Kyle Kalis (#67)
Name: Kyle Kalis
Height: 6’5″
Weight: 292 lbs.
High school: Lakewood (OH) St. Edward
Position: Offensive guard
Class: Redshirt junior
Jersey number: #67
Last year: I ranked Kalis #9 and said he would be the starting right guard. He started seven games at right guard.
For the past couple years, we have been waiting for Kalis to break out as a player. A 5-star in high school, he redshirted as a freshman and has spent the last couple seasons playing part-time as Michigan has struggled on the offensive line. Kalis has had lingering back issues during that stretch, the tail end of which caused him to miss out on some playing time last year. He eventually recovered enough to wrench the starting right guard job away from Erik Magnuson approximately halfway through the season. Overall, the offensive line improved, as the team gained 3.28 yards/carry in 2013 and 4.60 yards/carry in 2014. Advanced stats are unavailable for 2013, but an abysmal season turned into a mediocre #50 in Adjusted Line Yards for 2014, as well as being #72 in Adjusted Sack Rate. It was better, but not great. For a few years, I had been pointing to the 2014 season as the year when Michigan really got back to having a good offensive line, but it was a little hit-and-miss, resulting in those middle-of-the-pack numbers.
Kalis is back to right guard most of the time, although he has also reportedly been practicing left guard occasionally. One of the guard jobs is his to lose. He is the second-most experienced lineman on the team (16 starts), behind only fifth year senior Graham Glasgow (24 starts). A large impediment for Michigan’s line the past couple years was offensive line coach Darrell Funk, who I think struggled mightily to teach players the nuances of the game. Imported offensive coordinator/line coach Tim Drevno is a step (or two or three) up from Funk, and he had a pretty decent running game at USC last year with three true freshmen starting on the line. Drevno should be able to polish up Kalis, who has a nasty streak and could be a mauler despite dropping six pounds (298 lbs. to 292) since last year.
Prediction: Starting right guard; Big Ten honorable mention
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Kalis is one guy I am pretty anxious to see. He has historically had problems reacting to quick DT’s in pass rush and adjusting his angles when the defense stunts. And there have been some stretches (mainly in ’13) where he was a pretty big liability. But otherwise, he is a strong, mean player who has the potential to give UM a second enforcer along with Glasgow. Drevno’s lines back at Stanford tended to play “smoothly” and with confidence, and they made it work with some OL who weren’t the most agile players out there. With Drevno plus the experience, it is time for Kalis to finally put it all together.
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I could see the Glasgow-Kalis-Braden interior trio being a mean/tough/physical one. We may not have maulers out at tackle, but we might inside…
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Michigan ranked #113 in adjusted line yards in 2013. The improvement to #50 in 2014 is an epic leap when you consider who they lost, who they brought back, and the fact that they started a true freshman at LT. Nussmeir deserves a lot of credit. Maybe Funk too (gasps).
Michigan was ranked over 100 in every OL metric shown in 2013. That’s not bad – that’s historically awful. It was the worst OL in UofM football history. I don’t know what share of the blame goes to Borges, Funk, Hoke, or Brandon but to have those kind of results with two NFL tackles is a travesty.
You could see it coming 2 years in advance when Jake Fisher decommitted and wasn’t replaced. It seemed we would get bailed out a bit when Lewan returned for his senior year and Glasgow emerged, but it’s amazing to think it was that bad even though they did. I always thought 2014 would be the bottom, but it came in 2013 instead. Jack Miller made a nice leap forward, Cole stepped up, and the red-shirt freshman who played in ’13 got better, as they should.
What we got in 2014 was still bad. The RB YPC stats mask the issues and overstate the progress made. Michigan ranked #94 running on standard downs – horrible. Weirdly, they did get way better in goalline, but Michigan’s RBs did a lot of their damage by simply running on 3rd and long or after getting sacked — what Hoke would call winning the field position battle. Michigan ranked in the top 25 for line yards on passing downs. But don’t uncork the champagne — They were also still 107th in sack rate on standard downs and 94th in overall adjusted sack rate.
The OL got better at run-blocking but continued to stink in pass protection. It was better than 2013, but it literally could not have gotten worse.
Progress is progress though. You have to crawl before you walk etc. Nearly everyone is back, everyone has experience, everyone has ability. They SHOULD take the next step and continue to improve substantially. That’s even if Drevno ISN’T an OL-coaching genius, which he might be.
If you assume that the starters should improve from “not awful” to ” good or even very good” the only question is depth. It’s a bummer Miller didn’t return because at the very least he would have offered this team some insurance. Bosch might have helped too. Instead, we’re left hoping that a bunch of guys who haven’t played meaningful snaps are going to ‘get it’ with this new coaching staff. A hope is all it is. Michigan will be much better off if Glasgow, Kalis and company can stay healthy and/or sober when they drive. They might NEED them to.
Kalis is a vital cog in a critical unit. I don’t see much point to quibbling over the specifics of who goes where in this countdown among the OLmen. (FWIW, I ranked them Glasgow-Cole-Kalis-Magnuson-Braden). Regardless, any and all the projected OL starters belong in the top 15. If you put all 5 in the top 10 I wouldn’t argue very strongly
Note: You can review the advanced OL stats yourself for ’13 and ’14 at these links
http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/5/28/5751506/michigan-football-2014-preview-schedule-roster
http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2015/5/29/8676637/michigan-football-2015-preview-schedule-roster-jim-harbaugh
Tons of great data there.
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One thing I’ll always remember about Kalis was how hyped he was. Mgoblog and others spent the 2012 offseason talking him up and then claimed he was about on the verge of “burning” his red-shirt that year. Then 2013 came and guess what — he didn’t look like a starter. Even as a junior last year, he was “OK” at best. Now that he’s in his 4th year (RS JR) he might be ready to be a plus starter, but that’s 3 years after the hype.
Just another example of where you have to take the ‘buzz’ with a grain of salt and just take a step back and ask if the situation makes any sense objectively.
Not that I’m not susceptible to it too. Still believe in my main man Freddy Canteen!!!
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I didn’t think Kalis would be a starter in 2012. However, I have been surprised at his lack of development the past couple years. He had the size, the bloodlines, and the private coaching coming out of high school. I also didn’t see him as soft, which has been the case with some other linemen. I think Harbaugh’s mentality might be enough to kick Kalis in the butt on the way to success.
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@Lanknows 3:26
Those are all fine points about the OL improvement. But if the OL really did improve in the run game, how do we explain these rushing numbers?
2013 vs Notre Dame: 38-174 (4.58)
2014 at Notre Dame: 32-117 (3.66)
2013 vs Minnesota: 34-122 (3.59)
2014 vs Minnesota: 27-94 (3.48)
2013 at Penn St.: 51-171 (3.35)
2014 vs Penn St.: 28-78 (2.79)
2013 at Michigan St.: 22-1 (0.05)
2014: at Michigan St.: 24-74 (3.08)
2013 Indiana: 52-270 (5.19)
2014 vs Indiana: 34-186 (5.47)
2013 at Northwestern: 39-179 (4.59)
2014 at Northwestern: 35-147 (4.20)
2013 vs Ohio St.: 32-176 (5.50)
2014 at Ohio St.: 33-162 (4.91)
Those are Michigan’s common opponents in 2013/2014. (All of the figures have sacks removed.) U-M was only better in 2014 in two of those seven games.
So did Michigan’s run game truly improve, or did the schedule just get easier? This is an honest question. I’m ordinarily inclined to believe advanced stats, and they say Michigan improved. They also are supposed to account for schedule differences. But advanced stats aren’t necessarily infallible. (For example, baseball is again trying to figure out what defensive stats work now that everyone shifts so much.)
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I would add that those figures make me wonder if:
–the advanced stats aren’t compensating enough for garbage opponents, or
–Michigan did improve, but only against awful run defenses. (U-M also couldn’t run at all on Utah, but did fine against Maryland and the nonconference dregs.)
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Good questions. Ran through that in an earlier post and had the same general idea — the OL improvement is probably overstated, when you take into account context. Still – the numbers are SO atrocious from 2013 that anything approaching competence, even against mediocre competition is progress. What we saw last year was that Michigan could run on bad teams very reliably. There were moments of that in 2013, but there were also moments that they stunk against bad teams.
I think the advance stats, while not perfect, tell you a whole lot more than totals sacks or total rushing yards or whatever other simple metric you want to use.
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The difference from 2013 to 2014 in a lot of those cases was QB rushing yards. The 2013 Penn State game, for instance, was the infamous “27 for 27” game but Gardner ran for over 100 yards. I don’t exactly know what that says about the offensive line, since the line still has to block when the QB is carrying the ball. But bashing open a hole for a tailback to run through certainly is a different skill than pass blocking well enough to enable a good scramble gain.
I do tend to think the 2014 line was improved, but just based on the eye test. I’ve looked at the stats too and don’t feel as though they communicate much.
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This is true. But evey’s larger question is still a valid one. When I isolated just the RB carries and looked at common opponents it was a mixed bag. Some games (like OSU) they were a lot worse. In aggregate, they were better, but it was more like incrementing away from godawful than it was incrementing toward being even an average big 10 team.
I think with Drevno you can expect improvement. I think some of the advanced stuff is real positive (e.g., short-yardage). Some of it is only so-so. But – considering we get back 5 experienced starters and 4 of them are 4th or 5th year guys, you can expect to build on the progress. The question is — how much progress? Will Michigan stay below average still or can the OL actually be an asset for the first time since 2010.
We sort of know the QB is going to not be great. We sort of know the WRs and RBs are not going to be great. So if we want to move the ball, it’s going to have to be on the OL, because that’s the kind of scheme this staff is going to run.
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Naturally, quarterback runs are going to have a little additional success because of the way the play develops (with an extra blocker out front in many cases). One big difference between 2013 and 2014, I think, was Nussmeier’s lack of willingness to use Gardner as a runner. He had 165 carries under Al Borges in 2013, and then he had 98 total under Doug Nussmeier in 2014.
I think Nussmeier realized that he had to have Gardner healthy in order to have a chance at winning. I don’t know if that was the right decision, because obviously, Morris wasn’t ready to play (and neither was anyone else) but Gardner was arguably our most dynamic runner. It’s the age-old question of “How much can I put the ball in my best athlete’s hands without him getting hurt?” Borges ran him into the ground in 2013, and then Nussmeier got scared while Gardner’s yards/carry dropped from 2.93 to 2.63.
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