2021 Gophers Position Previews: Offensive Line

After a truncated 2020, Minnesota returns to a full 12-game football season Sept. 2 against Ohio State. Here at Ski-U-Blog will be previews of the team's notable players within each position group. We finish our look at the offense with the linemen.

Likely Starters

A lot of attention toward the Gophers' offense is specifically directed at the wide receivers. This is no surprise, considering head coach P.J. Fleck and offensive co-coordinator and receivers coach Matt Simon's history of putting wideouts in the NFL. Mohamed Ibrahim also receives a good amount of press, and, being the quarterback, so does Tanner Morgan.

But what's often overlooked about Fleck's tenure at Minnesota is that he and offensive line coach Brian Callahan have a type. Not a particularly sophisticated type, mind you, but a well-defined one.

Put simply: They like meat. Though Minnesota is a zone-running team, which often would mean preferring leaner, more mobile blockers, the Fleck regime has prioritized size in recruiting. According to 247Sports' records, the Gophers have gotten 18 offensive line commits since 2017 who then made a roster. Nine have been listed as 6-and-a-half feet or taller (including 2022 commit Tony Nelson), and seven have weighed at least 300 pounds. Four players were 320 pounds or more as high schoolers.

Meanwhile, the current starting five linemen are plenty experienced. Each player started his first game in 2018 or 2017; as a group, they combine for 143 starts. They have all had ample time to develop — which, for four of them, has included adding more pounds. As a result, Minnesota enters 2021 with one of the country's biggest offensive lines, and possibly the biggest in program history.

Last year's group wasn't as big thanks to the injury to right guard Curtis Dunlap Jr. and pandemic-related opt-out by right tackle Daniel Faalele. Each participated in the spring game (where Faalele threw a touchdown pass).

Dunlap has used his frame to be a solid run blocker since arriving to college, though his weakness — and the biggest reason why he might not reclaim his starting spot from 2019 — is pass protection. In his one full season, Dunlap allowed a pressure on 7.1 percent of opportunities and on 17.3 percent of true pass sets, according to Pro Football Focus.

Faalele is the only member of the group to have lost weight between last season and now; he's trimmed 20 pounds and now sits at 380. His size automatically makes Faalele an NFL Draft prospect, and his strength and wingspan make up for how difficult it would normally be for a 6-foot-9-inch tackle to get his hands underneath a defender's pads.

Though the four key players who participated last year generally did a fine job, they should benefit from the reinforcements. The team's run blocking stats on Football Outsiders stayed roughly the same or slightly dropped from where they were in 2019. Assuming the other four improved with experience — which is difficult to say in a pandemic year but normally reasonable — we should have seen some improvement. Treading water (or even declining) may be partially attributable to a tougher schedule and smaller sample, but it also gives credence to the idea that the line was hurt by Dunlap and Faalele's absences.

Blaise Andries was in place of Faalele a year ago and didn't run into much trouble. Aside from a dreadful opening night against Michigan, Andries had a good year at right tackle, finishing with PFF's 27th-best run blocking grade for FBS tackles and the best pass blocking grade on the team. His performance landed him on the All-Big Ten third team for the second consecutive season.

Andries will move back to left guard with Faalele's return, which will put him next to Sam Schlueter again. Schlueter, like everyone else on the line, also had a rough Week 1, but he rebounded to otherwise have a decent year in pass protection and a very good one as a run blocker; he ranked 8th among regular Big Ten tackles in PFF's run blocking grade. While Schlueter isn't the best left tackle in the Big Ten and may struggle against the top edge rushers, he typically does his job.

Conner Olson has started all 45 games that Fleck has been the head coach. The primary center in 2019 and a part-timer there in 2018, Olson has spent the rest of his career at the guard spots. His PFF pass blocking grades have typically been better when playing guard, but Olson's marks as a run blocker have been relatively constant, regardless of position. He is a consistent player, if not a dominant one.

Center John Michael Schmitz isn't considered a starter for the purposes of the weight table above, but he belongs in this section because of how frequently he rotated into games in 2019. Schmitz enters this season with 10 career starts on his ledger and perennially excellent grades from PFF. He was often called a "sixth starter" two years ago and will either return to that role or relegate one of his teammates, possibly Dunlap.

Regardless of who is in what role, all six will see plenty of the field, due to both rotation and the Gophers' big-personnel sets. Minnesota used six linemen on nearly 9 percent of their snaps in 2020. That was not exclusively in short-yardage situations or tied to the Green Line package, either.

Despite having such a big group, Fleck hasn't had to move away from his preferred zone running scheme. The reason is that while his linemen are big, they get off the snap immediately and exhibit surprising lateral quickness on outside runs:

And, of course, they're big enough to move bodies around on the interior.

It's pass protection is where the size of the Gophers' giant tackles hurts them. Though they seldom concede ground once engaged, Faalele, Schlueter, and Andries will sometimes whiff against a speed rush or can be too slow to react to a late stunt.

The RPO game helps Minnesota finds a way around that deficiency. When their big linemen block like it's a run play so often, their pass sets don't matter as much. And in a version of the sport where the inelligible receiver downfield penalty is so seldom applied, the Gophers can still carve up defenses through the air.

Fleck sees as many as four NFL picks on his offensive line. I'm not sure I see that many, but it's undoubtedly a solid group that will put multiple players in the pros. Their combination of size, ability, and experience make it the all-around soundest area of the team.

Key Backups

Axel Ruschmeyer, last year's left guard, was Minnesota's weakest starting lineman. Per PFF, he allowed more sacks than anyone else on the team and was the lowest-graded run blocker.

It would be wrong to characterize him as incapable or a game-killer, however. That the former walk-on Ruschmeyer was the least effective blocker among a group of veterans was unsurprising. Under the circumstances, he was generally as serviceable a fill-in as the Gophers could have asked for. They could do worse than having him in the wings for 2021.

Utah State transfer Karter Shaw is expected to start on the interior in 2021, possibly as the center. But while he was a two-year starter in Logan, Shaw has too many established players in front of him to break into the rotation just yet.

As a freshman, Shaw could lean or lunge in pass protection and get beaten by a sudden move from a defender, but he cleaned that up in his second season. What impressed me most across both years was his willingness to find work, as well as his intelligence in passing off and picking up rushers. He won't maul defenders like Quenton Nelson but will find the guy who needs blocking.

Though Shaw's highlight tape shows some mean finishing, it's fair to say he didn't always play through the whistle in 2019. That was another aspect of his game he improved upon as a sophomore. He also appeared to move faster than before as a puller. He won't have to do much of that at Minnesota, however; instead, he'll run plenty of inside and outside zone. The latter is where he can put to use his talents as a reach blocker, where he is able to quickly gain leverage and turn defenders away from the play side:

The former Aggie should benefit from a bit of marination in a Big Ten development program, but he looks like he'll ultimately be a reliable Gopher.

Notables Unlikely to Contribute

Lakeville North product Nathan Boe was typically the sixth lineman in 2020 and filled in for Schmitz as full-time center against Nebraska. Boe and that day's right tackle, Aireontae Ersery, were fine enough, but the team as a whole posted one of its least efficient rushing performances of the season. This was probably not a coincidence; Boe and Ersery were the third-choice players at their positions, and Ersery was a true freshman in his first college game.

Depending on who stays and who goes after this season, Ersery could be in line for a starting tackle spot a year from now. Fellow redshirt freshman Martes Lewis will challenge him. The slightly more experienced J.J. Guedet will also be in the running. Those trying this early for a gauge on that competition may put stock in Guedet's participation in six-line sets against Nebraska, as well as his start for the Maroon team in the 2021 spring game.

Tyrell Lawrence, the second-heaviest player on the team at 355 pounds, was considered a guard prospect in high school despite possessing a 6-foot-7-inch frame. If the coaches see him as a guard, Lawrence and redshirt sophomore Tyler Cooper could start on the interior in a year or two. Cooper was the 10th-ranked prospect in Wisconsin in 2019.

A pair of towering true freshmen, Cameron James and Saia Mapakaitolo, will sit in 2021. They were the Gophers' highest- and second-highest-rated 3-star signings in the most recent recruiting class, and each needs time to add weight — though James is 6 feet 8 inches tall, you have to figure the coaches prefer he add onto his relatively "slender" 305 pounds.