Assessing Florida State football's true offensive line depth

On Day 1 of Florida State's spring practice, the offensive tackles were Jonathan Wallace, a walk-on, and Trey Pettis, who appears to still be out of shape even by offensive lineman standards.

The announcement that red-shirt seniors Garrett Faircloth (medical DQ) and Henry Orelus (graduating and moving on), both of whom had some experience at offensive tackle, is causing some FSU fans to panic about the offensive line depth for the 2013 season.

And perhaps rightfully so. In light of both players not being back, the failure of Jimbo Fisher's staff to bring in another offensive line body, even of questionable talent, looks even worse. Not so much for actually using in a game in 2013, but rather to make practices go more smoothly, and perhaps in a game down the road.

FSU's second-string offensive line (for spring) consists of Jonathan Wallace (who is actually pretty good after adding 60 pounds in the weight room since he came on campus), Sterling Lovelady, Austin Barron, Ruben Carter and Trey Pettis. Meh? Meh. It does not include signees like Ira Denson and Wilson Bell, or injured players like Jacob Fahrenkrug.

But how many of those players could actually play in meaningful situations in the fall? And where were Faircloth and Orelus actually on FSU's depth chart? Is the second string we see in practice really Florida State's true second string?

To answer these questions, I simulated the 24 injury situations for Florida State involving one, two or three injuries to starters on the offensive line. I did not simulate what would happen if FSU lost four or five offensive line starers, because it's pretty much a fruitless effort. If (almost any) team loses all or all but one of its five offensive line starters to injury, it should adjust its expectations downward in a major way.

Takeaways