Pro Football Focus gives a favorable grade to Notre Dame’s 2019 offensive line performance

The end of the season brings about many retrospectives across the media landscape, but maybe the most intriguing is what Pro Football Focus brings to the table. With their intricate scoring systems and attractive graphic work, the website is becoming one of the standards across the football universe.

On Monday, they released their offensive line rankings for FBS and ranked them from 1 to 130.

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish finished #13 overall.

Notre Dame

Highest-graded player: OT Liam Eichenberg – 79.6 (39th)

Splitting hairs with the team right above them, both Notre Dame and Penn State ranked 17th in overall grade from their offensive lines this year, but the Fighting Irish get the advantage due to their second-ranked pass-blocking grade in 2019. The Fighting Irish were led by Eichenberg, who didn’t allow a single sack all year long.

Liam Eichenberg was ranked as the 39th best offensive lineman in 2019, but at 79.3 (just three tenths of a difference) was Illinois lineman Kendrick Green ranked at #7.

The good news for Irish fans is that the entire starting line is returning in 2020. The Irish were hampered by injuries to Tommy Kraemer and Robert Hainsey AND had a redshirt freshman in Jarrett Patterson starting at center. Should they remain healthy for 2020, Notre Dame’s offensive line could go from good to great — especially with Ian book behind them.