Michigan football: Blake Corum vs. Kenneth Walker, who’s better?
Offensive lines
The common belief is that unless you have a generational running back, a good run game cannot exist without a good offensive line. The big guys up front can make or break a running back’s numbers, so we’re going to look at how each group performed.
So far, Michigan’s offensive line has been nothing short of dominant. You could argue that the reigning Joe Moore Award winners have only improved on paper, after the addition of All-American center Olu Oluwatimi and the emergence of tackle Karsen Barnhart.
Statistically, they’ve lived up to the expectations; according to Football Outsiders, they rank fifth in opportunity rate, which is effectively how often the offensive line does its job, and 14th in line yards per carry, which is effectively how many rushing yards are credited to the offensive line. Michigan has been nothing short of elite and is doing a great job helping not just Corum but Michigan’s ground attack as a whole.
It was a very different story for Michigan State last year. Regarded as one of the worst offensive lines in the Big Ten, the Spartans’ five upfront did very few favors for Walker. In those same statistics, Michigan State ranked 78th in opportunity rate and 85th in line yards per carry.
That translates to the offensive line effectively doing their job less than half of the time (47.4 percent) and being in a different world than Michigan’s offensive line.
This speaks volumes about how good Kenneth Walker was last year. Corum has had the benefit of having a great offensive line; Walker certainly did not. This category isn’t particularly close.