Bob Bostad's Magic Touch on the IU 2023 Offensive Line
OL coach Bob Bostad is returning to Indiana to further improve the ailing offensive line.
It was reported this week that, as Curt Cignetti constructs his staff in Bloomington, most of Indiana’s 2022 staff will be out but that offensive line coach Bob Bostad will be retained. I’ll jump into the history of each staffer and how they fit into a collective group at Indiana in a later Bite-Sized Bison piece, but Bostad deserves concerted attention, given the improvements shown in the offensive line.
The chart below shows that Indiana’s offensive line posted its second-best season of Allen’s tenure during 2023 and the most improvement between consecutive seasons.
Notes:
Darren Hiller recruited and developed Luke Haggard (starting LT, 2020-22) into one of the best linemen of the Tom Allen Era and recruited Carter Smith to Indiana. He deserves credit for the LT success seen from 2021-23, but that does not excuse all the other malpractice.
Mike Katic, who didn’t post an impressive grade at LG, posted the best grade at the position since Wes Martin in 2018.
Zach Carpenter posted the best grade at center during the Tom Allen Era.
Matthew Bedford posted the best grade at RG since Simon Stepaniak in 2019.
Indiana has needed far more than it’s gotten from its right tackles since Brandon Knight in 2019. While Kahlil Benson was a major improvement, he will need to show more at the position in 2024, if that is who plays there next season (I have my doubts).
As a collective unit, Indiana’s offensive line was still suspect in some ways, grading 74th in run-blocking and 105th in pass-blocking in 2023, but there was still marked improvement for someone working with talent not recruited by himself and assorting a line that was woefully mismanaged during the Tom Allen Era. Talent had gone fairly undeveloped and early holes on the scholarship chart were left unplugged as the Allen Era progressed – resulting in Indiana’s repeated activity in the OL transfer market, a market that will rarely be fruitful for any program below the top-tier programs. It was a bit of a mess, but Bostad seemed to maximize the assets Indiana did have, flipping Matthew Bedford and Kahlil Benson at right guard and right tackle and fearlessly slotting redshirt freshman Carter Smith at left tackle.
Allen and Walt Bell (among others) repeatedly praised Bostad and the line during fall camp, always noting that they worked the hardest among the position groups. This seemed to pay off, as Bedford, Carpenter, Benson, and Smith (obviously) posted career-high PFF Offensive Grades.
Notes:
That was Carter Smith’s first season!
The three linemen here who posted 200+ snaps in 2022 recorded their worst grades in that year.
At Indiana, the following are the top-10 offensive line season-long performances, according to PFF:
Wes Martin, 76.7 (2018) – recruited by Greg Frey
Luke Haggard, 74.5 (2021) – recruited by Darren Hiller
Coy Cronk, 73.1 (2018) – recruited by Greg Frey
Brandon Knight, 71.8 (2017) – recruited by Greg Frey
Carter Smith, 68.6 (2023) – recruited by Darren Hiller
Simon Stepaniak, 68.6 (2019) – recruited by Greg Frey
Luke Haggard, 67.2 (2022)
Matthew Bedford, 67.1 (2023) – recruited by Darren Hiller
Brandon Knight, 66.6 (2018) – recruited by Greg Frey
Zach Carpenter, 66.1 (2023) – recruited by Darren Hiller
Only one other season (2018) saw three top-10 individual performances during the Allen Era, and the only player to be both recruited and coached to a top-10 performance by Hiller was Haggard (2021 and 2022).
And make no mistake, the performances in 2023 were thanks to Bostad’s coaching. While Bedford (injury) and Smith (redshirt) were new contributors to the line this year, Bostad raised the floor for the room with mostly the same faces.
Notes:
Bostad tightened the group in 2023, providing consistency across the unit.
He also raised the floor. For example, the orange and yellow dots are the same players.
Last season featured cycling through players who had no business being Big Ten offensive linemen (Caleb Murphy, Parker Hanna) and working to identify ideal positions mid-season (Katic, Carpenter). That shuffling never occurred during the 2023 season and consistency reigned supreme, even with the change in offensive coordinators.
Notes:
The OC change occurred between the Maryland and Michigan game in Week 6.
Kahlil Benson had an astounding game against Indiana State (best single-game grade for all IU OLs), which influenced his overall grade under Walt Bell.
Matthew Bedford was returning from injury at the beginning of the season.
Most of the linemen sustained or improved upon their performances after Rod Carey took over. That is thanks to Carey and Bostad’s collaboration to find “what worked” for Indiana and improve the rushing success rate from 33.5% to 40.4%. Largely, “what worked” wasn’t super visible because they were changes in blocking schemes. While Carey certainly had his own shortcomings in 2023, this wasn’t one of them.
And while comparing offensive line performance and improvement internally can be an effective exercise, it also translates to the Big Ten. Bostad trimmed some fat, particularly at tackle, and coached up the talent he was given, to create an offensive line that – in comparison to the rest of the conference’s talent-to-performance ratio – overachieved.
Notes:
I included an “Indiana (2022)” point to highlight the change made in the last offseason.
The major takeaway here is that Indiana’s offensive line was competitive this season, which is a change from recent seasons.
So what improvements could still be made?
Improvement at left guard and right tackle are obvious points of improvement. Katic, who is off to the NFL, was a phenomenal pass-blocker. He graded 17th of 71 OLs in the conference in pass-blocking but 67th in run-blocking. Benson was the opposite, grading 14th in run-blocking but 66th in pass-blocking. To my eye, this translates to a talent deficit for Katic (the best Big Ten OLs can run-block) and a position misfit for Benson, who should probably be playing inside but was likely Indiana’s best tackle option after Smith in 2023. I’m curious to see how the new staff fills these positions, especially given that JMU’s promising LG Carter Miller is in the portal and freshman tackle Austin Barrett got some love in the offseason.
Obviously, Indiana needs to get Carter Smith back from the portal. He’s a cornerstone for any offensive future in Bloomington. But for the other three in the portal, I’m curious who the new staff evaluates as priority. I personally would like to see them all return (if they believe Benson can play where needed).
Indiana was still rough in pass-blocking. It improved over time, especially with Carey as OC, but Benson allowed the most QB pressures in the Big Ten (37!), and outside of Carpenter – who allowed the second-fewest pressures among Big Ten centers – Bedford ranked 25th out of 29 Big Ten guards in this category, with 15. Even Smith, given it was his first year, was 16th of 28 Big Ten tackles, with 19 pressures allowed.
Overall, Indiana recorded a decent season as an offensive line and far out-paced my personal expectations for the unit. And with Bostad returning and an already renewed sense of rising expectations with the new staff, it seems as if the trajectory could continue upward in this department. As the Kevin Wilson teams showed, it’s necessary for Big Ten success at Indiana.