL. It's those leverage and balance concepts.

 

Although in honesty, an OL that plays additional sports: basketball, track, wrestles couldn't hurt.

[Danimal]

I know Qvale was a hell of a shot-putter, hell of a b-baller too.

[Landlord]

Shot and discus are probably extremely beneficial to these big-bodied guys in terms of footwork and balance. Wrestling is also beneficial I'm sure, just in different ways.

[gmoney88]

Yeah shot put/discus can be used as a measurement of explosiveness for a OL/DL. Almost every time the guy who explodes off the ball better will win the battle in the trenches.

[Touchdown Tommie]

The only reason I was in track was b/c my offensive line coach was the throwing coach. It did help with my foot speed and balance. I also wrestled and that helped me out tremendously for balance and using leverage.

I would say it is pretty legit. Maybe this type of article should be sent out to high school coaches who are trying to get their kids to specialize in one sport at such an early age.

[teamster]

When a lineman recruit is a thrower or a Bball player it always gets a mention. Seems to be an indicator of explosiveness, agility and overall athleticism.

[huskertim]

IMHO wrestling and B-ball players benefit most. Balance, leverage and perhaps most important hand technique. I've heard many an analyst praise linemen for superior hand placement and technigue, much of which is learned in those two sports.

 

As to discuss and shotput, I suspect that throwing heavy things really far is just a whole lot easier for these behemoths, on the other hand I'd say anything that keeps the athelete competeing and working out is beneficial in the long run.